From the #dataquality correspondents on Twitter comes this great story of a classic IQ Trainwreck.
Hilton Plettell is pregnant and is expected to deliver in 7 months, according to the NHS. They’ve invited him to a scan to see his bundle of joy.
Yes. We did say HIM and HIS, because Hilton is a 50 year old department store merchandising manager. But that is not the end of the IQ Trainwreck here.
- The hospital he was directed to is 162 miles from his home (a long way to travel with the full bladder needed for an ultrasound scan).
- A sticker attached to the letter correctly identified Mr Plettell as being Male.
So, 3 errors or inconsistencies in the letter which indicate a Data Quality kerfuffle in the NHS (at least in Norwich).
A spokesperson for the hospital thanked Mr Plettell for raising the issue with them and indicated they were undertaking a Root Cause Analysis to see where their processes and procedures could be improved to prevent this type of obvious error.
We can’t help but wonder if the root cause might be similar to the problem encountered by DataQualityPro.com’s Dylan Jones last year, which we reported here in June 2009.
The story is covered in the Daily Male Mail, which reproduces a picture of Mr Plettell’s hospital letter (but that image is copyright so we can’t republish it here).