Healthcare workers prioritize helping people over information security (disaster ensues)

I will never get how or why companies put up with this kind of stuff from software vendors considering the cost of the products.

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This is how itā€™s done at the Los Angeles Federal Court for US Justice Department employees. You canā€™t just leave your badge with your computer because you canā€™t enter buildings or floors without it.

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Of course not, you know how hard it is to get multipurpose hours when managing a project? And of course when hours shaving time comes guess what gets sacrificed first?

Yes, thatā€™s right, effectiveness.

But we have pretty reports about what we incorrectly think our people are doing!

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in our case, mainly because the cost to change away from the old system to the new system was high. would the grass be greener elsewhere? would the cost to change ( again ) be worth it?

weā€™ve arrived at a de facto lock-in.

i suspect thatā€™s the case for many folks. better the devil you know.

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Depending on the area it could be that thereā€™s just not that much competition. In libraries I know there arenā€™t a lot of choices.

And thereā€™s just institutional resistance to change. Thereā€™s no motivation to fix problems if the high level people donā€™t push it.

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Another issue on the end user side (nurses, docs, etcā€¦) that drives ā€œnon-complianceā€ is that electronic medical records are (in my experience) terrible storytellers. Codified data is great for reports, but digging through a record to figure out what the hell actually happenedā€¦ Ugh.
And Iā€™m just talking retrospective review. Doing it real time is an order of magnitude worse.

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Thatā€™s retarded. Like, seriously, were your employers severely brain-damaged? Because thatā€™s the only excuse I can think of for this. Like in a past life, they were heavyweight boxers, and now their encephalopathy is starting to kick in.

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The PIN still needs to be changed ever 90 days, but itā€™s still much easier to remember than the 9 character minimum 2xupper/lower/number/special passwords that expire at the same rate.

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Mine never did but it was minimum 8 numbers and they locked accounts real fast if anyone is trying to brute force, plus you would need a laptop with the company image and be on site/or have an account that is allowed VPN access.

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it works as intended.

ā€œThen I can only conclude that your intentions are malign.ā€

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Or, as often as not (from the devā€™s POV), ā€œitā€™s exactly what you asked for, itā€™s just not what you wanted.ā€

Iā€™ve been on both sides of this equation, and itā€™s no fun for anyone involved.

The thing to remember is that most software is pretty much uniformly awful. I mean seriously, truly, terrible. Ill-conceived and poorly implemented.

Despite the hype from the ā€œanyone can learn to codeā€ crowd, writing good software is hard, and the technical aspects are the easy part compared to the organizational challenges, as others have noted.

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Yup.

That fucking call on the helpdesk

Caller: I updated Java. Now the timekeeping site doesnā€™t work.
Me: How the hell-?.. You donā€™t have administrator rights. You canā€™t update java. Fine. Iā€™m logging in and cleaning this upā€¦ (uninstalls all versions of java, somehow thereā€™s six different versions installed. Reinstall the correct version for running the timekeeping site. Confirm that the timekeeping site is working again)

Five minutes later
Same caller: You broke my purchase ordering site.
Me: Let me take a look
(turns out they have reinstalled an additional 2 versions of java. Somehow.)
Me: why did you install java again?
Caller: timekeeping site said so.
Me: but it was working five minutes ago. I told you not to install anything and to just exit out of the java update prompt. (I tried installing java with the IDS still on. It didnā€™t work. So this user knows how to disable the IDS without the admin username and password.)
Caller: Hey buddy, Iā€™m not a nerd like you.
Me: Alright. Iā€™m going to talk with my colleagues and weā€™ll figure out how to get you setup right.
(hangs up. Starts crying because I canā€™t fix stupid. Is handed a tissue by the boss.)

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This, please. Actually, what I really want is for the developer to follow me around and see how I want to work and where I need my data. Then work with me to design an interface that assists me to get what I need where I need it. Then he can go away and write the business rules stuff that populates the interface from the database below it.

Instead we get asked what we need the system to do; some then idiot goes and buys a system from a vendor that persuades them that it does just that, and I have to change my workflows and work around a system that works the way someone else thinks it should. Everyone with an office is happy because they saved money and ā€œgave the clinicians what they wantā€ and we end up circumventing the ghastly thing just to work at all ā€¦ :rage:

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Really? That should be the first thing. :disappointed:

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Thatā€™s supposed to be someoneā€™s dedicated job, not an afterthought thrown onto a reluctant backend devā€™s plate.

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Iā€™m SO glad I retired last year! Sign me

Anesthesiologist who got out just in time

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Yes, it should be, but I can think of a couple of reasons why it isnā€™t. The first is companies that see things like design and usability as unimportant. My experience is in libraries but it sounds like this might apply to hospital software too. Instead of a separate design team the people, or person, doing the background coding gets saddled with making the whole bowl of wax.

On the other side that attitude is encouraged by customers. Again in my experience itā€™s rarely the people who will actually use the software who make the purchasing decision. The decision is made by administrators who donā€™t necessarily get input from the people whoā€™ll be using the software.

Those administrators may also act as gatekeepers, actively preventing user complaints from going anywhere. But, hey, the important thing is those administrators have people skills!

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Could be worse, imagine if they got the babies and wedding cakes mixed up on the holding/eating parts :wink:

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