NURS 6051 THE INCLUSION OF NURSES IN THE SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE

NURS 6051 THE INCLUSION OF NURSES IN THE SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE

 Nurses play a very important role in Healthcare and in the lives of patients. They provide and coordinate patient care, educate patients and the public about various health conditions, and provide advice and emotional support to patients and their families (H.karimi 2022). According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2020), there are about 4 million nurses, many of whom work within healthcare facilities be it hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living, jails, and home health care. They advocate for patients and play a connective role between patients and doctors, patients and families. Systems Development Life Cycle has as its main goal to layout the cost-effective and time-efficient process that the development team uses to design and build high-quality software through planning and analysis, designing and building, implementation, testing, monitoring maintaining, supporting, and evaluating (Laureate 2020).

     Nurses are therefore very important in the implementation and testing of new software in healthcare given the role they play and failure to do so can result in terrible consequences. Nurses should be able to voice their opinions or be included in all the stages so that they can contribute in the success and modification towards a better outcome in all the stages. Failure to include nurses in the process can results in a lot of damage because it might not be suitable for nurses because they might find it difficult to connect and relate to the care they deliver. Secondly, not including nurses to a system designed for them to use might discourage them and makes them feel left out, this will cause many people who do not like changes to quit, therefore resulting in staffs shortages, and stress ( Frisch & Roudsari 2020), Thirdly, not including nursing will cause a lot of money and time for them to be trained, in-services and educated about the new system and leaving them will less time to provide safe and effective care in a timely manner to the patient thereby diverting what their focus is all about. Therefore, nurses are required to take an active role at every level, stage, and phase of SDLC ranging from planning to the implementation phase so as to be prepared and well-knowledgeable of what is coming and how it will affect them (Wang 2019)

A couple of years ago, when ”third eye” was first introduced at my job, we were informed and trained about it and how to initiate a discussion with an unknown doctor on call. After the training and using a third eye for a month, we were, questioned if the system was very effective in communication or if we should turn it down and use the old system, about 95 % of nurses were satisfied and it greatly aligned with what we have been looking for.  Third Eye gave us the opportunity to be able to call a doctor on call at any time and be able to make very quick decisions that will save a patient’s life. We all agreed and since then third has been implemented in our facilities and it is working just fine.

 Conclusively, nurses play a very important and strong role in whatever tool or nursing informatics is used to provide safe and effective care. Documenting, implementing, and navigating the healthcare system, they ought to be consulted in the initial phase up to the last stage, and be able to give their input opinions because they are the ones dealing with these systems put in place, so they know best what is good and what is bad.

 Reference.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing ( 2020) (AACN).

Laureate Education (Producer) ( 2020) Systems Implementation, Baltimore Md.