Weeknotes #2 — TL;DR; — getting the basics right and putting people at the heart of everything we do.

What did you enjoy?

• Service review with our technology partner providing our EPR solution. A constructive and engaging session from all stakeholders. We agreed to explore ways to break out some of the data + insights by each organisation on the shared environment — to better understand where our demand is. Another hot topic is application lifecycle management — how do we keep a grip on the lifecycle of the tech stack that makes up our EPR, so we’ve got work effort lined up on our roadmap to address — before it becomes a problem (technical debt). Looking forward to more of these sessions!
• Discussion with Lara, our Head of Diagnostics. Our Physiology services put out a call for support from the Digital & IT teams — there are a number of technology challenges they want to explore with us, with the aim to improving quality and capacity of the services. Whilst I did not enjoy hearing about some of the tech challenges and pain points the teams currently experience — it was a refreshing discussion, as to how we could pull clinical, operational and technical experts together to solve the problem(s). We have some discovery work kicking off over the next couple of weeks — really looking forward to working with the team.
• Catchup with Bruno, our Director of Digital Operations. Part of a regular sync as we move forward — wide ranging discussion points, from user experience, initiatives / deliveries landing soon, to how we can better support the transition of products into live service / BAU as we move forward. Lots to do!
• Hearing feedback from Niki on how amazing it was to bring #TeamEPMA together, safely, to our wonderful offices we have in Harbour Yard. This is part of the regular discussion topic on our ways of working. I really like the phrase “coming to the building with purpose” (see, Mark Lumley).

What did you achieve?

• First draft walk-through with the IT SLT on the programme of work we’re forming to bring our application portfolio into shape (more here). Rather than let perfect be the enemy of good, I pushed out a working draft to the group early on. Overall, a great session — feedback to incorporate and refine for the next cut.
• Headline plans pinned down for the tech refresh and application version upgrades for our clinical documentation and OrderComms solutions. Much needed work in this space, and keen to see the design and build work taking shape over the coming weeks.
• Starting to unpick a thorny problem with the teams on how we gracefully retire a number of legacy platforms. A lively conversation with topics covering clinical safety, data and what our legal + statutory requirements are, tech design and approach, etc. A great starting point — with further work on this over the coming weeks.
• Final cut on the training deck around how we’re doing problem management. This is part of us looking in to our ways of working and how we’re providing services to our end users (the people we are here to serve). Have you seen the NHS Service Design Principles (more here)? Unashamed plug — this should ground all that we do.

NHS Service Design Principle — Put people at the heart of everything you do.

What are you looking forward to next week?

• Meeting both Niki and Fatima face-to-face, its been a while!
• Reviewing progress the definition of our performance and quality measures for our teams + services
• Alignment to the sector-level plans around the new digital solution for Advice & Guidance — digging into the detail around the live service wrap and how we start to build knowledge + capability on the solution across our teams
• A couple of workshops with technology partners — exploring some problem areas

It is a short week for me next week, heading up to Liverpool for a few days at the end of the week.

Reading:

• The agile comms handbook — thoroughly enjoyed this read. Everyone is already too busy, most of the time — really important to ground ourselves around this principle when communicating.