This posting has expired. Cerner Entry Level Training Programs' title='Cerner Entry Level Training Programs' />What do Informatics Nurses actually do On the previous post where I discussed what nursing informatics is, I gave a broad overview of how an application is implemented, and how an analyst is involved in this process, and in this post, Ill give more specific details. Descargar Driver De Red Para Windows 7 Professional 64 Bits there. Do keep in mind though, that within this field, there are many roles a person can have, such as being a trainer, a project manager, a project design analyst, an applicationproject architect, an application consultant, and even a programmer, among many others. And for almost all position, as I explain in the bottom of the post and in the comments below, you dont need to know codingprogramming to be in nursing informatics or clinical informatics. And this is not just limited to nursing informatics. Somebody with the title of clinical analyst can do the same, the only difference being that they dont necessarily have to have a nursing degree. Nonetheless, all these roles participate in one or in all the cycles discussed below. InformationWeek. com News, analysis and research for business technology professionals, plus peertopeer knowledge sharing. Engage with our community. DISPILLUSA Simple, Safe and Convenient Pill Organizer, MultiDose Medication Packaging System. Computerized physician order entry eliminates the need to order tests and prescriptions on paper. But the learning curve, and cost, can be high. Software Development Life Cycle. In real life, this whole process follows closely what is known as the software development life cycle, which is made up of roughly 6 stages Requirements Analysis, Design, Testing, Training, Implementation, and MaintenanceSupport. I have seen many arguments about this process, so for further details, you can google systems development life cycle or software development life cycle and you can find more details about the specifics of the cycle stages. Whats important to understand is that within those stages of the cycle, an informatics nurse, who can also have the title of a clinical analyst, can play many roles. It Starts With Going From Paper To an EMRFor example, if a department within a hospital wants to start the process of documenting their paper records using what is known as an EMR Electronic Medical Records, they first have to come to an agreement as to what they want to move from paper to the EMR. But to do this, they might need to know what specifically the system can do for them, and this is where an informatics nurse can help in the process by knowing the EMR application, and thus having the ability to guide the users to make the right decisions. For instance, the users might want to keep track of the total time a person spends providing specific care to a patient across different departments, but the EMR might not have the capability to do this. Hence, it is the role of the informatics nurse to come up with a solution to this problem, either by contacting the vendor of the EMR with an enhancement request which might take months if not years, or simply by coming with an alternative workflow to solve the issue. What Happens In AnalysisDesign Phase. In the example above, which merges the requirement analysis and design phase of a project, an informatics nurse organizes meetings where users provide data, which the nurse analyst will then analyze and use to configure the application accordingly. During these meetings, the informatics nurse or clinical analyst, will usually give a demo of what the application does. Heshe will answer questions about the application, and then the analyst will collect data of how the department functions. This data is known as the workflow of the department. Once the analyst understands the workflow of the department, heshe will make recommendations on how to best configure the application to meet the needs of the users. Typically the department gives input if the proposed workflow will work or not, and this is what the meetings are for to work the design of the application. Depending on the scope of the project one analyst could be involved in this specific role, or many times there are other analysts helping out in this process. Configuring The Application. During the configuring phase of the project, the analyst takes the data collected in the previous phase, and using proprietary tools, the analyst configures the application to satisfy the user needs. This process might take weeks, and more than one analyst could be involved. Application configuration varies by vendor, and while some vendors have very easy tools to use, others are very complex. Testing. Once the application is configured, the analyst will test hisher module of the application to see if it works. Usually, several modules are being implemented, and when each and every module has been tested, thats when integration testing takes place. This is the process where all modules are tested together. For example, a patient is registered in the registration module, then the patient is scheduled using the scheduling module, and then the patient appears in a tracking board from where the patient is admitted. As it can be seen, integration testing combines all these processes to make sure everything works together. Training. When all the modules are functional, staff needs to be trained. Many times the person who configured the application happens to be the trainer of the users yet, hospitals can also have one person dedicated to training staff on how to use an application. This person is in charge of learning the application and then coming up with education material to train the different users on this application. The title could be, informatics trainer, or clinical analyst trainer, but the goal is the same. Make sure that a high number of users successfully learn the application. Training Is Not As SimpleAlthough the role of a trainer looks easy to do, there are many things that could happen to add stress to the job. One time, for instance, one of the user groups I had to train was a group of surgeons. This was a challenging group to train because many of them arrive at the hospital very early in the morning, and many of them simply say they dont have the time to learn the application. Furthermore, as part of the job role you might have to turn in solid percentage numbers of the number of users that were trained in the application, so as a trainer, many times you have to come up with creative ways to make sure that most of the users show up to your class, and then actually learn in class. Go Live And Support. The last phase of the project is implementation and support. During this phase the application is turned on to the users, and this is known as the go live. Some also call it, conversion. The whole go live phase is coordinated by the analyst and other members of the project, such as the project manager, IT director, etc. Everything is planned out months before, and different members of the team are assigned specific tasks prior to the go live, and during the go live. There is a support team which takes go live issues and this team is usually made up of the analysts that configured the application. Their role is to solve the issues that may occur, or escalate them to the proper person if needed. While for many this is the exciting part of the project, for others it is simply the most stressful part of the project. All Phases Done By One Person The phases discussed above might be specifically assigned to one person. If you work in a smaller hospital, you could just be in an informatics department taking part in the implementation of the whole project. Larger hospitals, however, have specific teams that are assigned to different phases of the project. For example, one analyst might be responsible for the analysisdesign, while another one will just do the configuration and testing, and another one will do the training.