Running head: EHR PROJECT PLAN DRAFT 1

EHR Project Plan Draft

Nina Rudolph

Rasmussen College

Author Note

This paper is being submitted on April 26, 2019, for LaTarsha Turner’s HI300/HIM3001

Section 01 Information and Communication Technologies - Online course.

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EHR Project Plan Draft

Goals:

The overall goal of this project is to implement an electronic health record system within

the organization of Good Apples Group. The implementation of the system is however, just the

bigger picture. This system will include many objectives along the way in order to form the

“bigger picture”. By the end of this project, Good Apples Group will have a fully implemented

electronic health record system in place.

Objectives:

Creating project management team Researching Information

Rewriting policies and procedures (EHR’s, departmental needs)

Training staff Updating technology

Set up interoperability Purchasing (hardware, desks etc.)

Scope:

This project has many things that will be accomplished upon completion of it. Overall,

the new EHR system will improve functions within the financial as well as the clinical aspects of

the company. I am confident that this implementation will create more timely care for patients.

This would be in the form of being able to access patient information in a more quick and

efficient way. Things such as past history of the patients care will be quickly recovered via the

electronic health record (EHR) and be displayed in real-time. Staff will be able to access the

information at the point of care. This project will eliminate: unnecessary lab tests or x-rays,

reduce the amount of errors, and reduce the risk of drug allergies. Good Apples Group will see
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an improvement in overall patient care and quality. They will also notice patient safety measures

improve. Computers and laptops will be able to be utilized in and out of patient’s rooms in order

to capture things at the time of care. Assessments will be able to be completed at the bedside of

the residents directly into the software and staff will be able to look at past assessments during

anytime they may need.

Description of Organization:

The Good Apples Group maintains several clinics as well as a hospital within Shiminy,

Pennsylvania. Everybody knows everyone and they maintain a very down-to-earth culture with a

pace to match it. They work hard and value balancing customer service and cutting edge patient

care. The hospital, MacIntosh Manor Hospital has 500 beds. They provide many different types

of care such as: hospice care, Home care, surgical care, acute care, emergency room services,

health education services, behavioral services and outpatient services. They also have several

clinics that are all local. The organization believes in high quality services that enhance and

promote quality of life as well as healthy lifestyles, Their belief not only resonates with just their

patients but also the clients, employees, organization, and the community.

Project Lifecycles:

Initiating-

During this phase of the project I will be creating a project management team. The

members of the project management team that I will be including are: Project sponsor, project
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manager, development team, Operations manager, Head of nursing, chief medical officer as well

as the chief financial officer. Together we will look over the overall goal of implementing the

EHR and deliberate different areas and ideas for the completion of the project. In figuring out

how to get to the completion of the project we will be discussing the objectives of the goal and if

they are feasible to achieve. For instance, will our current financial state be accommodating of

the costs of implementing an EHR with new hardware and software? The project management

team will them be informing the stakeholders of the upcoming electronic medical record project.

Planning-

During this phase of the project the project management team will discuss what is

required for the project. Some items that this project will need are current processes within the

organization so that new processes can eventually get included within them. For example, record

receiving, medication ordering, assessment completion, etc. We would also need to look into

what the EHR requires as far as software on the current computers with the organization. All this

information (requirements) will be displayed into a project management plan. The team would

also need to identify possible risks to the project. One thing that is a risk would be the chance

that current software will not be compatible with the new technology and we will need to

purchase or upgrade resulting in higher costs for the overall project than planned. We will be

setting aside a small amount to offset those costs if that shall happen.

Execution-

In this phase we will start working on the goals and goal dates of the project plan the

team created. We will designate certain departments in helping to complete them as necessary.
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Human resource, director of nursing, operations manager and compliance officers will work on

rewriting the different policies and procedures for things like assessment completions, ordering

medications, alerts within the system, drug allergies, data collection, etc. There will be a small

team put together to research in the different EHR systems and look at our current technology

compatibility with those. They will also be looking at purchasing hardware for nurses to be able

to have mobile devices they can take from room to room. Perhaps some stationary devices for

staff to document resident care with. There will need to be training completed for staff to be

educated on the usage of the new technology as well as knowledge on the new processes that

have changed due to the implementation of it. In this phase there will also be monitoring of the

due dates and progress of each action item. You can’t train on new hardware if it hasn’t been

installed yet. We will also go about and make sure we are openly talking with staff about the

many different benefits of this implementation. We will try to help everyone see the need and

possible become excited about the changes that are coming. This will help build morale and

acceptance of the new project as some may not be completely on board with the idea of change.

We will keep the stakeholders updated on where we are at with our goal dates and project action

plan.

Closing-

After the electronic medical record has been completely implemented we will hold a

project management team meeting to look over our complete strategy. Did it work to bring in

certain departments for things, should we have waited for writing new processes? What things

made it easy and what made it harder. What things could we have done differently or the same

for next time? We will write down our journey through the implementation of the system with

Good Apple Group and keep it for future project planning.