The Covid-19 self-reporting tool has been streamlined, capacity has been increased for the Covid Clinical Care Module, and a bug in the RAT requester site has been fixed, the Ministry of Health says.
What’s your experience of some of the national systems and tools developed by MoH as part of the Covid response and how might they be used in other areas in the future?
Firstly, I think that the MoH has done a really good job with the COVID systems and tools that they have released and supported over the last two years. I’ve been particularly impressed by their relatively agile approach and willingness to get a MVP out there and then continue to iterate it.
I jumped across the ditch last week and visited my father in Melbourne; one of the advantages of not having a ‘formal employer’! As such I got to experience the Travel RAT testing reporting tool.
The overall system is pretty cool. In brief:
First you are asked if the Test line (C) is present
Then you are asked if the Test line (T) is present
See the problem? I guess that technically they are both Test lines, but the first is really the Control line and the second the Test line. Correcting this will make it clearer and reduce the risk of wrong reporting. A small but important detail - as all of us in health IT know these small details can be vital!!
This was mitigated nicely by reflecting the result back to the user in a differently phrased manner and giving them the opportunity to correct it.