Discussion: The Inclusion of Nurses in the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

The SDLC provides a vital framework that organizations can use to implement and improve information systems. The stages include planning and requirements definition, analysis, design of the new system, implementation, and post-implementation support. Nurses have a critical role to play in each of these stages. They also have a role to play in implementing and selecting a hospital's information system. Failure to involve nurses in the SDLC stages when developing a new health information system can lead to adverse outcomes. McGonigle and Mastrian (2017) state that the stakeholders must be organized and have a simple plan on how they will implement the new system. The planning and requirements definition stage involves amassing and identifying the necessary resources. If the nurse is not involved in this stage, the system may fail to meet the needs of the end-users, which are the nurses and patients. Moreover, it can lead to discrepancies in identifying the training requirements and needs of the nurses. Therefore, nurses must be involved in this stage to identify the merits and demerits of the proposed system to the nurses.

The analysis stage involves assessing the functionality and quality of the new system. If nurses are not involved in this stage, they will not be able to flag off the possible inefficiencies of the new system. Moreover, the nurses will also fail not to verify the user interface of the system and the capabilities of the nurses. Additionally, nurse noninvolvement would not optimize system development efficiency and increased post-deployment interruptions (Tyler, 2016). Thus, nurses are integral in this stage and identifying the impact of the whole system.

The stakeholders model the system or software in the design stage. According to McGonigle and Mastrian (2017), the stakeholders decide how the system will address the functional requirements in design. Failure to involve nurses at this stage may result in a vast void between the system compatibility with the needs of the end-users, especially nurses. Moreover, the team may fail to incorporate the essential data that is necessary for the data design. Thus, the analysis and design stage contribute to the overall configuration of the new health information system.

The implementation stage involves programming and coding, which brings the design to life. A nurse informaticist is aware of various programming languages such as Pascal, C++, and Java. Nurse leaders can identify the correct location of a new information system. When they are not involved in this stage, the nurse leader cannot explain to other nurses the structure of the whole system, making it complex to the end-users. Not being involved in this stage makes it hard for the nurses to identify the best placement of the whole system within the work environment (Verma & Gupta, 2017). Thus, nurses have to be involved in improving the information system's quality, position, and impact.

Post-implementation involves testing and maintenance. Suppose nurses are not involved in evaluating the whole system. In that case, the stakeholders will not identify its impact on nurse processes or the errors they did not identify in the analysis or design stage. Not being part of this stage makes it difficult to identify future improvements and modifications to align with the nurse's needs. Thus, if the nurses cannot evaluate the whole system, they will not measure its impact, progress, or effectiveness.

Conclusion

Nurses hold an integral role in all the stages of the SDLC stages. The nurses must participate from planning to the post-implementation of the new system. If they are not involved, the system may negatively affect the performance of the nurses and not meet their needs. Thus, each organization must include the nurses in the SDLC stages during system development.

References

McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2017). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Singletary, V., & Baker, E. L. (2019). Building informatics-savvy health departments: The systems development life cycle. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice: JPHMP, 25(6), 610–611. https://doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0000000000001086

Tyler, D. D. (2016). A Day in the Life of a Nurse Informaticist. Journal of Informatics Nursing, 1(2), 29-31. https://insights.ovid.com/informatics-nursing/jinur/2017/02/020/day-life-nurse-informaticist/6/01992670

Verma, M. P., & Gupta, S. (2017). Software development for nursing: Role of nursing informatics. International Journal of Nursing Education and Research, 5(2), 203-207. https://doi.org/10.5958/2454-2660.2017.00044.8

 

response

Enjoyed reading your post and agree with you. Also, nurses are medical health scientists who understand the complex flow of care delivery, including the connections required by medical professionals in the provision of nursing care. It is important for nurses to be familiar with emerging technologies. Involving nurses at the point of treatment in all stages of introducing new health information technology (HIT) facilitates a smooth changes to the current technology. systems development life cycle (SDLC) is a strategy for providing reliable and productive information paired with a matching with an organization's strategic business plans. HIT system architecture to support nursing operations should take a creative approach to encouraging end patients to take advantage of technical opportunities.

Nurses may contribute ideas such as places where more focus can be paid in the first step of the process, help in the research procedure, and initiate and maintain initiatives based on their own skills and experiences. The likelihood of failure increases dramatically when users are not involved. Nurses can adopt innovative technologies if they have had the opportunity to provide guidance during the preparation and deployment stages, such as performing evaluations with different types of equipment in various clinical sites, as well as the assessment phase, which allows nurses to check if changes intended to improve the work experience have been effective.