Question

Develop an EHR project charter and implementation plan, including the individuals that would be on the project team. Evaluate the primary risks and barriers you might encounter with some specific strategies to overcome those barriers.

Answer 1

The EHR implementation project charter documents and tracks the necessary information required by decision maker to approve the project for funding. The project charter includes the needs, scope, justification, and resource commitment as well as the project’s sponsor decision to proceed or not to proceed with the project.

The intended audience of the EHR implementation project charter is the project sponsor and senior leadership.

Project Overview:
Managing the health records at hospitals is becoming a critical task which requires huge manpower and is a labor intensive work. The manual data can also get lost over time. In such cases to ease the daily operations and ensure data integrity and security, electronic health records are used. In this project, we aim to implement a state of art EHR to assist the operations staff create and retrieve data as required.

Objective: Successfully implement EHR (compatible electronic records systems) at local Healthcare

Functional tactics:
• Identify Areas of improvement
• Identify stakeholders who will drive the implementation
• Identify solutions
• Plan risk mitigation strategy
• Plan Change management activities
• Implementation and rollout to all sites

Action Items:
1. Identify the project team to drive the technology implementation.
2. Identify Areas of improvement using expert advice, internal ideas.
3. Identify stakeholders who will drive the technology implementation
4. Identify solutions using SWOT
5. Prepare risk register and plan mitigation strategy
6. Plan Change management and promotional activities
7. Phase wise Testing, Implementation and rollout to all sites

Detailed action items:
1. Identify the major stakeholders and project team to drive the implementation
a. Identify the project sponsor, project leader and project manager. Project sponsor is the one who has the final say in the project with regards to finance, project solution and approach and time period of implementation. She/he is the wholesome owner of the project and the face to Healthcare board members/ council for implementation.

b. A suitable project leader who has significant experience in deployment of healthcare based solutions should be identified to drive the design, planning and strategic framework for successful implementation. She/he should ideally be experienced in delivering multiple large scale projects in the defined timelines and able to work in budget constraints. A leader who has successfully implemented a solution will find it easier to communicate her/his ideas to project team members as well the existing staff of Healthcare for successful implementation.

c. A project manager who can design the project plan and follow up the day to day activities is another clog in successful implementation of a project. Project manager should ideally be someone from Healthcare who has hands on experience of problems faced by redundant solutions being used at Healthcare. She/he will also be able to quickly identify potential problems with regards to change management issues.

2. Identify Areas of improvement

a. Identification of the areas that require potential up gradation in technology is another vital factor in successfully delivering the solution Healthcare needs.

b. The day to day activities should be documented and designed as process using any available process design tools.

c. After documentation of process, all areas which require improvement should be identified. If the identified process provides a significant improvement in delivering value, only then should it be considered for up gradation.

d. Based on the requirements, a project charter needs to be prepared for circulating the requirements, possible solutions and benefits to stakeholders to get their approvals and go ahead on the same.

e. Do market research to identify whether the problem has been successfully tackled in other sectors. Check if the solution can be replicated.

3. Identify solutions
a. The standard practice to identify solution is to bring an external expert who has knowledge on the latest technological advances and solutions used in Healthcare.

b. The solution should be long term rather than a short fix to a problem

c. It should also be cost effective solution which can indirectly benefit the patients using Healthcare

d. The identified solution must be validated with the organizations IT and Technology team for integration and data transfer compatibilities.

e. The solutions should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound)

4. Plan risk mitigation strategy
a. A risk mitigation strategy should be prepared to deal with any issues that can result in disruption of business continuity.

b. Risk is an event that stops the functioning of an organization and eventually affects the business continuity.

c. To be prepared with a risk mitigation strategy, one should ideally prepare a risk register.

d. A risk register is a document that has all the risks associated with a function with regards to natural calamities, technology failure, machine failure, process deficiency, human rights violation and issues, etc.

e. All possible risk events should be identified and corresponding risk solutions should be provided. All events should be ranked and based on the risk having highest impact, the mitigation strategies should be implemented.

5. Plan Change management activities
a. To drive change management activities, the project manager should act a change champion across Healthcare and communicate the benefits of using the latest solutions.
b. She/he should use promotional events/ banners/ teasers/ demos etc. to gather the interest of staff and effectively communicate the benefits.
c. While planning change related activities, it is always wise to start from top management to ensure constant support.
d. Have a dedicated contact person to obtain continuous feedback regarding change in technology, process and change management activities.

6. Testing, Implementation and rollout to all sites
a. Once the solution has been finalized, a project charter approved and time lines agreed, the development and implementation begins.
b. It is possible that the solution Healthcare requires is a customized solution and will require minor changes to be done.
c. The IT and technology team of Healthcare must validate the solution before implementing so as to avoid any potential issues during go live of solution.
d. The testing should be done in phase wise manner and any issues if observed should be shared to solution provider to rectify the same.
e. After all major issues are successfully mitigated, solution can be deployed.