Lisa Gable's from Texas is used being in tough situations, Alligators frequent her home area! But taking the train and visiting the customer?

Oct 10 – Oh, so now I get it!

After months of training and telephone conversation, today was THE day for the ZA16 team – our in-person client meetings - the true beginning of our assignments in South Africa.  
The team met early in standard IBM attire anxious to get started. We promptly boarded our bus only to disembark moments later, the result of a dead bus battery.  

Fear not, our DOT program manager Beata Gelderbloem had another bus within moments, and away we went.

We met at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre, a world-class science centre that supports math, science and technology education where we were greeted by representatives from the Gauteng Department of Health,  the Gauteng Department of eGovernment, the Provincial Department of Basic Education , and the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller, an agency of the Provincial Department of Economic Development.  

 We shared introductions and refreshments, then joined our clients at their respective locations for an in depth discussion of business needs.

As part of the team working with the Gauteng Department of Health (DoH), I and my peers met our executive champions.  We then boarded the local rail where we visited the Skinner Clinic, located at the Tswane District Hospital in Pretoria.  

We were provided a first hand, in depth review of the processes used to track and manage patient data.  It was the perfect beginning to our assignment – while we had read a number of documents provided by our client, seeing how things work locally was priceless.  The experience quickly allowed our team to grasp the work environment and the business need of DoH.  It was a long, productive day. As we gather our notes and document our impressions, we are energized by the opportunity before us to improve data integrity; enabling DoH workers to draw better inferences, resulting in improved patient care. 

-Lisa Gable 

#IBMCSC #CSCSA16