Involving nurses in new technologies integration is always a profound step towards ensuring that they are conversant with system changes and embrace new technologies. Nurses, as majority end-users, should be engaged throughout the systems development life cycle (SDLC) since the successful implementation of new technologies depends on the extent of their engagement (McLean et al., 2015). For a graduate-level nurse to participate and make a positive impact, it is vital to understand what should be done at every stage of the SDLC, and the roles of the nurse vary from one step to the other.
Thank you for your response. This brings to mind King James Bible/New Living Translation 2005, Luke 8:17; For all that is secret will eventually turn to light. I was in Nursing school and happen to be tutoring a nursing student that was a class or two behind me. The student was prepared to take her med-surgical exam; we had reviewed the pathophysiology so that she would be able to look at, for example, be given a scenario regarding a patient’s lab values and know if the patient was in metabolic acidosis. We reviewed the ability to think critically. Prior to her taking the test we, both felt confident that she would pass. Day later she called and asked to come over and when she arrived, she was distraught. I was dumb founded; she explained that she had taken the exam, but it did not go very well because she decided to cheat. A couple of her classmates reassured her that they had the answers to the exam; She did not even read the exam to use anything that we had reviewed as far a critically thinking and using pathophysiology, lab values, and so on to arrive at the answers. I was upset that she had taken up hours and days of my time to prepare for an exam and she just totally threw everything out the window and just put down answers. The class prior to hers had aced the exam, but the instructor and the Director of the Nursing department reviewed the class trends and knew that the class prior to her class should not have scored that many A’s. Therefore, the test was changed and the test that my friend took was different from the one the prior class had taken. On top of that she had to speak with the Director of the Nursing department and was expelled from the program. She needed to at least pass with a C to remain in the program. The class prior had students that were also expelled as well as the students that were in her class. I only knew about this as she confided in me regarding the situation; otherwise, the was emphasis in my class to make sure that all the concepts were understood; if not ask questions during/after lecture and because in clinical we were taking care of patients and need to know why we were administering some as simple as a vitamin E and the side effects. In my practice I have been conscientious regarding patient care. In the Neonatal Intensive Care everything we gave during the time I worked in the unit was doubled checked. If it did not fit into a 1cc syringe it was triple checked.
Implementing a new nursing documentation system can be viewed as a project. As the initial step, planning obliges the implementation team to develop a project plan that defines the scope and deliverables of the project (Singletary & Baker, 2017). Central to the implementation of the system is composing the requirements document. The nurse’s role in the initial phases is checking whether the critical plan elements have been included. It is also crucial to propose ways that ensure that the intended change streamlines the current processes and improves efficiency.
The analysis step examines the effectiveness of existing technologies. It looks at what works and what should be avoided. As the end-users of health information technologies, nurses should provide details concerning the challenges and benefits of using the current systems. Their contribution implies that they can show how the new system should respond to nurses’ immediate needs.
In this step, the implementation team develops a plan for improving the current system, as recommended in the analysis phase. The most relevant components of the proposed system should be identified while describing how they can integrate into an efficient whole (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015). The nurse participates by submitting the necessary operational mechanisms that the new documentation system should incorporate to enhance performance. Nurses should take part in ongoing testing and refining. Involving nurses would ensure that the new system will be responsive to nurses’ data input and output needs.