Introduction
Building a proposed information technology solution, for example, developing a new follow-up clinical decision support (CDS) tool for integration into a general hospital’s current EHR system to provide reminders, facilitate nurse-led follow-up calls, and prevent readmissions, requires testing processes. In this case, the testing process could be used by designing test cases, including different disease and discharge scenarios that the tool should analyze and prioritize to provide effective follow-up recommendations for nurses. The tool might need to be tested manually with regard to the end-user’s experiences and in terms of compatibility with the setting’s EHR system.
Regarding the testing process’s importance, ascertaining the tool’s ability to provide factually and contextually accurate responses to end-users queries and perform effectively in different follow-up care scenarios is conducive to building a solution that would not bring harm due to call/reminder prioritization mistakes or the incorrect handling of patient data. Moreover, testing enables the timely identification of the hypothetical contributors to misalignment between a novel CDS solution and pre-existing IT tools and can reveal the average end-users inconveniences, unintended mistakes, and knowledge/skill gaps (Garcia-Dia et al., 2019; Goldstein et al., 2020). It supports tool developers in deciding what concerns to address and account for to build the solution’s finalized version.
End-Users’ Role
Examining the end-user’s contributions to solution development projects requires engaging in a staff communication process. In the given scenario, the end-users or the RN’s role in application development/testing can incorporate stating the desired features and setting expectations at the tool development stage; as part of tool testing efforts, the role can include providing usability feedback and reporting knowledge deficits or software errors (Fager et al., 2018). End-users can assist the team with designing patient scenarios for testing to make sure that discharged patients with different health risk levels and admission diagnoses are taken into account.
Project Implementation Elements
The elements of the HIT project implementation process for healthcare teams to consider include costs, teams, user education, and evaluation. Financial expenses are crucial in project implementation, and the project team should assign roles effectively to assess tool development costs and the need for external assistance in implementing it (Gnanlet et al., 2019). Teams and training represent essential implementation process elements, requiring building multidisciplinary committees consisting of IT, clinical, and managerial staff to structure project implementation endeavors and organize collaborative work to develop end-user training materials and programs (Chan et al., 2019). Another element pertains to evaluation and might require developing a vast array of strategies to collect usability feedback from a sample of end-users systematically or calculate the project’s effects on the facility’s return on income and quality metrics, for instance, readmission rates.
Testing and Project Success
Most importantly, testing helps ensure HIT projects’ success by enabling early error identification, which prevents costly mistakes and patient data losses during the clinical implementation stage. Compatibility testing identifies the risks of misalignment between separate applications, enabling new tools’ smooth and successful integration into organizations’ original IT environments (Garcia-Dia et al., 2019; Goldstein et al., 2020). Finally, testing procedures offer insight into the end-user’s perspective, ensuring successful design corrections and preventing staff from rejecting new tools.
Conclusion
User-acceptance testing would be a good option that I could use in ensuring project success with CDS tools or other proposals. This type of testing is widely used in CDS tool implementation, supplements the results of functional/compatibility tests, and encourages end-users to verify the product’s adequate alignment with their feature-related expectations and real-world clinical cases they encounter (James et al., 2019). Such testing would enable me to ensure the absence of end-user-reported barriers to incorporating the tool into everyday practice, thus promoting project success.
References
Chan, A. Y., Garcia-Dia, M. J., & Park, Y. S. (2019). Project integration management and systems development life cycle: System maintenance. In M. J. Garcia-Dia (Ed.), Project management in nursing informatics (pp. 323-340). Springer Publishing Company.
Fager, S. K., Sorenson, T., Butte, S., Nelson, A., Banerjee, N., & Robucci, R. (2018). Integrating end-user feedback in the concept stage of development of a novel sensor access system for environmental control. Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 13(4), 366-372. Web.
Garcia-Dia, M. J., Dizon, J., & DiCarlo, L. (2019). Project integration management and systems development life cycle: System configuration—Testing. In M. J. Garcia-Dia (Ed.), Project management in nursing informatics (pp. 253-300). Springer Publishing Company.
Gnanlet, A., Choi, M., & Davoudpour, S. (2019). Impediments to the implementation of healthcare information technology: A systematic literature review. Journal of Supply Chain and Operations Management, 17(1), 136-156. Web.
Goldstein, B. A., Cerullo, M., Krishnamoorthy, V., Blitz, J., Mureebe, L., Webster, W., Dunston, F., Stirling, A., Gagnon, J., & Scales, C. D. (2020). Development and performance of a clinical decision support tool to inform resource utilization for elective operations. JAMA Network Open, 3(11), 1-12. Web.
James, M. T., Har, B. J., Tyrrell, B. D., Ma, B., Faris, P., Sajobi, T. T., Allen, D. W., Spertus, J. A., Wilton, S. B., Pannu, N., Klarenbach, S. W., & Graham, M. M. (2019). Clinical decision support to reduce contrast-induced kidney injury during cardiac catheterization: Design of a randomized stepped-wedge trial. Canadian Journal of Cardiology, 35(9), 1124-1133. Web.