Role of a Nurse in SDLC
The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a model that helps in planning and implementing technological changes within an institution (“Phases of System Development Life Cycle – NIOS,” 2020). In order to achieve success, it is essential that many individuals should be involved in the process, especially the employees or end-users of the system. It is because employees or end-users are the ones who live with the change. Since informatics is becoming popular in the health sector, a collaboration between health care practitioners and information technology (IT) is fundamental. In healthcare set up, a nurse is able to combine the clinical nursing perspective with the information technology perspective. Therefore, involving nurses in the process of developing new healthcare information systems is fundamental. The following steps define the role and impact of nurses in every stage of system development and implementation.
Planning and requirements definition
The nurse is required to provide the system requirements that include data, documentation forms, the flow of information, and how it relates to the work processes of a nurse and the mechanism of exchanges of information with other departments. The contribution of a nurse is critical at this stage. Identification of potential risks and planning for the quality assurance requirements is made at this stage with the help of the information gathered from the representative nurses.
Analysis
In order to translate the nursing needs to a language of software developers, the relevant nursing practices must first be understood. Therefore, nurses provide the central knowledge from which analysis is done. In this stage, nurses avail written documents, provides detailed information on daily activities that includes care processes and actions, and the conditions provided by the work environment. At the analysis stage, nurses inform the development team on the available resources and their conditions. Such resources may include computer systems and available space.
Design of the new system
After determining the system requirements and a detailed analysis of the new system, the design phase kicks off. This is the most critical phase in the development process. It consists of a logical design and physical design. The input of nurse representatives is critical at this point. Therefore, this stage is done in bits and presented to nurses and other team members to evaluate and determine if the processes are in alignment with what they expect of the system. In case they disagree with the design, the whole system process scrambles. That’s how impactful the contribution of a nurse can be in this stage of development. They must assert that the automation processes of the new system can help them to manage information. Moreover, they can suggest changes and necessary adjustments to the design.
Implementation
During the implementation stage, the system is taken through rigorous testing to determine if it has achieved the required expectations (“Phases of System Development Life Cycle – NIOS,” 2020). Since nurses are the end-users, they are allowed to feed in data relating to their daily activities. In some cases, they record information both on the new system and on paper to determine the system’s conformance between the two types of records. At this stage, nurses have to agree that the system’s functionality and workflow have met the needs of nursing processes. The system is then launched and integrated into practice on a given date that is also recorded.
Post-implementation support
After the system is kicked-off, there must be continuous post-implementation support. It is conducted after the nurses have mastered the use of the system and are able to execute their daily activities. At this point, they are able to spot the sections that they may be facing troubles to work with and the necessary improvements. Moreover, they can also identify areas that may need improvements to make the system work more efficiently. With the help of nurses, this phase aims at maintaining and enhancing the new system to meet the ongoing needs of the community that uses it (“Phases of System Development Life Cycle – NIOS,” 2020).
References
Phases of System Development Life Cycle – NIOS. Oer.nios.ac.in. (2020). Retrieved May 1, 2020, from http://oer.nios.ac.in/wiki/index.php/Phases_of_System_Development_Life_Cycle.
Louis, I. (2011, August 17). Systems development life cycle (SDLC) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpyjPrpyX8