Monday, October 31, 2022

Flying Hamburgers at Sydney Airport


Greetings from Mcdonald's Restaurant at Sydney International Terminal. This is a remarkable sight, the size of a three story house, with a counter on the ground floor, and the kitchen in a translucent yellow glass box above. You order on a touch screen, and this is relayed upstairs, where your meal is prepared, placed in a paper bag, and clipped to a metal belt which lowers it to the counter, where the bag is automatically unclipped and slides down a chute. At least that is what is supposed to happen: I watched as a quarter pounder plunged two floors, after slipping out of the clip. No one was harmed, and the mess was soon cleaned up by the efficient staff. In theory the computer takes care of communications, but in practice staff have to shout up the void with the conveyor in it. An added complication is that the order slips are placed inside the paper bags, so counter staff have to open each, to then shout out the number. A little research by the people at Hamburger University would pay dividends here, I suggest.

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Where are my digital health records?

Amanda Cattermole, CEO of the Australian Digital Health Agency
Greetings from the Tech in Government conference in Canberra, where Amanda Cattermole, CEO of the Australian Digital Health Agency, is speaking on "The Future of Health is Digital". The CEO is claiming rapid increases in the use of My Health Record.  However, when I contracted COVID-19 in March, and became a patient of NSW's virtual hospital, my health record was of no use. I registered my details with NSW Health, and was contacted by a nurse from the virtual hospital. They had no access to any of my medical details, and I had to go through everything which might have been relevant. The care I received was excellent, but could have been better if there were national medical records available. I paid my taxes, I attended hospitals pharmacists, and I did not opt out of digital health records, so where are they?