The Strength a Nursing Informatics Council Brings to the Implementation of the Advanced Clinical Applications
By Stephanie Klueh

A solid organizational/committee structure, strong project manager and good clinical analysts are essential to the successful implementation of any Advanced Clinical Applications. Some project milestones will include system design, parallel testing, end user training and LIVE support. When implementing POM/OM, Nursing Documentation and EMar/BMV, we are touching all clinicians throughout the hospital, whether they are entering or viewing data, performing procedures or verifying medications.

Creating a Nursing Informatics Council to assist with these projects is valuable to all aspects of your implementation. Bringing Nurses together, with the addition of some guests from the ancillaries when needed, will ensure that system design is reviewed by each specialty. The group will make recommendations regarding build, while keeping current policies and procedures in mind. They will make suggestions for other policies and procedures that are needed with the addition of new software and workflow processes. While they are assisting in all of these areas, they will be learning how the system functions, how it will affect their everyday workflow and will know what decisions were made along the way and why.

The Nursing Informatics Council should consist of one to two Nurses from each clinical area, depending on the size of your hospital, and should be run by the Director of Nursing Informatics or Nurse Informaticist and report to Nursing Leadership. Any recommendations the group makes that needs additional approval, should go first to your project Core Team. Members of your project Core Team will take these recommendations or issues to the appropriate committee when necessary. Members of this group can meet on a bi-weekly or weekly basis depending on how close you are to your LIVE date and which projects you have going on at the time.

The council can assist with parallel testing to help uncover workflow related issues, and possibly some system bugs, that were not discovered during the design, build and testing phases. This group can also help in providing much of the end user training. They will be ahead of the game in that they assisted in design and workflow decisions and their peers will appreciate being taught by someone they work alongside on a daily basis.

This group can also help in providing much of the end user training. After walking through the formalized training a few times with them, they will be ready to train other clinicians. They are experts because they assisted in design and workflow decisions and their peers will appreciate being taught by someone they are familiar with on a daily basis. This group will also be able to relay any feedback or issues to the project manager or project lead for resolution prior to LIVE day.

Having 24/7 LIVE support for the Advanced Clinical Applications is vital to project success. Leveraging this group of clinicians to assist in the front line support is invaluable. The group will relay end user feedback and any workflow related issues that come up during the LIVE support period and will be able to provide great recommendations for resolution.

There are many aspects to a successful Advanced Clinical Implementation. Creating a Nursing Informatics Council is a great investment and will be appreciated by your organization. This group can be used for the implementation of all of the Advanced Clinical Applications and can assist in many aspects of these projects.

For more information on implementing Advanced Clinical Applications please call our office at 610-444-1233 or visit our website at www.getvitalized.com