Consequences of Healthcare Organization not Involving Nurses

Consequences of Healthcare Organization not Involving Nurses

Nurses play a significant role in healthcare facilities. When not included in design and decision-making regarding the Systems Development Life Cycle, there is a higher probability of poor outcomes (Oberg et al., 2018). Nurses are put in the frontline and primary users when it comes to utilizing electronic health records systems. Facilities should consider their concerns and opinions during upgrade and designing. Most facilities, however, use IT experts in choosing suitable methods for their organizations. When nurses are left out in designing and upgrading, they lack autonomy and commitment, leading to prolonged periods of implementing the system. It takes more extended periods to facilitate implementation because the providers have limited interest in the outcomes.

Inclusion of Nurses in Systems Design

Involving nurses in designing and upgrading processes improves the safety of operations. When nurses are involved earlier in each system implementation phase, the technology minimizes possible challenges after implementation (Ito et al., 2019). The facilities need to ensure that nurses provide adequate services. Therefore nurses must be involved during all stages to become familiar with the expectations they will need to uphold. Furthermore, facilities can use comments and feedback during implementation phases to guide or offer possible resolutions.

Personal input

Currently, the facility I work in plans to outsource a new electronic health records system to Epic. The facility has chosen a nurse and IT experts team to develop and adopt an Epic program. The program is named Des. The facility requires that nurses will have monthly meetings to disclose and elucidate details and upgrades to nurses. The team is also open to suggestions from other non-team members relating to the development of the program. This program will help nurses by enabling electronic recording of vital signs electronically. In previous practicums, nurses had to record vital signs for about fifteen minutes for the patients assigned. I do not think that the IT experts would have thought about recording the critical signals electronically. Involving the nurses in the program promotes appropriate choices for increasing efficiency.

References

Ito, H., Tanioka, T., Miyamoto, M., Miyagawa, M., Yasuhara, Y., & Locsin, R. C. (2019). Perceived inventory of technological competency as caring in nursing (PITCCN): Psychometric evaluation. International Journal of Studies in Nursing, 4(2), 1-6.

Öberg, U., Orre, C. J., Isaksson, U., Schimmer, R., Larsson, H., & Hörnsten, Å. (2018). Swedish primary healthcare nurses’ perceptions of using digital eH health services in support of patient self‐management. Scandinavian journal of caring sciences, 32(2), 961-970. https://doi.org/10.1111/scs.12534

RE: Discussion – Week 9

Discussion: Inclusion of Nurses in Systems Development Life Cycle

Nurses have significant responsibilities in implementing new health information technology systems. They interact more and directly with patients and are end users of any technology-based systems. therefore, their inclusion in systems development life cycle (SDLC) cannot be over-emphasized. As care providers, they get relevant data from different stakeholders that is critical to enhancing quality of patient care. As such, their exclusion of SDLC can have devastating effects at each stage. The SDLC focuses on provision of a framework to implement new IT systems in healthcare organizations with steps that include planning, system requirements and analysis, design, implementation, testing and integration and evaluation and maintenance (Kim et al., 2020). Failing to include nurses at the planning and requirements’ analysis stages lead to limited information and end user experiences that may be critical in capturing data on real or practical issues in the nursing practice. Exclusion of nurses may lead to development and design of new HIT systems that do not meet the requirements and needs of the nursing unit.

Analysis provides an opportunity for nurses to offer information on the workflow of systems and excluding them means that the project will not capture real data to implement quality interventions to enhance care. The implementation phase entails rolling out the new system to accrue its benefits like quality care and enhanced patient safety (Risling & Risling, 2020). Nurses will also be charged with the duty to implement these new measures. However, if they do are not involved, they may not have the hindsight of the components of the system to deliver its projected outcomes.

Over time, the nursing staff wil