Clinical Informatics Practice and Workflow
What to know
This domain is the practice side: workflow analysis, requirements gathering, system selection, implementation, testing, training, and optimization. Know workflow mapping (current-state vs future-state), process mapping tools (flowcharts, swimlanes), and usability evaluation (heuristic evaluation, think-aloud). Understand the system development life cycle (SDLC) and implementation phases: planning, analysis, design, build, test (unit, integration, user acceptance), go-live, and post-live optimization. Know roles (clinical informaticist, analyst, super-user, champion) and training strategies (role-based, at-the-elbow support). Familiarity with order sets, documentation templates, and alerts as workflow interventions, and with root cause analysis for incidents, is expected. Human factors and the SEIPS model (work system: person, tasks, tools, environment, organization) help frame workflow questions.
Traps
- Designing future-state before understanding current-state-questions reward assessing the existing workflow first.
- Treating training as the fix for a design problem; if the workflow is wrong, training won't help.
- Ignoring interdisciplinary stakeholders (pharmacy, lab, registration) in requirements.
- Skipping user acceptance testing or at-the-elbow support at go-live.
Worked example / rule of thumb
A med administration workflow causes workarounds. Map current-state with swimlanes, identify the failure point (e.g., scanner placement), redesign the future-state, test with users, then train role-based and provide at-the-elbow support. Rule of thumb: observe the work before you change the system-workflow first, technology second.
Key concepts
Current/future-state mapping, SDLC, testing levels, go-live support, roles, SEIPS/human factors, RCA.