NURS 6431 Week 5 Developing a PICO Question Essay Assignment

Sally Smith is a nurse informaticist at the Forest View Hospital in a small midwestern town. The organization has just completed a project: moving to a new, more efficient electronic patient record (EPR) system for capturing and analyzing patient information. The CFO of the hospital, who was hesitant about spending the large amount of money required for the project, now wants justification of the value of the purchase and implementation. She has asked Sally to conduct an evaluation.

Consider how Sally might proceed. Perhaps she wants to determine how the doctors use the system. Or maybe she wants to measure the time it takes for nurses to input data using this system versus the older one. She might even want to evaluate the ease of answering research questions with information stored in the system. In order to effectively address the desired area of interest, Sally chooses to develop a PICO (population/patient problem, intervention, comparison, and outcome) question that clearly articulates what she hopes to determine from the evaluation.

This week, you review the parts of a PICO question, and you develop a question that addresses the evaluation goal and viewpoint for the scenario you selected last week.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

Formulate a PICO question for a health information technology evaluation plan
Evaluate PICO questions for thoroughness and clarity

NURS 6431 Week 5 Discussion: Developing PICO Questions

Determining the topic of an evaluation is one of the most important steps of the evaluation process. In the process of selecting a topic for evaluation, researchers should reflect on what information needs to be gathered and how it will be used. A PICO question can provide the foundation for this process. The PICO question requires researchers to determine the population to be studied, select the intervention that occurred or will occur (such as a new system), have a baseline with which to compare the evaluation, and finally, have a standard to measure the outcome of the project. Using a PICO question as a guideline helps ensure the evaluation is focused and effective.

In this Discussion, you generate a PICO question that corresponds to the Evaluation Plan Focus you developed last week.

To prepare:

Develop a PICO question based on the Evaluation Plan Focus Assignment completed last week.
Reflect on why it is important that this question be answered. Identify the “who cares?” factor.

By Day 3

Post a summary of key points (evaluation goal, viewpoint, and model) from your Evaluation Plan Focus Assignment. Post your PICO question. Explain why you developed this question, and why it is important to be considered.

By Day 6

Respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days. Critique each of their PICO questions. Do they clearly pose the question to be answered? Are the questions narrow enough but not too narrow? Do the questions accurately reflect the evaluation goal, viewpoint, and model? Provide constructive feedback that will help strengthen each PICO question.

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