project charter part 2
TRANSCRIPT
Running head: PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 1
Project Charter Part 2
Student’s Name:
Institutional Affiliation:
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 2
Project Description
Many health facilities across the world struggle with lengthy waiting times for their
patients. In the US, the Institute of Medicine has referred to the long waiting times, especially in
the emergency outpatient departments of health facilities as a national epidemic. Scholarly
studies as across the US have also shown that the average waiting times across health facilities to
be at least twice the recommended waiting time for acute patients (Xie & Or, 2017). In a study
showed that the average wait time across the US would be twenty minutes. A different study
conducted by Nottingham, Johnson, & Russell, R(2018), showed that at least more than half of
the patients would take four hours to receive treatment. According to Nottingham et al. (2018),
long waiting times will lead to more negative outcomes in health facilities. Some of the negative
outcomes on the individual level will include low satisfaction levels among the patients relating
to the services received and unhappy patients. Patients who are subjected to long waiting times in
health facilities may not return to such health facilities in the future while others may decide to
leave the health facilities without being attended to and therefore put their health at risk (Chu,
Westbrook, Njue-Marendes, et al., 2019).
The Technology Assisted Reduction in Time to Treatment (TARTx) project will,
therefore, focus on reducing the patient waiting time through the incorporation of electronic
health records management technology in a health facility. The projects will be implemented
throughout all the departments of the PGH hospital. In a past feasibility study in the hospital, it
was observed that the use of paper records across the facility was quite a time consuming and
patients had to wait for at least 5- 10 minutes before their records were tracked from the paper
files. Through the use of paper-based health records, the organization only served around six to
twelve patients every hour. The introduction of TARTx would help to reduce the tracking times
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 3
in the PGH hospital to about only one to two minutes. Through the implementation of the
TARTx project, which would lead to the introduction of electronic health records systems
(EHRS), the PGH hospital would thus be able to serve at least 30 patients an hour, which would
be an increase of the patients served by at least 150%. The effectiveness of the TARTx project in
PGH would thus be evaluated across a period of at least six months since the introduction of the
project. The number of patients served every hour in PGH hospital at this time would be
compared with the projected outcomes and improvements noted and the success of the project
evaluated. The Electronic Health Record-System (EHRS) manager will be the project manager
and would lead a team of physicians, clinicians, and IT experts in the implementation of the
TARTx project. The implementation of the project would mainly include the project manager
working with IT experts to install the EHRS in all departments of the PGH hospital. The IT
experts would need to digitize the paper-based file systems in the hospital. The next step in the
implementation of the TARTx would be the training of the physicians and clinicians to utilize
the EHRS, which would help reduce the waiting times in PGH hospital greatly. After they have
been trained, the physicians and clinicians would then be expected to train all their team
members and subordinates, including nurse practitioners, nurse assistants, and all the other staff
working in PGH hospital. The electronic health record system which would be utilized in the
TARTx project would be supplied by the Fast Track IT Company. The Technology Assisted
Reduction in Time to Treatment (TARTx) project would be funded by the PGH hospital in
partnership with the Department of health and human service and the Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality (AHRQ). The implementation of the TARTx project s in PGH hospital
would take $250,000 and at least $100, 000 maintenance cost for the electronic health records
systems every year.
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 4
Project Purpose
The replacement of paper-based health records with electronic health record systems in
health facilities has been shown to reduce the waiting times for patients by at least two thirds and
promote positive outcomes across such facilities. The reduction in patient wait times in health
facilities leads to more patient satisfaction with the services they receive, more timely
interventions to patients which increase the chances of recovery and reduce recovery time, and
the likeliness of patients to return to a health facility in the future (Xie & Or, 2017). The
implementation of EHRS helps to reduce patient wait times in a health facility, which improves
patient outcomes and boosts the efficiency and profitability of a health facility (Jamoom, Yang,
& Hing, 2016). The purpose of the Technology Assisted Reduction in Time to Treatment
(TARTx) project would be to reduce the wait times of patients in PGH hospital from the average
ten minutes to just one or two minutes. This would have many benefits on PGH hospitals,
including improvement in patient outcomes, the rise of patient satisfaction rates in the hospitals,
and finally, an increase in profitability across the health facility as more patients would be
attended to in a short period of time. The TARTx project would revolutionize service delivery in
PGH hospital.
