Oak Township Medical Center Project Plan Project

Oak Township Medical Center Project Plan Project

For this Oak Township Medical Center Project Plan Project Assignment, you use the Oak Township Medical Center Case Study (attached below) to construct a schedule in ProjectLibre (attached below). Then, based on your own professional experiences, you identify three potential areas of uncontrolled changes to project scope that could impact the triple constraint (cost, scope, and time) for this project.

Respond to the following in a 2- to 3-page paper:

Justify how the tasks and their dependencies were determined to create the project schedule.

Identify three potential ways that this project could experience uncontrolled changes to project scope, and explain how you would mitigate or prevent these potential types of expansion.

Be specific and include at least 4 references to scholarly resources:

Martinelli, R. J., & Milosevic, D. Z. (2016).Project management toolbox: Tools and techniques for the practicing project manager

Links to an external site. (2nd ed.) Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Chapter 8, “Scope Management” (pp. 215–223)

Chapter 9, “Schedule Management” (pp. 237–271)

Chapter 10, “Cost Management” (pp. 273–299)

Sipes, C. (2019). Project management for the advanced practice nurse (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.

Chapter 5, “Implementation/Execution—Phase 3” (pp. 121–146)

Oak Township Medical Center Project Plan Project

How the tasks and their dependencies were determined to create the project schedule

The schedule of the project for Medication Administration System (MAS) is conducted through analyzing the logical flow of the phases of a project and their dependencies at the Oak Township Medical Center (OTMC). The project schedule for the MAS at OTMC was triggered through the
Initiation Phase
, which remains the most critical phase because it identifies the definition of the scope of the project, objectives identification, and identification of major stakeholders (Garg, 2023). The foundational phase for the entire work, which needs to be fully completed before further planning can also be undertaken. This is the foundation for an assurance that there is agreement on the part of all parties to the project on what the project involves, resources, and timelines. As such, it helped in preventing the cohesion and focus in the subsequent phases.

The immediate
post-initiation
plans systematically develop detailed activities, resources, timelines, and risks that would indicate the realization of the project. Their nature dictates that they will be derived from the successful completion of the initiation phase in that for an actionable plan to be made, the scope and objectives of the project need to be determined. Planning allows for the correct apportionment of resources, extremely realistic timelines, and risk known well in advance to avoid unexpected delays and cost overruns (Garg, 2023).

ORDER HUMAN-WRITTEN PAPER HERE

At the implementation Phase, the actual implementation takes place, with installing and configuration of the MAS systems also taking place. However, it cannot occur until after the planning phase, since the execution is based upon the plan that is provided-without a plan. This would also make the implementation not to have the direction it needs to ensure timely and efficient installation of the system. This is subsequently followed by the
Training Phase
, equally fundamental in the outcome of the whole project. At this phase, the staff does need proper training on how to use the new system efficiently. This, however, can only be affected once the system is up and running, which means that the training phase depends on the completion of the implementation phase (Garg, 2023). What proper training means is that the transition to the new system will be smooth and diminishes possible errors or inefficiencies during its actual use in the MAS.

The last phase is the
Go-Live Phase
, where the system goes into operational use within the medical center. However, this phase does not depend on the training phase to be very effective since not all staff members are well equipped in using the system. If there should be poor training of the staff, the go-live would have numerous difficulties in the aspect of mismanagement of the system, which would further lead to operational inefficiency or even impact patient safety (Knudsen et al., 2019). Proper training, therefore, before going live is crucial for a smooth transition.

Potential ways that this project could experience uncontrolled changes to project scope and mitigation strategies

Even with an excellent schedule, projects like MAS are liable to undergo uncontrolled changes in project scope. A source of uncontrolled changes could be additional functionality requests of the stakeholders in the implementation phase. For instance, the stakeholders may ask for extended functionality or other improvements which were not envisioned in the initial phase of the project. These types of requests have a tendency to inflate the scope of the project, thus making the project costly as well as taking more time than initially anticipated. Such cases, according to Martinelli & Milosevic (2016), are controlled through the inclusion of a formal change control process that analyzes the effect of the proposed changes on the cost, time, and quality of the project before its approval. This ensures changes are precisely controlled, hence only those changes that are strictly necessary and viable could be introduced without compromising the integrity of the whole project.

The other probable risk would be regarding changes to organizational priorities. As the health sector is highly dynamic, changes in priorities can shift the resources away from the project. The timeline and budget meant for it would then be seriously affected. For instance, if the new organizational priority becomes an urgent initiative, then the personnel or funding meant for MAS might get transferred, thus delaying the project. According to Sipes (2019), communication right from the inception of the project and consistency on the same will avoid such disruption. Contrary to this, periodic updating and frequent consultation with key decision-makers will ensure that the scope which the project is in line with priorities of the organization and any change in the latter is foreseen and integrated in due time. This is a healthy way of keeping the MAS project objectives sharp when an organizational change sets different priorities.

