Role Description Based on the SDLC Processes

Role Description Based on the SDLC Processes

The primary aspect addressed by nurse informaticists in the development of a documentation system that addresses inherent challenges of nursing. As the majority and the main care providers in the health workforce, they should participate and be involved actively in the development of information systems for organizations to attain successful outcomes (Verma & Gupta, 2017). The system development life cycle (SDLC) describes the systematic problem-solving approach that system developers use to design, troubleshoot, and implement an information technology system in a healthcare organization to enhance efficiency in the workflow. The system contains critical stages with respective tasks that require the inclusion of nurse informaticists at each level (Kassam & Nagle, 2017). These stages include planning and requirement definition, analysis, design of the new system, implementation, and post-implementation.

Planning and Requirement Definition

The planning and requirement definition stage identifies and analyzes the scope of the present system and provides an overview of the proposed new systems and their objectives (Yen et al., 2017). The stage entails considerations on a host of issues like time, benefits, costs, and other components of the new system. The stage also identifies constraints, threats, and security issues of the new system (Wager et al., 2017). The participation of the graduate-level nurse at this initial stage is critical to delivering the clinical nursing perspective to contribute to the development of a responsive, safe, efficient, and effective system (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2018). The graduate nurse interacts with the team leaders to execute certain tasks that include determining the nature and issues of the present systems and challenges to efficiency and workflow, examination and selection of possible solutions, assimilation of required resources, and identification of project’s timelines and its initiation.

The nurse identifies the system’s requirements, from technical to clinical and medical components (Magnuson & Dixon, 2020). The nurse leader also helps in system testing and identification of any design flaws in the new system for improvement. The overriding role of the graduate nurse is bringing to the fore the concerns of frontline nurses so that the new system is tailored to meet their needs as super and end-users (Wang et al., 2018). The failure to include the nurse at this stage means that the team will not capture the system needs of frontline nurses as end-users of the new documentation system.

Analysis Phase

The analysis stage helps the implementation team to establish the system’s processes and workflows. A determination to ascertain if the requirements offered are satisfactory and an evaluation of the processes for possible changes or alterations happen at this stage. The analysis stage also defines the requirements and prototype of the new system at this stage (Kassam & Nagle, 2017). The graduate nurse has key roles at this stage of working with the interdisciplinary team to identify the core challenges that the proposed system may pose to nurses as end-users and offer feasible solutions or seek alternatives from the team. The graduate nurse should have an idea of how the system will be deployed and the anticipated challenges to make informed suggestions and recommend alternatives (Magnuson & Dixon, 2020). Through this approach, the team will avoid implementing a system that possesses obvious faults for use in the facility.

Design of the New System

The design stage defines core components of the new system including the databases, applications, system, and user interfaces that will be deployed in the facility. These components represent the functional attributes that will make the system work flawlessly (Magnuson & Dixon, 2020). The team generates reports, prototypes mockups, and screenshots to determine possible hitches that may occur.

The role of the graduate nurse is to scrutinize the developed system to ensure that it has appropriate performance and display for the effective end-user experience. The graduate nurse may have a limited role at this stage because of the technical nature of its attributes (Sipes, 2019). However, the nurse can still make recommendations and suggest operational mechanisms to enhance the functionality of the system. The graduate nurse ensures that the system design is safer and user-friendly for nurses. The nurse should establish the functionality of the system to meet nurses’ needs as end-users.

Implementation

The implementation entails setting up the program and ensuring that it works based on the input from different stakeholders. The stage entails transferring data and components from the current s