Anticlue

Project Management and Healthcare

Project Management should be one of the hot topics for healthcare. The ability for health systems to be able to execute in a nimble strategic fashion is needed. Project Management is the tool in the toolbox that allows the ability to execute. Program Management or Portfolio management helps determine to which projects you make out the resource checks. The demand of the business community is insatiable, and rightfully so. There are numerous solutions that would enhance patient safety, quality of care, and the patient’s experience. There are PACs solutions, MAR, Order Entry, Clinical Documentation on the clinical side of the house. Obviously Wireless falls right into play here as does Remote Access. Decision Reporting from actual clinical data instead of revenue claims data would be ideal; however quality initiatives data normally comes from revenue data. Quite frankly, there is a lot that can be accomplished. The problem is accomplishing the activity with all of the operational maintenance that still needs to occur to existing systems.

Project Management helps to manage the implementation of the project. There is a plan of how to proceed from where you currently are to the desired state. Within the plan is a scope definition of what work will be accomplished this time. Work that is out of scope, can be handled by a scope change process. Questions, Problems, or concerns along the way are issues. Once there is a plan of what to do with an issue, add it to the work plan and close the issue.

Healthcare Facilities need to be better at managing projects in order to be able to accomplish what is needed to be done. However the management of a project is not the IT responsibility alone. It is across the board a partnership between the business and IT, not one vs. the other. Imagine the disastrous consequences of just allowing only IT involvement in implementing a clinical solution, or a revenue enhancement. Just on the lack of business buy-in to the solution it is bound to fail.