Radio Weblog – A story of a concept that has outpaced its technology?
Those of us heavily involved in the Whatcom County Pursuing Perfection (P2) are beginning to feel as if the experiences we are having, trying to write our stories, is a parallel of the patient experience in our broken system of health care. Most of us agree that in order for the power of patient centered health care reform to take hold we must be able to spread our stories; our stories of success, missteps, and learnings. The World can learn from us and we can learn from the World.
Creating that paradigm is the problem. For the project staff of Whatcom P2 we have many issues with the Radio user interface, the interface that is designed to help us create our weblogs. For some, knowing that all of their written thoughts will be read by anyone in the world is enough to create a chronic condition, ie writer’s block. For others, written thoughts come out easily but the lack of usability of the tool creates further barriers. Wonderful stories are carefully written only to be lost in the void. Distantly analogous to being discharged from the hospital without any discharge instructions. Halfway down the road of spread we loose our way. Others publish to the WWW only to find that the beauty they have sculpted is just a jumble of words that have lost all formatting. Analogous to the patient end of the patient/doctor experience. Paragraphs run together, words bolded that were never intended to be, sentences missing, etc. Lots of words and good intentions but really just a jumble of text that has lost most of its meaning.
Much to the dismay of those that feel Radio is THE answer the P2 staff fail to write their stories. The P2 staff are asked why they are not in “compliance”. Pressure is put on us to write, to share our important stories with the rest of the World. The need is acknowledged and we try to comply. We remember our stories and carefully articulate them only to be stymied by the technology. The Radio believers ask again, but again we give the same response: “We want to but the barriers are too much.” Radio believers use a stronger voice: “You must comply”. Unable to navigate the system, our activation plummets and our depression rises. Puzzled, frustrated, and ultimately defeated we give up. The Radio believers push harder for compliance as we move further away.
A seemingly sad tale with a dismal outcome…..then again maybe not. Leave it to the P2 team to band together, to see the problem, and to find a workable solution. A user-centered solution!! Remove the barriers and we will write our stories. Instead of using Radio we will write them any way we can: in Word, Notepad, on paper, etc. We will write them whenever we have time: at the office, at home, together at lunch. Complete or incomplete we shall leave traces of our thoughts so that every revelation, every “ah ha”, every oops, and every WOW can become a story. We may not write the entire story but we will leave a trace that will allow others to learn. Once written we will have the believers, those that have mastered the system, translate our stories to Radio. Together we shall post them to the World and they shall be found and read by all……………