Business Case Justification for the Project
In contemporary times health facilities operate under tight margins, which come from
less funding and through reimbursement guidelines from government agencies. Patients in the
modern-day also demand more health services and are normally conscious of the cost that such
services may bring them. In this regard, every project that health facility takes up must make
business sense for the facility. The implementation of Technology-Assisted Reduction in Time to
Treatment (TARTx) in PGH hospital would be justified in the business angle as it would help
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 5
increase both the efficiency and the profitability of the health facility (Hirsch, Jones, Lerch, Tang
et al., 2017). It is estimated that the TARTx project, which would include the implementation of
an EHRS in PGH hospital, would cost the facility at least $250,000 and at least $100, 000
maintenance cost. Such cost would be low, considering that the implementation of the project
would provide the facility with the ability to increase the number of patients attended per hour by
at least 150%. This would correspond to at least a 50% increase in the profitability in the hospital
in the first year of the implementation of the project. As such, profitability would continue to rise
with time as more patients would be satisfied with the services they receive in PGH hospitals and
provide good reviews for the facility to their peers. The number of patients visiting the family
would rise gradually and result in increased profitability across the hospital without comprising
the quality of health services offered.
Impact of the Implementation of the Project
Though the implementation of the TARTx project in PGH hospital would be met with
resistance from the staff, effective training and education of such staff on how to utilize the
system would wear down this resistance. Through the adoption of change models such as Kurt
Lewin’s model of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing such resistance among the hospital staff
would be dealt with effectively (Nottingham et al., 2018). The implementation of the TARTx
project would lead to the establishment of an efficient and reliable health system in PGH
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 6
hospital. Such a system would ensure that processes across the facility are efficient with patient
satisfaction, patient outcomes, and the number of patients attended to expected to improve.
Objective Evidence to Support the Need for Project
According to Morais, Marti, Ramlawi, Sarasin, Grosgurin, & Poletti, (2018), the
average wait times across all the health facilities in the US was at least 18 minutes and 13
seconds. This has therefore been an improvement across the past decade; however, this is still
ways much longer than most patients are comfortable writing. A different study also indicated
that emergency rooms across the US had longer wait times, with the longest being 49 minutes,
which was recorded in the District of Columbia. On the other hand, Colorado had the lowest
average wait time for patients with only 10 minutes. According to Chu et al. (2019), longer wait
times of patients will have many effects on patients. Most of the patients who wait for a longer
period before being attended to in a health facility will be more likely to report lower satisfaction
rates towards the health services they receive and also state high levels of unhappiness.
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 7
According to Morais et al. (2018), patients who wait for long times may decide not to ever return
to the health facilities with such experiences while some patients can decide to leave unattended
and therefore risk their health.
In PGH hospital, the wait time for patients was 5- 10 minutes on average. There is a need
to reduce this wit time further to at least 1- 2 minutes average, which would be possible through
the replacement of the paper-based health records systems with the electronic health records
system. Such a reduction in wait times in the PGH hospitals through the implementation of the
TARTx project would ensure help to improve patients satisfaction rates in the health facility,
boost patients outcomes, improve efficiency and profitability of the health facility.
SMART Objectives Related To Project
The SMART objectives to achieve the success of the TARTx project would be as follows:
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 8
a) The purchasing of the electronic health records system from Fast Track IT Company and
installation in all the departments of PGH hospital within the thirty days since the
commencement of the project.
b) The training of physicians and clinicians on how to use EHRS by the IT experts and the
project manager within for a period of thirty days after the installation of EHRS.
c) The implementation of the EHRS in all the departments of PGH hospital within ninety
days after the commencement of the project.
d) The evaluation of patient wait times of patients in PGH hospital six months since the
commencement of the project.
Project Scope
The TARTx project aims at reducing patient wait times in PGH hospitals, which will help
improve patient satisfaction rates in the facility, improve patient outcomes, improve efficiency,
and increase the profitability of the health facility. This goal will be achieved through the
replacement of the traditional paper-based health records system with the modern electronic
health records systems. The implementation of the TARTx project would reduce the patient wait
times in PGH hospital from an average of 10 minutes to an average of 1-2 minutes. The success
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 9
of the TARTx project can only be affected by resistance to change in the organization and the
lack of adequate funding.
