We discussed significant forthcoming changes to Resource Publisher. It currently consumes a lot of memory (RAM) and with content-heavy sites, can slow down all EMIS Web operations. It has been recognised for some time that the system needs reconfiguring and EMIS has been creating a new separate database to avoid this interaction with other core EMIS Web functionality.
This will be great news, as RP is becoming more and more vital to the reshaping CCGs and PCNs and needs to work slickly. Along with this will be a large update with around 60 bug fixes, 12 changes to functionality including useful things like auto-coding of Covid-19 test results. This will hopefully be the last big update package and we'll see more of the regular and frequent small releases so we are not kept waiting.
There is another EMIS Web memory issue which will be improved regarding the garbage collection which will be adjusted to allow faster operations.
We were told EMIS has the capability of being able to measure how long each task takes in vivo in the field and this will allow developers to look at what is taking time and how various operations might be speeded up.
We also met the new Director of Customer Support, James Waterfall. He had only just started but is committed to improving customer service and already had some understanding of what we find annoying, such as so -called 'Live Chat' which has not met expectations. There are big changes happening internally (yes, again!) and he promises an easier and more responsive support system.
We had an update from Adam Peardon about EMIS-X, development of which had been put on hold during the pandemic and the perfomance issues of EMIS Web, which has required considerable attention from the development team. He told us work will ramp up again in the coming months and will be starting some customer engagement activites in october