Have to leave the rest of it:
extremely talented. Would it have made a difference? I don't know. It's just unfortunate.
I look forward to hearing in some way your thoughts about this. Probably will miss it if it's on the radio. Take care - continue to be as insane as you are. You do make people think.
sandi hagglund - 11 years ago
Have seen a number of posts related to the federal health care website and its difficulties. Having been in system development and knowing the need to connect a multitude of data together I'd like to share that it isn't as easy as connecting the dots in a child's coloring book:
1. Problems with user ID and password: Each user ID must be unique just as the password must be unique. The website/program needs to ensure this for security. Therefore, each time someone sets up this information, the system must verify it is ok to allow the information being entered. If two people enter the same ID, the system must tell one or the other that their ID is not accepted...if this happens at the exact same time, it will cause problems. And, yes, this does happen.
2. Problems with connecting or understanding an insurance companies website. Think of it like this: You and your neighbor are putting place settings on a table. And each of those place settings have different food on them. Let's say you are each using red, white, and blue plates. You want to connect a string from your neighbor's white plate to your white plate. But, your white plates are in different places on the table. So, somehow in between your house and their house, you need to move the string from a straight line to an angled string. That is called a translation program. So you figure out how to move that string in an angled line so you can connect your white plates. So, now you want to connect some more plates with another neighbor. But, that neighbor doesn't have red, white, and blue plates but they have red, white, and light blue plates. You can connect the red and white plates, but what do you do with the light blue plates? The light blue plates are made from white and blue so do you connect it to the white plate? Or do you connect it to the blue plate? Which way does it need to go? Is there more white in that light blue plate or is there more blue? Or, do you have to find a light blue plate for your table? Each of these plates represent information that is necessary to give you the best health care program that you can find. But, making sure the information from an insurance company is correct in what you see means making sure that light blue plate is connected to the right plate in your house.
3. Problems with handling the amount of people looking at the website and trying to do something. This really is a failure for the site. Their expectation of people logging on at one time to get to information must have been far lower then what actually happened. As one IT person shared, they apparently did not do the correct "load" testing. What does that mean? Think of it this way...you have scheduled a party. You've invited many, many people to come. You thought they would show up by ones or twos at your front door but 30 people showed up at your front door. All at the same time. So, it became very slow letting in each person because first you had to check their invitation [user name and password] and once that was ok, you could let them through the door and then they went to the table to find a plate but weren't quite sure which plate had the right food on it for them and they had to wait as the strings were being attached so they would see the food they wanted. And it took too long. People went back out and were done with the party.
That's how it is with system development. Could the Feds have done better? Yes, I think so. The overrun costs for the development? That always happens because the initial quote/price presented is based on what is known at that time. But it changes as more detail is known. But, the system was the best that they could provide based on the details and assumptions they knew at the time the programming began. However, I will say that my understanding is that the development of this system was done off-shore ie. not done with people in the US. And that is really unfortunate. We have a vast number of programmers and developers who are extremel
Have to leave the rest of it:
extremely talented. Would it have made a difference? I don't know. It's just unfortunate.
I look forward to hearing in some way your thoughts about this. Probably will miss it if it's on the radio. Take care - continue to be as insane as you are. You do make people think.
Have seen a number of posts related to the federal health care website and its difficulties. Having been in system development and knowing the need to connect a multitude of data together I'd like to share that it isn't as easy as connecting the dots in a child's coloring book:
1. Problems with user ID and password: Each user ID must be unique just as the password must be unique. The website/program needs to ensure this for security. Therefore, each time someone sets up this information, the system must verify it is ok to allow the information being entered. If two people enter the same ID, the system must tell one or the other that their ID is not accepted...if this happens at the exact same time, it will cause problems. And, yes, this does happen.
2. Problems with connecting or understanding an insurance companies website. Think of it like this: You and your neighbor are putting place settings on a table. And each of those place settings have different food on them. Let's say you are each using red, white, and blue plates. You want to connect a string from your neighbor's white plate to your white plate. But, your white plates are in different places on the table. So, somehow in between your house and their house, you need to move the string from a straight line to an angled string. That is called a translation program. So you figure out how to move that string in an angled line so you can connect your white plates. So, now you want to connect some more plates with another neighbor. But, that neighbor doesn't have red, white, and blue plates but they have red, white, and light blue plates. You can connect the red and white plates, but what do you do with the light blue plates? The light blue plates are made from white and blue so do you connect it to the white plate? Or do you connect it to the blue plate? Which way does it need to go? Is there more white in that light blue plate or is there more blue? Or, do you have to find a light blue plate for your table? Each of these plates represent information that is necessary to give you the best health care program that you can find. But, making sure the information from an insurance company is correct in what you see means making sure that light blue plate is connected to the right plate in your house.
3. Problems with handling the amount of people looking at the website and trying to do something. This really is a failure for the site. Their expectation of people logging on at one time to get to information must have been far lower then what actually happened. As one IT person shared, they apparently did not do the correct "load" testing. What does that mean? Think of it this way...you have scheduled a party. You've invited many, many people to come. You thought they would show up by ones or twos at your front door but 30 people showed up at your front door. All at the same time. So, it became very slow letting in each person because first you had to check their invitation [user name and password] and once that was ok, you could let them through the door and then they went to the table to find a plate but weren't quite sure which plate had the right food on it for them and they had to wait as the strings were being attached so they would see the food they wanted. And it took too long. People went back out and were done with the party.
That's how it is with system development. Could the Feds have done better? Yes, I think so. The overrun costs for the development? That always happens because the initial quote/price presented is based on what is known at that time. But it changes as more detail is known. But, the system was the best that they could provide based on the details and assumptions they knew at the time the programming began. However, I will say that my understanding is that the development of this system was done off-shore ie. not done with people in the US. And that is really unfortunate. We have a vast number of programmers and developers who are extremel