Project Deliverables
The TARTx project deliverables will include:
a) Delivery of the EHRS system to PGH hospital.
b) The installation of the EHRS system to all departments by the project manager and IT
experts within the first month of delivery.
c) The training of physicians and clinicians on how to use the EHRS by the project
manager and the IT experts.
d) The training of all subordinates in all the departments of PGH hospital on how to use the
EHRS.
e) The adoption of the EHRs systems in all departments of the PGH hospital.
Project Milestones
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 10
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of PGH hospital, Chief Information Officer (CIO),
R.M, with the approval of the hospital board will appoint the project manager to introduce the
electronic health records management systems on August 8, 2020. The project manager will then
embark on planning the implementation of the TARTx project, which will take at least thirty
days. The Project manager will then get the approval of the TARTx project on September 8,
2020, from the CEO, the CIO, the hospital board, and the health professionals. After approval,
the fusing for the TARTx project will then be provided with both the AHRQ and the HHS being
expected to chip in. This will take a month for the funding to be obtained. The project manager
will then purchase the EHRS system by October 15, 2020, from Fast Tack IT solutions. With the
help of the IT experts and expatriates from Fast Tack IT solutions, the project manager will
ensure that the new EHRs systems are installed in all departments of PGH hospital and that the
old paper-based records are digitized by December 20, 2020. The project manager will then
coordinate training sessions for clinicians and physicians through the assistance of IT experts by
February 20, 2021. The physician and clinicians will then train their team members and
subordinates on how to use the EHRS by March 15, 2021. The use of EHRS systems will then be
adopted across the PGH on March 22, 2021. At the end of six months since the adoption of the
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 11
EHRS program, the patient wait times across PGH hospital will be evaluated on September 22,
2021.
Timeline Completion Date
The project manager will embark on the
planning of the TARTx project August 9,
2020
September 6, 2020
Project manager gets approval for the TARTx
project from CEO, CIO, and Hospital board
on September 7, 2020
September 8, 2020
The project manager will seek funding for
the TARTx project beginning September 9,
2020
October 9, 2020
The project manager will purchase the EHRS
from Fast Tack It Solutions October 10, 2020
October 15, 2020
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 12
The project manager and IT experts will
embark of the installation of the EHRs system
o in all PGH hospital department from
October 16, 2020
December 20, 2020
Training session for clinicians and physicians
will begin on January 10, 2021
February 20, 2021
Training session for subordinate members of
PGH will begin on February 22, 2021
March 15, 2021
Implementation of EHRS system across PGH
March 22, 2021
March 22, 2021
Evaluation of patient waiting times across
PGH from September 22, 2021
October 22, 2021
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 13
References
Chu, H., Westbrook, R.A., Njue-Marendes, S. et al. (2019). The psychology of the wait time
experience – what clinics can do to manage the waiting experience for patients: a
longitudinal, qualitative study. BMC Health Serv Res 19, 459.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4301-0.
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 14
Hirsch, A. G., Jones, J. B., Lerch, V. R., Tang, X., Berger, A., Clark, D. N., & Stewart, W. F.
(2017). The electronic health record audit file: the patient is waiting. Journal of the
American Medical Informatics Association, 24(e1), e28-e34.
Jamoom, E., Yang, N., & Hing, E. (2016). Adoption of certified electronic health record systems
and electronic information sharing in physician offices: United States, 2013, and 2014.
US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics.
Morais O. M, Marti C, Ramlawi M, Sarasin FP, Grosgurin O, & Poletti P-A, (2018). Impact of
a patient-flow physician coordinator on waiting times and length of stay in an emergency
department: A before-after cohort study. PLoS ONE 13(12): e0209035.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209035.
Nottingham, Q.J., Johnson, D.M., & Russell, R.S., (2018) The Effect of Waiting Time on
Patient Perceptions of Care Quality, Quality Management Journal, 25:1, 32
45, DOI: 10.1080/10686967.2018.1404368.
Xie, Z., & Or, C. (2017). Associations Between Waiting Times, Service Times, and Patient
PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 15
Satisfaction in an Endocrinology Outpatient Department: A Time Study and
Questionnaire Survey. Inquiry: a journal of medical care organization, provision, and
financing, 54, 46958017739527. https://doi.org/10.1177/0046958017739527.