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Nurses’ Role in Decision Making
The choice of an information system has a lot of significance. If affects many aspects of
an organization, including productivity and efficiency. Consequently, it is critical for
organizations to have adequate internal deliberations before selecting an information system.
This would ensure the needs and goals of the organization are clear, and the system will add
value to the organization. Nurses play a significant role in these deliberations. Because of the
unique position that nurses hold, their involvement in determining the needs of the organization
and matching these needs with appropriate information systems is essential. Additionally, nurse
informatics can ensure the technical team understands the latest technical specifications to ensure
the system is responsive to the needs of the organization. Therefore, nurses play a shared
decision-making role in the selection of an information system, where they ensure the
organization's needs are met.
An information system support both the administrative and clinical aspects of an
organization. Particularly, an information system minimizes human errors. It reduces costs. It
also increases efficiency. Most importantly, it improves the quality of services (Hessels et al.,
2015). Nurses use information systems to manage their tasks, enhance the quality of care they
provide to their patients and considering they are the largest group of healthcare professionals
and potentially the biggest users of information systems, it is important to involve them in every
stage of procuring an information system to ensure it serves them and the entire organization
besides giving them skills in data collection, processing, and information handling which has
also led to the emergence of the nursing information system (NIS). NIS is a section of the
healthcare information system dedicated to nursing aspects. Consequently, organizations cannot
ignore nurses when making decisions about information systems.
