Nursing’s Voice in Healthcare IT Acquisition Decisions

Abstract

The participation of senior nursing healthcare executives in the acquisition of electronic healthcare information system is not well understood. This is an important issue because nurses make up the majority of care-providers within the Canadian healthcare system, and thus the majority of the information systems end-users. End-user involvement in the selection and evaluation of a healthcare information system is vital to implementation success; it is very important we understand the participation of the nursing leadership making these important decisions. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore this gap in our understanding, to find ‘Nursing’s Voice’ in this process. The soft-systems methodology theoretical perspective was used to understand how this process might be improved. Senior healthcare executives with a background in nursing from each of the Health Authorities across British Columbia were recruited to participate in an online survey questionnaire. An N=11 of senior executives were invited to participate, and a response rate of 82% was achieved. The results showed that despite a lack of formal training in information technology subjects, the majority of these nursing leaders do take an active role in electronic healthcare information systems acquisition and upgrading projects along-side their health informatics colleagues; ‘Nursing’s Voice’ is clearly heard.