Week 48: Time to stand
Another week of glorious sunshine. A few of us colluded together to switch to shorts for our days in the office. Let’s see if it lasts.
Platformland principles
As part of our irregular series of Thougthful Thursdays internal talks, this week Richard Pope spoke about the principles from his Platformland book, bringing it to life with some great examples.
I won’t try and summarise the whole thing, but some of the points that stood out to me were:
Decoupling data from services. Here he mentioned that we should be moving towards data access, not data sharing - with the latter being an anti-pattern akin to photocopying. I think it’s safe to say that we’re nowhere near there yet. Vaccination records for example get duplicated, at least partially, into many different data stores.
Certainty over time. This principle is about giving users tools to understand their past, present and future interactions with a service. The journal feature in Universal Credit is an example. The NHS has a rough version of this in the NHS App, where you might be able to see a chronological record of your past GP consultations, as well as some future appointments. But it’s nowhere near comprehensive yet, nor presented in a way that’s particularly easy to comprehend.
Grow new institutions. This was about capacity building, and developing the teams, platforms, tools, guidance and design patterns to be able learn what effective, safe, digital
preventative healthcare looks like. All whilst trying not to get trapped by inertia. We’re getting there.
Smart watches and healthcare
Sarah’s post from last week, Not all users wear smart watches, has been widely appreciated.
Coincidentally, I bought a smart watch from Apple on whim a couple of months ago. Mostly I wanted to be able tell the time and read messages without getting my phone out in public (after it was annoyingly snatched). But the health features intrigued me too.
So whilst this entirely misses the point of Sarah’s post, here are my notes and reflections from using the watch:
Standing up for at least 2 minutes every hour (prompted by the watch) can be slightly socially awkward if I’m on a call, but I’ve tried to do it. No idea if it will actually help my sometimes stiff back or not, but feels like it’s worth a shot.
I have also been motivated to meet my move and exercise goals, despite knowing that ‘closing rings’ and receiving shiny virtual badges is kinda superficial. I don’t run or go to the gym though, so this has mostly resulted in making the most of opportunities to walk places.
The watch nudges you to wear it overnight whilst asleep. I relented for the first couple of weeks, intrigued by the graphs of sleep stages and heart rate. But I’m not sure these have much meaning. Thankfully I’m the opposite of an insomniac, so the watch telling me I’d met my sleep goals felt like stating the obvious. I’ve given up with this.
The hearing protection feature alerts you to loud noises. So far this has only gone off when using hand dryers (feels like a false positive), and err, this week during karaoke - good excuse to ration that to once a year?
I’m prompted to log my mood a couple of times a day in the Mindfulness app. This reminds me of the decades-old Mappiness app from LSE, which promised to generate meaningful research data about mental health. Apple’s version is purely personal. So far the only trend I can spot is with the weather and holidays.
Finally, I note in the Health app that you can log medications, particularly any regular ones, but there doesn’t seem to be any easy or obvious way to log vaccinations such as an annual flu jab. I wonder if this is something Apple will ever add, or if it’s a feature best left to health services like the NHS?
Links
- Could AI convert all the PDF forms on GOV.UK into web forms? from Tim Paul risks an AI question. Does it break Betteridge’s law of headlines? Read it to find out.
- GDS have published new guidance has been published on Using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products and services. The main point is that they should meet the same accessibility and usability standards as everything else. (They often don’t)
- DHSC have announced some NHS App stats updates in Major NHS App expansion cuts waiting times. Incidentally the app team have this week launched an ‘add to calendar’ feature for upcoming appointments, which should help people like me who are reliant on digital calendars to remember anything.
- There’s also been a press release about the Cancer 360 tool, which I’d not heard of before: Government’s tech reform to transform cancer diagnosis. Will try and see if I can track down a demo or screenshots of this.
Enjoy the Bank holiday weekend!