Anticlue: Reasons for Initiating a project

September 9, 2007

Reasons for Initiating a project

We in the industry all know, there is a plethora of reasons for initiating a project. Before we had a structured request method for project at one place, several ITers never lunched in he cafeteria because it just created a long streaming request pool of which was unprioritized. So let's discuss structured decision criteria aligned with strategic directives. According to PMI, organizations typically have 6 prime reasons for initiating a project:

Market Demand

Business Need

Customer Request

Technological Advance

Legal Requirement

Social Need

I think it would be an interesting exercise to relate these needs to the five pillars of healthcare: Services, People, Financial, Growth, and Quality. As sometimes technology is necessary to be in existence, I'd like to suggest agreeming upon an infrastructure category. For example, having smart infusion pumps require an 802.11 wireless network, but not an RFID functionality (if the tracking is being offered via 802.11, sometimes the RFID component of this just doesn’t pay for itself) So a wireless network is a required technology building block for a smart infusion pumps deployment.

An example of decision criteria with semi-fictious descriptions and examples.

Decision Criteria	Descriptions and Examples
*Services*
Improve Patient Satisfaction	~ Improves Responsiveness to Patient’s Needs ~ Improves Convenience for Appointments and Procedures
Improve Clinical Outcomes	~ Improve Quality of Care and Patient Safety (Reduce Medical Error Rates
Improves Community Relations and Outreach	~ Improves referrals from community physicians.
*People*
Physician Relations & Satisfaction	~ Improves access to online information at the point of care
Employee Satisfaction	~ Attract, recruit & retain high-performing workforce ~ Improve management controls of overtime and shift placement
*Financial*
Enhances Operational Efficiency	~ Turn around Times are reduced. ~ Patient Flow is Optimized. ~ Standardize Hospital Information System to reduce costs
Strong Return on Investment	~ Payback Period within five years ~ Internal Rate of Return at 12%.
*Growth*
Improves Market Share	~ Support new/enhanced clinical strategies (Cardiology, Stroke Center, Orthopedics)
Improves Competitive Advantage	~ Assures Inpatient, Outpatient, Rehab, and Long Term Care Growth
*Quality and Patient Safety*
Align with Regulatory Requirements	~ Project directly supports regulatory compliance, e.g. JACHO, HIPAA, OIG Guidelines, CMS guidelines, HEDIS guidelines, UNOS Reporting.
Process Improvement	~ Six Sigma Process Improvement Projects
Addresses Significant Deficiencies	~ Adverse Events are proactively detected and averted in a timely manner.
*Infrastructure*
Technology Building Block	~ Supports enhancing the exchange of information ~ Supports future technology additions.
Required Application Maintenance	~ Application has been retired.
Provides Essential Infrastructure	~ Moves from Microsoft and Novell to Linux

Aligning this with PMI standards would be as follows:

Decision Criteria	Descriptions and Examples
*Market Need*
Improves Market Share	~ Support new/enhanced clinical strategies (Cardiology, Stroke Center, Orthopedics)
Improves Competitive Advantage	~ Assures Inpatient, Outpatient, Rehab, and Long Term Care Growth
*Business Need*
Physician Relations & Satisfaction	~ Improves access to online information at the point of care
Improve Patient Satisfaction	~ Improves Responsiveness to Patient’s Needs ~ Improves Convenience for Appointments and Procedures
Improve Clinical Outcomes	~ Improve Quality of Care and Patient Safety (Reduce Medical Error Rates
Strong Return on Investment	~ Payback Period within five years ~ Internal Rate of Return at 12%.
*Customer Request*
Process Improvement	~ Six Sigma Process Improvement Projects
Addresses Significant Deficiencies	~ Adverse Events are proactively detected and averted in a timely manner.
Enhances Operational Efficiency	~ Turn around Times are reduced. ~ Patient Flow is Optimized. ~ Standardize Hospital Information System to reduce costs
Employee Satisfaction	~ Attract, recruit & retain high-performing workforce ~ Improve management controls of overtime and shift placement
*Technology Advancement*
Technology Building Block	~ Supports enhancing the exchange of information ~ Supports future technology additions.
Required Application Maintenance	~ Application has been retired.
Provides Essential Infrastructure	~ Moves from Microsoft and Novell to Linux
*Legal Requirement*
Align with Regulatory Requirements	~ Project directly supports regulatory compliance, e.g. JACHO, HIPAA, OIG Guidelines, CMS guidelines, HEDIS guidelines, UNOS reporting
*Social Need*
Improves Community Relations and Outreach	~ Improves referrals from community physicians.

So what was the purpose of this exercise? The 6 prime reasons for initiating a project can be used as a part of project selection criteria, and again aligned with the strategic relevance. Although I strongly recommend having the discussion of strategic goals and cascading those throughout the decision criteria. The important point is that the decision criteria must be applicable across the project request pool and without exception before project selection. This standardizes the process and implements a best practice.

Posted by Elyse at September 9, 2007 10:39 AM

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