For the last few weeks, the pressures on frontline healthcare workers, particularly when it came to vaccination targets was insane. The abysmal failure in sourcing sufficient vaccine dozes, the ridiculous challenges in finding appointments in the area where you lived, the hours-long wait to get into the building on the day of your appointment, it has taken a toll on nearly everyone who had to deal with it.
My teenager was finally eligible to be vaccinated, and today was her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. We were in an out of the hospital in 30 minutes, including a 15 minute observation wait, so it was overall a far better experience than mine just over 3 weeks ago.
What was more interesting to compare was the number of mouse pointer clicks that the nurse had to deal with. In my case, I counted at least 100 before the nurse was able to administer the dose in <10 seconds. In my daughter’s case, it was fewer than 30. Much of the effort seemed to have been streamlined. The nurse spent more time engaging my daughter as a human at the center, rather than clicking away and making the computer the center of her work. The UI seemed to have taken over & hidden all the administrivia to the mechanical process that was built into the workflow, and the experience was so much more bearable for it.