NURS 8210: Transforming Nursing and Healthcare Through Technology
INITIAL POST
Information Systems and Changing Organizational Culture
Culture change in organizations is impacted by the technology and informatics guiding education reform (TIGER) who suggested strategies to impact change after realizing that this one of seven pillars of change strategies frame did not reach the consensus after their 2006 summit (Ball et al., 2011, p.13). The other pillars of change strategies identified during the 2006 TIGER summit include management and leadership, education, communication and collaboration, informatic design, information technology, and policy (Ball et al., 2011, p.13). In this Discussion, we explore change leadership strategies through role-playing as we select an information technology initiative, evaluate potential barriers to its implementation, then identify change management and leadership strategies to employ.
Information Technology Initiative
The bar code medication administration (BCMA) is one of many information technologies (IT) that could support the TC2-GUI inpatient charting application at the United States (US) Combat Support Hospital (CSH) located overseas. A project was conducted in this setting regarding the TC2-GUI application, and findings showed that BCMA is one innovation that could promote evidence-based practice (EBP) and efficiency within this organization. Alotaibi and Federico (2017) presented evidence that BCMA will reduce medication errors, adverse drug reactions, and mislabeled laboratory specimen. This additional system would support the TC2-GUI application to provide efficiency, improve safety and patient outcome. Subsequently, this change would affect the end-user’s workflow and the organization’s budgeting.
Barriers to Implementation and Change Strategies
The above human and financial barriers are the major categories of barriers in implementing HIT recognized by Khalifa (2013), who added other potential barriers such as professional, technical, organization, and legal and regulatory barriers. As one major barrier, human beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes the users may have difficulty changing if they are not aware of the importance and benefits of BCMA, they may also lack knowledge and experience of a computer with its applications. The suggested solution includes teaching and training and providing awareness of the importance and benefits of the new system (Khalifa, 2013). Provide training to fulfill the TIGER informatics competencies, including the basic computer, information literacy, and information management competencies (TIGER, 2011). As another barrier, financial challenges related to money and funding could be initial cost, high cost to operate and maintain the system, or lack of feasibility study showing its benefits versus cost; some solutions could be allocating the proper funding and funding and conducting a feasibility study (Khalifa, 2013)
Reference
Alotaibi, Y. K., & Federico, F. (2017). The impact of health information technology on patient safety. Saudi medical journal, 38(12), 1173–1180. https://doi.org/10.15537/smj.2017.12.20631
Ball, M. J., Douglas, J. V., Hinton Walker, P., DuLong, D., Gugerty, B., Hannah, K. J., . . . Troseth, M. R. (Eds.) (2011). Nursing informatics: Where technology and caring meet (4th ed.). Springer-Verlag.
Khalifa, M. (2013). Barriers to health information systems and electronic medical records implementation. A field study of Saudi Arabian hospitals. Procedia Computer Science, 21, 335-342.
T.I.G.E.R. Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform. (2011). Informatics competencies collaborative team. https://web.archive.org/web/20150910131244/http://www.thetigerinitiative.org/docs/tigerreport_informaticscompetencies.pdf