Lastly, there is the difficulty regarding statutory changes. This is mainly the health sector which is to be implemented to meet government standards. During the implementation process, there are new requirements, introduced by the governing bodies, to which modifications in the system or in its implementation methodology may be necessary. For example, additional safety for patients or legislation regarding data protection will need both changes in the system and cost and time-effective to implement. For this, the regulatory standards have to be reviewed at intervals throughout the planning and implementation stages. This would enable the project team to predict the changes in regulations in the future and comply with these changes without getting into major delays or cost over-run (Knudsen et al., 2019). In this way, the project will be ahead of the curve regarding updated regulations without compromising on scheduling or budgeting.

Project scheduling of the MAS at Oak Township Medical Center was done after having clearly analyzed the task dependencies throughout its phases. To put it differently, from the very start to the final go-live of the project, each phase completed provides a realistic platform on which the next step continues. However, there are risks of the uncontrolled changes in project scope, which entail requests for additions of features, changes in priorities of organizations and changes in regulations.  These might be potential shortcomings that could be minimized by some strategies such as a formal change control process, periodic consultation with stakeholders, and constant reviews of the regulatory environment. The delivered project would be on target and within an accurate estimate of time and budget.

 

References

Garg, A. (2023). 
Monitoring tools for setting up the hospital project: initial planning, building and equipment
. Springer Nature.

Knudsen, S. V., Laursen, H. V. B., Johnsen, S. P., Bartels, P. D., Ehlers, L. H., & Mainz, J. (2019). Can quality improvement improve the quality of care? A systematic review of reported effects and methodological rigor in plan-do-study-act projects. 
BMC health services research
, 
19
, 1-10.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4482-6

Martinelli, R. J., & Milosevic, D. Z. (2016). Project management toolbox: Tools and techniques for the practicing project manager

Sipes, C. (2019). Project management for the advanced practice nurse (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.

 

NURS 6441

Oak Township Medical Center Case Study

Oak Township Medical Center (OTMC) in Georgia, a 600-bed hospital, has expanded

significantly over the past 3 years. In an effort to respond to the increased workload of

all hospital staff, the chief information officer (CIO) and the vice president of patient care

services (VP-PCS) at OTMC determined the need to analyze hospital processes

throughout the organization.

The OTMC organizational analysis revealed a number of areas that needed

improvement. At the same time, broad changes in regulatory requirements required

immediate adjustments in processes.

The organizational analysis was conducted across all departments and found the

following organization-wide issues:

 Quality reviews discovered a hospital-wide medication administration error rate of

20% with some tasks identified as redundant tasks.

 Complying with new federal reporting requirements has increased the time

needed to complete the medication administration process.

OTMC responded to the problem by purchasing an enterprise-wide healthcare

information system (HIS) from Topmost, one of the leading enterprise-software vendors

in the country. The functionality of the system directly addresses the medication

administration issues found in the organizational analysis. Several modules of an

electronic health record system (EHRS) have already been implemented, as shown in

the table below. As an employee of Topmost, you are charged with implementing this

medication administration system (MAS) for OTMC, the final phase of the EHRS

project. This MAS includes an electronic medication administration record (eMAR),

Barcode Medication Administration (BCMA), and physical administration of medication.

Note: For the remainder of this scenario, this whole process will be referred to as the

Medication Administration System (MAS).

Module Implementation Status

Module in the HIS

System

Status of Module Implementation

Fully

implemented

Partially

implemented

In pilot Not yet

implemented

ADT (Accounting System) X

Order Entry/Results

Reporting OE/RR)

X

Billing and Financials X

Ambulatory and Acute

Care Clinical

X

Module in the HIS

System

Status of Module Implementation

Fully

implemented

Partially

implemented

In pilot Not yet

implemented

Documentation System

Laboratory X

Medication Administration

System (MAS)

X

Note that the MAS module has not been implemented.

The CIO and VP-PCS relate that there are a number of challenges associated with the

OTMC HIS program, including the MAS project. One risk is that the initial

implementation of the MAS may result in a temporary increase in medication errors.

Another risk is that staff resistance to the new workflows and processes brought about

by the MAS may cause delays in the completion of the implementation.

In meetings with the CIO and VP, they state that the first task is to develop the project

charter. The MAS team is assigned specific elements to be included in the project

charter: the mission of the project, the problem statement, the project objectives, key

stakeholders, milestones, and risks for the project.

A new chief medical information officer (CMIO) has been hired. This CMIO does not

have the informatics expertise required to lead this critical and large project; however,

the CMIO has gained solid experience on small-scale decision-support projects at a

former institution while studying informatics in graduate school. The CMIO is looking

forward to learning from you.

The budget for the MAS project is approved up to $1 million. If more than $1 million is

needed to implement the project, the additional expenditure must be justified in a project

plan that key stakeholders approve. The software application for the MAS and

necessary hardware have already been purchased, but they have not been delivered.

You have a timeline of 6 months to complete the MAS project.