#9. So Far, So Good...

So far, we have tentatively established a bare slate on which to record initial information regarding end-use. We now have a database table that holds classes entitled Healthcare and Crisis; within the Healthcare class are the classes Healthcare Professionals, Work, and Patients/Recipients, with the Work class between the two classes of humans. Each class of humans can now be further differentiated.

We researchers can either laboriously fill in these blanks ourselves, or we can allow the users to fill out their own data. (Either way, this is accomplished by a method called instantiation.)

However, the task of filling out all possible fields for all possible healthcare professionals, all possible work, and all possible patients might get too large for us to do by ourselves. Therefore, we must allow the healthcare professionals to fill out their own data, since healthcare professionals are the entities who, in reality, not only create instances for themselves, they know their work, and they also create the instances for the patients—whenever these patients show up for treatment.

Therefore, the format for the study of end-use has been established: End-users (healthcare professionals) will be allowed to submit information onto the fields that we provide. An end-user's willingness to participate in this study is all that is needed. (Confidentiality and security can be considered later.)

The computer is ready to receive the information, but the human end-users have neither incentive, ability, nor understanding of our goals and objectives; the interface is still undefined. If our mission is to create user-centered software, thereby rendering "friendly" usability of the healthcare informatics system, we need to do exactly that by translating the computer's mission to those who are using it—we do not force healthcare workers to learn a database application—or any other kind of application.

Moreover, since healthcare professionals are those who are experts in their own jobs, we must allow them to easily amend the system that we provide for them as we study them. If our mission is to study the end-use of healthcare professionals so that we can design a user-friendly informatics system for them so that they can more easily accomplish their work, we must make it our priority to provide flexible service to each willing healthcare professional—as they, themselves, define their own study criteria.

By allowing healthcare professionals to change the very structure of our study to better describe their own work, we can better describe the work that they perform. At no time do we tell brain surgeons, or any other professionals, how to do their jobs; this is true as we study healthcare user scenarios, or any other time. This ability for healthcare professionals to amend their own work descriptions must be preconceived and hard-coded into the system.

The job of treating patients is difficult enough without adding to the difficulty of fumbling through a new piece of software. We need to cater to them, not visa versa. So, we, ourselves, need to be flexible in our presentation to these professionals.