Involving nurses in the planning, implementing and optimizing processes of HIT (health information technology) will benefit healthcare organizations greatly as Cresswell & Sheikh, (2013) opines. The steps of HIT system acquisition and implementation involves the establishment of an organization’s objectives which will influence the system selection process. A cost benefit analysis is then conducted whereby the cost of acquiring the system, implementing and maintaining it versus the expected savings is done. A vendor is then approached and an agreement is reached on the terms of service. Health care organizations (HCOs) should engage nurses in this process early on since according to Ben (2015), nurses form the largest percentage of healthcare providers.
Bringing nurses on board will thus be effective since nurses will influence the care process by promoting patient centered care. Furthermore, nurses will spend limited time documenting clinical records but instead, will focus more on patient centered care using the HIT system. Nurses can participate in the SDLC in various ways. In the system analysis stage, nurses can identify problems or opportunities in their practice setup that are in line with the organization’s objectives where the system can be used in patient care.
Nursing role in the system analysis stage is equally essential in determining the problems in their practice and identifying the appropriate system to address the challenges. McEvoy, et al., (2014) documents the paucity of nursing informatics experts who can take part in the design of systems. However, nurses play an integral part in the design of a system since the design stage is the detailed part of the life cycle. The next stages in the SDLC involves the implementation of a system. Challenges at this stage always involves bringing nurses on board to embrace a system which they are not acquainted with. Trainings thus have to be done alongside workshops in order for nurses to understand and implement a system. This challenges may be avoided by involving nurses from the onset of system design. Conclusively, since nurses form the largest percentage of healthcare providers, giving them a lead role in HIT and in SDLC is imperative.
References
Ben-Assuli, O. (2015). Electronic health records, adoption, quality of care, legal and privacy issues and their implementation in emergency departments. Health policy, 119(3), 287- 297.
Cresswell, K., & Sheikh, A. (2013). Organizational issues in the implementation and adoption of health information technology innovations: an interpretative review. International journal of medical informatics, 82(5), e73-e86.
McEvoy, R., Ballini, L., Maltoni, S., O’Donnell, C. A., Mair, F. S., & MacFarlane, A. (2014). A qualitative systematic review of studies using the normalization process theory to research implementation processes. Implement Sci, 9(2).
