Use Spreadsheets as Tools (Even If They’re Boring)
No one ever bought popcorn and stared at a spreadsheet for 90 minutes.
That’s okay, though, because we just want to track our technical build successfully. Spreadsheets are usually the easiest way to do this.
Let’s say you need to update 100 records in your Electronic Medical Record system that are similar but have slight variations. Well, you have a few things you’ll need to manage:
1) Save notes about all your changes so that you can reference them later without relying on memory.
2) Describe your changes as part of your change control process.
3) Be able to use your notes to quickly redo all the changes in a test environment and then in a production environment.
I have found the best tool to do this is a spreadsheet for the following reasons:
- It’s fast and easy to populate with build information.
- It’s easy to read.
- Allows for easy copying and pasting.
- You can easily put filters on the columns to focus on specific pieces of information. (This article explains filtering in more detail.)
- It’s easy to sort your data.
Here is a sample spreadsheet for ya.
Lesson: Use spreadsheets to track your build.
Story: I recently had to create an electronic flowsheet at work for a pharmacist. I spent hours preparing the spreadsheet because there was some logic based upon which certain records would appear or not. It paid off because I understood the exactly what was going on with each piece of the build and had that all recorded in the spreadsheet. Doing the actual build was easy because I just worked down my spreadsheet. Thankfully, my user LOVES it!
healthcare i.t. worker 