Consider the following business case study on Improving Public Health Informatics. As a competent project manager working for a consulting company, the Program manager has called you in for advice on the current project communication plan. Please bear in mind that you are acting independently, and as an experienced PM write a report on the following points:

1. Report your assessment of the current project communication plan.
2. Compare your assessment with sound project management practices.
3. Recommend a communication plan for future project involving stakeholders from different sectors
4. Justify your recommendation

Case Study: Improving Public Health Informatics

In the event of a major disease outbreak, senior managers need to respond in a timely fashion. To be able to do so, one needs to have all the latest information and data to make an appropriate decision. The County Health Department (CHD) ’ s strategic plan specifies increasing capacities for the program evaluation and response to major communicable disease outbreaks. Senior managers have identified the need to improve informatics capacity as an important step toward meeting these goals.

Currently, each community health services program of CHD has information systems that effectively track specific information for their assigned work. However, the systems were designed reactively without considering future expansions or an updated public health data plan. Each data base is almost a standalone system. While the state data bases are linked to CHD ’ s data bases, the environmental data bases are not linked with communicable disease data bases. Representatives from the Tuberculosis (TB) program, for example, had to enter identical client information in four different places. Moreover, the state mandates the public health department report the health conditions of its citizens and control infectious diseases. In order for this to happen, one needs informatics systems that are capable of tracking infectious diseases and reporting all investigations in a timely manner.

While the benefits of an integrated data base stand out, most employees in CHD are reluctant to change, particularly with regard to adopting and using a new technology as evidenced by the implementations of the EMR systems and other specifically designed data bases. To ensure success of the implementation, the project manager must provide relevant information to the stakeholders on a regular basis. This case focuses on project communication management, especially within the communication plan.

THE BIG PROJECT:

It all began when a new epidemiologist, hired by CHD, articulated the need to have an integrated public

health informatics system. With the new system, the reporting of infectious diseases as well as possible future outbreaks could be done in a timely fashion. The decision makers can then make an appropriate decision.

 

The communicable disease section of the county health department has taken the lead in championing this

project. The team includes two IT engineers and the epidemiologist, who will be overseeing the project. The team is responsible for gathering business processes and information system requirements, working closely with stakeholders, and at the same time, training IT engineers using the best practices developed by the Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII). The project duration is expected to be from six to twelve months

 

and the team will provide monthly updates as well as ad hoc updates whenever specific information is needed by the stakeholders.

 

The team has extensive experience in working together on previous successful projects such as the EMR implementation, EPIC implementation, and the communicable disease data bases ’ state wide expansion. It is the team’s firm belief that this project, to integrate a variety of data bases into a system that can communicate to one another, is doable.

 

PM: The initial idea of this project was formulated several years ago but it did not get the support it needed. Now we are bringing it back to life. And I know that you guys (IT engineers) are in favour of it and are ready to take the lead in this, with interoperability and data sharing in mind, while at the same time conforming to Public Health Informatics Institute ’ s best practices.

 

Dan: Correct. However, I am wondering who is going to fund this project as the health department is struggling and currently lacks the necessary resources.

 

PM: There is a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) which is affiliated with the Public Health Informatics Institute who specifically funds the struggling local health department ’ s public health information systems to meet their daily operational needs. I am going to put together the grant proposal and I need inputs from you guys.

Tim: Let me know what you need.

Dan: Do we have full support of the department leadership this time?

PM: Yes, this time we have the absolute support of the entire leadership team. However, we have to make

sure that we keep them updated with project status. In fact, learning from past projects, communication is very important for system implementation. We have to make sure that we communicate well with all project stakeholders.

Tim: I agree.  But, all stakeholders? That will be tough.

COLLABORATIVE PROCESS AND COMMUNICATION PLAN

To engage project stakeholders, the team followed a collaborative process (Figure 10.3 ). By following the process, external and internal stakeholders understood the information system’s support role as well as how it worked. The team also developed a communication plan and used it to avoid communication breakdown and, more importantly, to ensure that appropriate correspondence existed between all stakeholders in the project.  An example of the communication plan is shown in Table 10.4

Figure 10.3 The Collaborative Methodology Process

Table 10.4 Communication Plan

Ref: CASE STUDIES IN PROJECT, PROGRAM, AND ORGANIZATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT Dragan Z.

Milosevic, Peerasit Patanakul & Sabin Srivannaboon Copyright 0 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Marking criteria:

Example of marking criteria is shown in following table. Marks are allocated as follows:

Note: The Marking Criteria Varies For Each Assignment

Section to be included in the report	Description of the section	Marks
Introduction	Executive summary and background of the case study	5
Case Study Assessment     1.       Report on the current communication Plan       2.       Communication Plan assessment Vs project management practice	Discuss if the communication plan adopted in this project is realistic enough in terms of communicating to all stakeholders of the project.       Comparison of assessment from the case study and project management practices.	10             10
Recommendation	Publicly run projects are quite different from privately run projects. Recommend different communications plan that would be needed in a project involving stakeholder from different sectors, example unions, government agencies, contractors etc.. opposed to a private organization project.	10
Evaluate/justification	justification of your proposed communication plan recommendation	5
Conclusion	Write summary of the report	5
Reference style	Follow IEEE reference style	5
	Total	50

 

 

Example Marking Rubric for Assignment #: Total Marks 50

Note: The Marking Rubrics Varies For Each Assignment

Grade Mark	HD40-50	DI 35-44	CR 30-34	P 25-29	Fail<25
	Excellent	Very Good	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory
Introduction  /5	All topics are pertinent and covered in depth. Ability to think critically and source material is demonstrated	Topics are relevant and soundly analysed.	Generally relevant and analysed.	Some relevance and briefly presented.	This is not relevant to the assignment topic.
Identification  /10	Demonstratedexcellent ability to think critically and sourced reference material appropriately	Demonstrat ed excellent ability to think critically but did not source reference material appropriately	Demonstratedability to think critically and sourced reference material appropriately	Demonstrated ability to think critically and did not source reference material appropriately	Did notdemonstrate ability to think critically and did not source reference material appropriately
Analyse  /10	Logic is clear and easy to follow with strong arguments	Consistency logical and convincing	Mostly consistent logical and convincing	Adequate cohesion and conviction	Argument is confused and disjointed
Design  /10	All elements are present and very well integrated.	Components present with good cohesive	Components present and mostly well integrated	Most components present	Proposal lacks structure.
Evaluate/justific ation    /5	Excellent use of creditable sources. Accurate referencing. Obvious thatoutstanding effort made	Extremely good effort	Good effort made but not outstanding	Made someeffort. For example, Web searches only	Very little attempt to reference. Lazy effort with inaccuracies
Conclusion  /5	Logic is clear and easy to follow with strong arguments	Consistency logical and convincing	Mostly consistent logical and convincing	Adequate cohesion and conviction	Argument is confused and disjointed
Reference style  /5	Clear styles with excellent source of references.	Clear referencing style	Generally good referencing style	Sometimesclear referencing style	Lacks consistency with many errors

 

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