Tuesday, February 21, 2012

A better way to fix potholes

As an infrastructure groupie, one of the features that I like on the new website GoLocalWorcester (for which I have started writing a weekly column) is the SeeClickFix feature.  This is an app that lets you report potholes, broken street signs, stray grocery carts, or whatever to your city officials.  

Years ago, I taught a course in infrastructure planning and development at MIT.  The first assignment for the students was to find something broken in their community and try to get it fixed by the relevant government agency.  About a third of the students would succeed in the two months allotted for the assignment. As you can imagine, there were lots of good stories as students learned how their municipal government functioned.  Of note is that they were often made to feel like troublesome interlopers as they did their civic duty in reporting these minor problems of public safety or inconvenience.  How much better that city governments have now accepted the validity and value of citizen reporting.

Anyway, here's what this app looks like as reported by GoLocal:


And here's what it looks like "inside" the app:


7 comments:

Amy Romano said...

The developers of this app are from my community and I've been thinking recently that their app could be adapted for hospitals - so patients/families can SeeClickFix safety or quality problems. I'd love to hear your thoughts on such an application.

jonmcrawford said...

My hometown has a website and phone line to report issues, but also recently added a mobile app. I used it to report a broken street light, which got fixed within a couple days. Very handy.

I don't think I can view other requests though, that would be a nice feature.

Paul Levy said...

What a great idea, Amy! Have them contact me!

Amy Romano said...

I will!

Anonymous said...

seeclickfix was in use long before this website added it to their page. i commend worcester DPW for following it and responding to user concerns using this method. it does make things easier for those reporting quality of life issues and I would LOVE to see this translated into the medical world (as a medical student, the use of technology such as this intrigues me.).

Anonymous said...

This article is right on. Simplicity is king. I worked in IT for a well-known Boston pediatric hospital for 9 years and one of IT's most well received contributions to the nurses and docs was a simplified issue reporting tool called Quick Ticket which started as a pc info and screen capture tool for EHR go-lives and has been morphing into a general issue reporting tool due of its ease of use. In the interest of full disclosure - I was involved in the initial development of Quick Ticket and its commercial incarnation STAT Ticket. As your blog points out, it’s not always clear where to go to report issues, especially in a large hospital where the employee portal is a busy looking as Craigslist. We’ve found that Quick Ticket is used four times more often by clinicians than traditional methods such as a help desk web form or phone call. I compare this trend to the Flip phone which became so popular because it simply had one big red button instead of numerous dials and settings. If you make it easy, they will use it! Great article.
Jim Shattuck

Jim S said...

This article is right on. Simplicity is king. I worked in IT for a well-known Boston pediatric hospital for 9 years and one of IT's most well received contributions to the nurses and docs was a simplified issue reporting tool called Quick Ticket which started as a pc info and screen capture tool for EHR go-lives and has been morphing into a general issue reporting tool due of its ease of use. In the interest of full disclosure - I was involved in the initial development of Quick Ticket and its commercial incarnation STAT Ticket. As your blog points out, it’s not always clear where to go to report issues, especially in a large hospital where the employee portal is a busy looking as Craigslist. We’ve found that Quick Ticket is used four times more often by clinicians than traditional methods such as a help desk web form or phone call. I compare this trend to the Flip Video which became so popular because it simply had one big red button instead of numerous dials and settings. If you make it easy, they will use it! Great article.