Respond to each of the Discussions with 3 APA references no older than 5 years old.
Student 1
Ruth Nyasimi TN
The Inclusion of Nurses in the Systems Development Life Cycle
The systems development life cycle (SDLC) is simply a conceptual model which is used in project management that describes all stages which are involved in an information systems development project. Each stage of the SDLC is critical to ensure the successful implementation of new health information systems (Garcia-Dia et al., 2019). It is important to include nurses in each step of the SDCL implementation since they play a critical role in ensuring that the project is designed to meet the organizational objectives. Failure to include nurses in the SDCL can have fatal consequences for the patients, and organizations.
Nurses are more informed on how information systems can be used to improve patient outcomes and safety. Any situation in which nurses are excluded can lead to significant consequences. Firstly, failure to include nurses can lead to a project that is unable to address the staff and patient needs. Nurses are the only healthcare staffs who spend more time with patients and have a lot of bedside experience. Hence, failure to include them can result in a healthcare information system that is unable to improve the care given to patients (McGonagall & Mastrian, 2015).
Secondly, in the implementation phase, the design of the project is revealed and people can give opinions on the applications. If nurses are not included in this phase, the system development can be unfamiliar and ineffective and within the short term, it can be considered incompatible and mismatching with the clinical care offered. Therefore, according to Thomas et al (2016), allowing nurses to interact with systems and understand how it works is important since it helps them to navigate through and even assist other professionals who may experience difficulties.
Thirdly, especially the testing phase is critically important in the SDCL since it ensures the IT systems are functional. According to Zytkowsi et al. (2016), excluding nurses at this phase has consequences since it can lead to the development of a system that does not support other roles of patient care or a system with potential delays in clinical care. Besides, if nurses are not included in this stage, the system can fail to evaluate and support other patient roles. Lastly, once the system has been implemented, there must be a plan on how to carry out maintenance hence when nurses are excluded in this phase, any changes made can cause delays in operating the system resulting in delays in patient care.
In a different light, the inclusion of nurses in SDCL will have several benefits. For example, including them in SDCL will provide nurses with an opportunity to connect with the system and develop a personal connection with it as they become driven to serve patients and seek to enhance treatment hence improving outcomes (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015). Failure to include them means that they will have their first encounter with the system when it has been implemented and this will create inconveniences. For example, some nurses will have no capacity to use the new system and hence will be limited to using it if not trained soon.
The organization I work for is planning to integrate a new health information system and it is unfortunate I was not included in the planning and selection process. The failure to include nurses has the potential impact on the organization such as being unable to operate the new system which makes care delivery effective. The system had design flaws that could have been captured if nurses had been involved in the early stages and feelings of dissatisfaction as nurses feel confused. Therefore, due to the significant role played by nurses in SDCL, the administration should appreciate their participation by including them in all processes of implementation.