I find North Shore Connect to be a great way to connect with my doctors and their staff and receive an answer to a question, or check on test results, and make or confirm an appointment. I do however, find logging in an issue. NS Connect is supposed remember my password; it does not. If I type a letter or number incorrectly to log in, it often doesn’t let me correct it, but only to use a new password. I seem to have an easier time using my iPad than my iPhone. There are days I give up and use my cell phone instead, since many new passwords are not accepted. If logging in can be made easier, than NS Connect would be used more frequently. I have spoken to friends and family and they too have this issue. North Shore Connect does not remember my face any longer and I can change my password constantly, but I cannot change my face. Very frustrating!

For YEARS I’ve been waiting for their programmers to WAKE UP! Do they even use their own app? This is only 1 example: Recently I was asked to fill out a rather lengthy pre-visit questionnaire. When I reached the end I was to verify my identity by putting in my birthdate. The format indicated was MM/DD/YYYY. The area where you entered information was auto filled with today’s date of JUN 01, 2023. Strange, the formats are not the same. Still I clicked in the area to complete the information. A calendar popped up. You are forced to use the calendar to go back DECADES to fill in your birthdate. You cannot fill in a numerical birthdate. And when you finally arrive near your birthdate…. There’s no DATE. Only the month and the year are possible to select. Ok… So you select that. It plugs in the month and year (eg. JAN 1973). Then the systems says basically. Sorry this isn’t you and deletes your information from the questionnaire. Then for an even bigger laugh the systems reminds you in a few days you still need to fill out the questionnaire. This is only one example of the disasters we’ve experienced from their “programmers.”

I guess I’m somewhat old fashioned, but I would still like to talk to the doctor when test results indicate that there are new significant health concerns, instead of receiving cryptic messages through the app containing misspelled words, medical terms that require Googling and warnings like “URGENT- see the first available cardiologist!” Imagine getting that message and having all weekend to sit around and ponder it because the phone lines are closed until Monday! A simple 5 minute phone call saying “here’s what we have learned and here’s what we need to do next” should still be the norm when circumstances merit it. Maybe once they figure out how to bill for it, the personal touch will make a comeback.

The layout is not intuitively designed. it’s designed around the one person’s mind thinks…., bad deal. It’s overly busy ironically in its attempts to be simple. But too many headers lead to too few logical landing points and the depth leaves a lot to be desired. There is nothing powerful about the app making it a “tool” for the user, but rather more of a maze. Get a different coder and get the flowchart structure of the app simplified and make user data in tests and inquiry data useful to adults analyzing it, not a child’s simple mindedness to just se a number that means Nothing without context and chart HISTORY graphs. After all how can you empower your users and patients if they can’t get a visual idea as to where they’ve been, where they are at last test and where they need to go. Lay it out for adults. It’s useless the way it’s currently laid out citing user/patients no feedback for them to work with