Getting Involved - Module 2

The question posed at the close of this weeks module is What is one way you could become involved in designing, selecting, evaluating, or implementing an information system in your workplace?

I have known two people who have been actively involved in the design/selection/evaluation of an information system:

The first was a nurse that I worked with for maybe a month when I was a brand-new LPN. I have no idea how he was selected, all I know is he left for what he described as a cush corporate level job that would last at least 5 years. During that time he planned on pursuing a degree in informatics and leveraging the degree along with the hands-on experience of five years into a string of cushy system design/implementation jobs. At least, that was the plan. I guess I just answered at least part of the question. as to how he was selected - expressed interest in informatics. I'm pretty sure not very many of the nurses he worked with even really know what that was. I know that my brand new, temporary DOPL licensed LPN self had no idea what he was talking about at first.

The second individual is my wife who is on a CPOE committee for Intermountain Healthcare. Despite being a very part-time employee her attention to detail and follow through came to the attention of the director during the most recent round of Joint Commission preparations and it just so happened he had been requested by the corporation to furnish one Radiologic Technologist to the committee. Viola - my wife the CPOE committee member.

Since all my managers know about my current battle with the space-time continuum It is unlikely that I will be selected in this sort of fashion...Wait, wrong battle - this is the one... (Well actually, side by side these aren't that different are they?)

The truth is, almost every nurse practicing is going to be or already is involved in implementing information systems. The complex and intense process of getting these systems up and running necessitates (in most instances) a gradual role out or integration with the systems already in place. In the Emergency department that I work in we have reveled in the simplicity of paper based charting by exception for far too long. Over the last year we have been slowly incorporating more and more aspects of an electronic charting system with an announcement that this fall we will complete our transition and begin bedside computerized charting in the ED.

A few years ago we switched over to a barcode scanning system. I vaguely remember the days of having only a med cup in the one hand, the patient's wristband in the other and the five rights on the tip of my tongue (my LPN clinical instructor was famous for bedside pop-quizzes). No juggling the med cup, and wrist band with the addition of a (set your phaser to 'wristband') scanner in hand. Anyone who has been through this kind of transition and says that they weren't intimately involved with the integration process should have their narcotic wastes triple checked. The bedside nurse is the key player in the final product rolling out and actually making a difference in the clinical setting. In the end we all get to be involved.