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The failure of the Computer Aided System of the London Ambulance Service on October 26th ,1992 has introduces the importance of maintaining the information technology in the organization. It was reported that the newly implemented computerized system in the headquarter had failed and result of the failure was the loss of lives of twenty to thirty people. The case study indicates the importance of maintaining information system in the organization. The main objective of this paper is to deliver the significance of maintaining the information system in the organization along with that its importance in the present health care system. In order to do this the details about the implementation of the LAS CAD system along with limitations has been described in the paper. The errors and the flaws in the system can contain the technical error or the error regarding the design of the system. The paper also describes the possible requirements in order to develop the modified and improvised system. The recommendations for improvisation of the system depends on the sustainable development of the information system in the organization. The design for the improvised system has been described using the entity relationship diagram and UML diagram.
The use of the information system at the health care sector has provided with many advantages. However, with the deployment of the information system, the maintenance of the information system is also needed (Laplante,2017). The significance of the well maintained information system will help he health care providing organization to eliminate the unexpected accidents such as the incident happened for the London Ambulance Service on 1992.
The accident happened due to the failure of the software of the system used by the organization. The redesign of the modified software was not working in a right manner. The software was regarding the automatic vehicle location system (AVLS) (Lewis et al.,2016). The implemented AVLS was unable to keep track of the location which caused the distribution of the sending of the units unequal. The whole system became unmanageable as the system sends the multiple unit in one location and some cases sending no unites to other location (Silva Souza & Mylopoulos, 2015). Apart from that the system started to generate the exception message in the frequent manner at the dispatcher’s end which was resulted in the loosing of the calls. The problem became more complex as the people stated to call back when the ambulances they were expecting did not arrive (O’Hara et al.,2016). The late arriving along with the absence of the ambulance created much problem and in some cases death had happened to some of the people. On the next day, the LAS authority replaced the fully automated system by the partially manual system.
The main indentified cause of the problem was the malfunction of the software installed in the system. There was certain misconduct ion notices during the implementation of the software. Some of these misconduction includes not testing the working of the software system before the implementation (Mo & Sinha, 2014).. There were no backup system existed for the system. On the other hand the dispatcher system was trained to compatible with the system after the 10 months of the implementation of the AVLS software. Apart from this the software itself had three major flaws presented at that time.
Imperfect data: It has been seen that the AVLS system was not operating the incorrect or the invalid data in a right way(Kibira et al., 2015). There were some problems occurred during the handling of the invalid input as the system was not indentifies them as invalid.
Interface issues: It has been seen that there were difference in the user interface of the system . The user interface at the MDT terminal had black spots which was preventing the ambulance operator to access all the required information. The ambulance crews tried to fix the problem by pressing the incorrect buttons in the system and it can be easily assumed the system did not accept the fix. The software failed to compensate the error condition and did not serve its day to day purpose.
Leak of the memory: The leak in the memory is the main reason of the system failure. There was a error in the small portion of the code which enables the retention of the memory even after that memory become useless (de Sousa Coelho & Branco, 2017). This causes the remaining of the unused data in the server of the system. This caused the memory to get filled up after some time.
However, these three causes can be referred as the immediate cause of the system failure of the LAS. There are deeper causes for the failure of the system (Sutherland et al.,2017). Nowadays the experts says that the main failure of the software system are depended on the bad decisions of the project managers. There were the system flaws presented in the system, without those the failure of the system may not become that extreme. However, the flaws in the system has been presented from the initial phase of the development of the software. This indicates the failure of the software development project team. The LAS CAD system was first proposed in 1987 and it was modifies in 1989. In 1990 the proposed system got cancelled , however after sometime the LAS felt to develop the software system in order to manage the emergency response.
The main objective of any project should be concerned with the saving of money and time. In the time project about developing the AVLS software reopened, the project managers decided to reuse some of the hardware , which were previously used in some of the failed projects.
The choosing of the software vendor was the responsibility of the managers of the company. The company was trying to lower the cost of the project (Almazán, Tovar & Quintero,2017). This was the reason for which the bidder bidding above 1.5 million was eliminated from the bidding process (Sousa et al.,2016). However, considering all the factors it can be seen that the estimation of the 1.5 million is not sufficient to cover up all the requirements. Apart from that the timeline given by the company for the development of the project was 11 months. The bidders who were not assumed to meet that timeline were eliminated from the bidding process.
The requirements were not made clear for both the clients and the developing team. Moreover there technical knowledge of the team was not strong enough as the team was not meant for developing a software.
There was a lack of responsibility in providing the software service to the consumers. The main responsibility of the project managers is to develop the system that will give a sustainable outcome. However, the project managers in this case did not run a test case before the deployment of the software. This made the overlook of the errors in small portion of code. The leak in the memory was the result of this flaw in the code.
