by Ted Eytan, on 30 Jun 2006 05:48 am
The Journey
Eureka.
As I mentioned earlier, I am currently working at our Capitol Hill specialty center, with our gastroenterology department. I am part of a cross functional team working on a specific patient care improvement project. We would like to automate a manual process using our sparkling electronic medical record. We’ve been steadily working at defining the triggers and workflow to make things happen. Then, the floor fell out from under us. A key assumption we made about how the system worked was not borne out in our testing.
I was rehearsing the discussion we would have with my specialty colleagues that we could not deliver the functionality we intended to. Depression started to set in, even on this sunny Seattle day.
Later in the day, I called our Team Lead. I asked how he was doing, he said, “Great, actually.” He sounded surprisingly optimistic. And he had reason to be. The team figured out how to make things work when they put their heads together.
What was this experience like for me? It was thrilling. I knew the impact of getting this done after having spent 2 weeks with our specialists. I knew what it meant to our team to figure this out. I knew the benefit of the confidence this will instill in all of us moving forward.
Eureka.