With the release of the Trauma Apps latest new feature, our lead developer Mac shares his answers to the following questions.
If you were to describe your role at Daysix to a 7 year old what would you say?
I would tell them that it is my job to make an app which makes it easier to work in a hospital. I talk to the people working in the hospital, understand what slows them down at work and then help them by building an app which makes the boring bits of their job quicker.
What got you into software development?
Software development is very practical, you make things and they work or they don’t. I got into coding because it appeals to my practical nature and my love of building things.
When I started working with the Trauma App team I found that building things which are useful to people is truly a satisfying experience.
How do you find working on the app without clinical training?
At first, it was pretty overwhelming although we have good support from medical professionals, who are always willing to explain. I had the opportunity to join the ATLS (Advanced Trauma Life Support) course in Glasgow, which was very helpful in understanding both the app and the technical terminology but also the environment in which it is used, the pressure clinicians are under and the speed at which a trauma case progresses.
In the latest release, why was the team screen section in need of an update?
We had been gathering feedback from our users and clinical steering group and entering data about who was present for a case. It was proving time consuming and unintuitive causing clinicians to waste time at one of the most crucial moments, when the team should be preparing for the patient’s arrival.
Making the Trauma App fast to use has always been our main priority and giving the team screen an overhaul seemed like the best place to find time savings for the resus teams.
What part of the process was most difficult to get right?
The new team screen is a drag and drop interface where you drag the doctors onto a ‘resus bay’. Making sure that you couldn’t drop the doctor on top of the patient or on top of another doctor was tricky. You have to calculate where the finger is dragging at the same time as knowing where everything else is.
What other features are you working on just now, any secrets you’re allowed to let us in on?
We hope to release a photo feature in the coming months. It will be possible for the user to take a photo of any injuries before applying bandages. These will automatically be displayed in the Trauma App report.
Software Developers always seem to have a personal side project on the go, what’s yours?
Yes, I am working on building an apple watch app for amateur rugby referees to use while reffing. The system will have live updates online and a pitchside scoreboard which the referee controls.
