System Development Life Cycle

Introducing a new clinical information system or component, including electronic health record systems, is a major undertaking for healthcare organizations. Approaching their introduction without strategy or planning will likely result in failure and disaster, sometimes causing harm to patients. In this chapter, we describe the system development life cycle (SDLC), a common framework for the introduction for new information systems in organizations. The SDLC is used by clinical organizations to systematically approach the introduction of new information systems. The chapter describes each phase of the lifecycle as well as the components of each phase. Readers will also explore common SDLC scenarios and decisions that clinical informaticists face in practice.