The identified errors are the major errors in the system. The presence of these errors in the system may cause problems in the proposed system . The limitations that may arise from these flaws in the current system –
Problems in location tracking system: The flaw in the AVLS had created problems for sending the units at the locations (Dick, Hull & Jackson, 2017). This problem can create problem in the proposed system . The mismanagement of the of the distribution of the unit will disrupt the service.
Leak in the memory: This was the main cause of the disaster back in 1992. The leak in the memory was caused by the errors in the code (Turner et al.,2017). In case, if this flaw is present in the current system , the system will began to store the already used information and this will create the internal problems at dispatch and the processing and the storing of the new information will get disrupted.
Using of the hardware: The main concern of any project is delivering the sustainable outcome in a cost effective way(Till & Marsh,2015). However, in order to reduce the cost of the project the reuse of the hardware can lead several problems. The hardware parts may be defected and cannot work properly in the system. This will develop the disruption in the system.
Selection of the software vendor: The selection of the software vendor was done on the basis of the allocated budget and the timeline of the project (Górriz et al.,2017). However, if the selection of the vendor is done on the basis of these attributes without considering the quality of the software vendor, the system may fail to deliver its main purpose (Button et al.,2015).. There can be flaws in the implementation of the system and the quality of the product may not meet the standards.
Using the require hardware: One of the main concern of the project management is to deliver the project in a cost effective way and the outcome of the project needs to be sustainable (Sudtachat,2014). In order to do this the project managers should not consider with the quality of the hardware. The hardware used in the system should meet all the requirements in the project.
Implementation using the right methodology. Earlier it was found out that the implementation of the CAD project was not done according to the guidelines described in the PRINCE. The code in the system should be developed by the expert coders.
Testing of the project: The testing of the system is needed to be done so that the flaws present in the system can be identified before the implementation of the system. The testing is needed to be done in logical way and should be carried out by the expert professionals.
A good system needs the good design of the system. The good design of the system has the following steps:
Good implementation of the network and hardware structure.
Good implementation of the network and hardware structure: The hardware required in the system is needed to be evaluated at the initial stage.
Definitive human interface: The users can use the system effectively. The requirements for this implementation needs the development of good graphical user interface.
Proper processing of the programs: The proper processing of the program includes the flawless and effective programming code. This can be achieved through indulging the group of experts.
Storage and backup: The storage and backup of the system is needed to be done so that the retrieval of the data can be done in case of system failure.
The laws regarding the design of the system: The structure of the system design is called stable if the cohesion of the modules is strong and the coupling is low. The cohesion is the communication between the inter modular communication on the other hand the coupling refers to the inter module interaction. Another law which is needed to be followed in order to make a stable system is regarding the risks associated with the system. The changes of the hidden things in the system can be done without risk. This is also known as Pranas’ law. The architecture of the system design can be standardized through the using of different concern regarding the different aspects of the project. This is known as Denert law.
Another law regarding the improvement of the graphical user interface is Fitts-Shneiderman law which states that screen pointing time is a function of distance and width the application of this law can solve the GUI problem of the CAD system.
While designing the system object oriented approach can be taken as according to the Booch the object oriented approach reduces the errors and encourage the reuse of the system. The evaluation of the former system can be done before the implementation of the new system as according to Bauer-Zemanek law the formal methods can reduce the errors in design and implementation of the system. It will also help to redesign the system in a faster way (Gamma).
In the system design specification the CDS will implement the modification in the following system design specification:
Implementation of RFID: The use of radio frequency identification in the system will help in the automatic identification and data capture. Apart from that it will enable the tracking of ambulance.
Implementation of the cloud storage: The main problem detected in the previous system was the memory leak. The storage of the memory became full and it was causing the disruption at the dispatch end. The storage of the large amount of data can be done using the cloud storage.
Regional data centre: The setup of the regional data centers are needed so that communication between the data centers and the head office of the LAS get improved.
Implementation of the better algorithm for the vehicle tracking system: Earlier version of the CAD implemented the AVLS algorithm which was not efficient enough. In the proposed system the implementation of the new algorithm can be done so that the algorithm can find the shortest path route easily. This will help the ambulances to reach the destination through the shortest way.
The outline for the testing strategy of the proposed system needs to follow the following aspects-
Testing objective: The testing objective is to test the sustainability and the effectiveness of the proposed CAD system.
Testing guidelines: The testing can be done using white box testing or the black box testing however the decision should be taken by the software development team.
Testing requirements: The functional elements for conducting the testing is needed to be done before the initiation of the testing.
Test deliverables: The basic test deliverables in this situation is testing if the modified system of CAD has eliminated the flaws of the previous system.
Testing environment and the migration procedure: The testing environment and the migration procedure indicates the situation and in which the testing is done.
Testing of risks including the project and the product: The results of the testing of the software will indicate the possible risks associated with the product and the project so the team of the developers can mitigate those risks.
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