The Clinical Information System (CIS)
- Provide nurses knowledge of many aspects organized for effective and efficient healthcare delivery.
- Assists clinicians with data necessary for decision-making and problem solving
- Must serve the organization and the patient in much the same way an efficient healthcare delivery system involves all appropriate departments in establishing healthcare delivery processes
- Major CIS requirement for nursing are:
- Administer a nursing department
- Assist the management of nursing practice
- Assist nursing education
- Support nursing research
- Can be designed as a stand-alone system, a subsystem of a larger system, or an integral part of the healthcare organization’s overall information system
- Any CIS or single application design/ implementation or upgrade must complete the eight phases of implementation:
- Planning
- System analysis
- System design / system selection
- Development
- Testing
- Training
- Implementation
- Evaluation
The Planning Phase
- Begins once an organization has determined that an existing need or problem may be filled or solved by the development of a CIS
Clinical Information System Committee Structure and Project Staff
- The nursing administrator, in conjunction with the information system’s management team, works to develop a committee structure and participation to best guarantee the success of the project
- Transition management is a series of deliberate, planned interventions undertaken to assure successful adaptation/ assimilation of a desired outcome into an organization. (Douglas and Wright, 2003)
- A three-tiered committee approach is recommended to accomplish the design, implementation, or upgrading of a complete CIS – a steering committee, a project team, and departmental teams.
Clinical Information System Steering Committee
- Charged with providing oversight guidance to the selection and integration of a new CIS into the organization
- Generally includes representatives from the following areas:
- Hospital administration/ hospital finance
- Nursing administration
- Medical staff
- Information systems department at the director or manager level
- Major ancillary department (laboratory, radiology, pharmacy, dietary, medical records/ patient registration, patient accounting)
- Health information management (medical records)
- Legal affairs
- Outside consultants (as needed)
- Other appointed members (as needed)
Project Team
- Led by an appointed project manager and includes a designated team leader for each of the major departments affected by the system selection, implementation, or upgrade proposed
- Objectives:
- Understand the technology and its restrictions, if any, of a proposed system
- Understand the impact of intradepartmental decisions
- Make decisions at the intradepartmental level for the overall good of the CIS within the organization
- Become the key resource for their application
- Goal: improve patient care
- Project manager: responsible for managing all aspects of the project; must have good communication, facilitation, organizational and motivational skills to be successful; must have fulltime dedication to a large-scale design or implementation project.
Department Team
- Charge of the departmental teams
- To thoroughly understand the department’s information needs
- To gain a full understanding of the software’s features and functions
- To merge the new system’s capabilities with the department’s operations
- To assist in the system testing effort
- To participate in developing and conducting end-user education
- To provide a high level of support during the initial activation period of the new system
Physician involvement early in the planning process is recommended to ensure understanding of the information needs of the medical staff relative to patient documentation.
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