University Hospital: Process Improvement Project - Phase II

This project focuses on process improvement within a hospital setting, specifically addressing delays in patient intake, discharge, and ICU transfers. It explores the application of the Scrum methodology, contrasting it with Waterfall and Agile approaches, to enhance efficiency. The project outlines a detailed plan for implementation, including a project timeline and a comprehensive communication plan to ensure stakeholder alignment. It identifies key business functions impacted by the changes, such as patient intake and discharge, and emphasizes the importance of employee empowerment, collaboration, and overcoming barriers within the project. The evaluation phase includes metrics like productivity, customer satisfaction, and employee satisfaction scores to measure project success. The project highlights the importance of continuous monitoring and analysis to achieve the desired improvements in patient care and hospital efficiency.

Running head: PROCESS IMPROVEMENT PROJECT IN HOSPITALS
Process Improvement Project in Hospitals
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1PROCESS IMPROVEMENT PROJECT IN HOSPITALS
Table of Contents
Phase II: Planning and Implementation...........................................................................................2
1. Identification of Methodologies and Strategies.......................................................................2
2. Typical Business Functions to be impacted.............................................................................3
3. Project Timeline.......................................................................................................................4
4. Communication Plan...............................................................................................................4
Phase III: Evaluation........................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................7

2PROCESS IMPROVEMENT PROJECT IN HOSPITALS
Phase II: Planning and Implementation
1. Identification of Methodologies and Strategies
In order to bring in improvements within the processes impacting the hospital
management, the various methodologies and strategies that could be used are:
1. Waterfall methodology
2. Agile methodology
3. Scrum methodology
From the understanding over the methodologies and aligning them with the project
requirements, it can be analyzed that Scrum methodology could be used for bringing in changes
within the internal processes. In the case of improving the system of intake and discharge of
patients and transferring patients to the ICUs, it can be understood that the hospital management
would need to firstly envision the entire process that is presently being performed. Hence, a
baseline process map would need to be developed based on understanding the most possible
causes for the delay in patient concerns (Hans, 2017). Hence, the entire process would be based
on exploration of the most possible outcomes that would be determined after accomplishing each
of the included activities within the project. With the Scrum methodology, hospital employees
and patients would be helped by adapting to the certain changes in processes.
Based on analysis over the understandings for the above methodologies, it can be
discussed that the Waterfall methodology cannot be chosen since in this methodology, once each
phase would proceed, the work on the previous phase cannot be done. There is a lack of

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flexibility within the Waterfall methodology (Marić, 2017). On the other hand, in the agile
methodology, there is no such fixed plan for the project. Since, there is certain lack in the
approaches of scheduling and resource management, the agile approach can be considered as
lacking in terms of planning for the project (Dhir, Kumar & Singh, 2019). Hence, the Scrum
methodology was considered as appropriate in comparison to the Waterfall and Agile
methodologies.
2. Typical Business Functions to be impacted
After the consideration of the Scrum methodology within the project and redefining the
objectives within the action plan, the certain business functions that would be impacted are:
1. Improvements within the business processes would have a massive impact in the ways
in which the intake of patients would be done while the process of discharge of patients would
also see a massive change.
2. During the process of patient discharge, a backlog of activities is created within the
outpatient clinics, which further creates a problem in new admissions (Partington et al., 2015).
Transferring new patients to the ICUs is also considered a major problem if the patients are not
discharged in proper time.
3. Availability of employees for providing help in critical state and turnaround times
would also be considered as a major improvement in the hospitals.
Based on implementing a smooth form of business functionality, the certain tactics that
needs to be followed are:

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1. Employees working within the hospitals should be given a clear form of instruction
regarding the present state and the processes that would be improved.
2. A clear form of communication needs to be set between each of the team members
working on the project.
In order to enhance and bring in success within the project plan, the cross-functionality
and collaboration could be improved by:
1. Employees working on a project should be empowered with all kinds of facilities,
which would provide them with a sense of being active in all states of the project.
2. A mutual respect and trust should be present among all employees working on the plan
and those present within the hospitals (Tsai et al., 2015). Collaboration could also be possible
through a proper form of establishment of communication.
3. Any kind of barriers appearing within the project plan should be overcome by the
people working on the project. These changes should be determined based on understanding the
long-term and short-term goals planned for the project.

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3. Project Timeline
ID Outline
Number
Task
Mode
Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
0 0 Process Improvement
Project for Hospitals
99 days Wed 11-03-20 Mon 27-07-20
1 1 Initial Process Meetings 15 days Wed 11-03-20 Tue 31-03-20
2 1.1 Discussion over problems 4 days Wed 11-03-20 Mon 16-03-20
3 1.2 Initial meeting 6 days Tue 17-03-20 Tue 24-03-20 2
4 1.3 Discussion over resources
and costs
5 days Wed 25-03-20 Tue 31-03-20 3
5 1.4 Approval for project start 0 days Tue 31-03-20 Tue 31-03-20 4
6 2 Procurement and
stakeholder allocation
14 days Wed 01-04-20 Mon 20-04-20
7 2.1 Identification of resource
supplier
4 days Wed 01-04-20 Mon 06-04-20 5
8 2.2 Procuring of resources 3 days Tue 07-04-20 Thu 09-04-20 7
9 2.3 Checking of procured
resources
0 days Thu 09-04-20 Thu 09-04-20 8
10 2.4 Hiring of external staff
and physicians
10 days Tue 07-04-20 Mon 20-04-20 7
11 3 Implementation of Project
Plan
52 days Tue 21-04-20 Wed 01-07-20
12 3.1 Outlining an initial project
plan
15 days Tue 21-04-20 Mon 11-05-20 9,10
13 3.2 Organizing a meeting for
communication of project
plan
2 days Tue 12-05-20 Wed 13-05-20 12
14 3.3 Working over the
installation of HMS
35 days Thu 14-05-20 Wed 01-07-20 13
15 3.4 Allocating new rooms 12 days Thu 14-05-20 Fri 29-05-20 13
16 4 Quality Assessment and
approval
64 days Tue 21-04-20 Fri 17-07-20
17 4.1 Determining quality of
the HMS
10 days Thu 02-07-20 Wed 15-07-20 14
18 4.2 Providing training to staff 6 days Tue 21-04-20 Tue 28-04-20 10
19 4.3 Gaining feedbacks from
employees
2 days Thu 16-07-20 Fri 17-07-20 15,17,18
20 4.4 Approval for Project pass 0 days Fri 17-07-20 Fri 17-07-20 19
21 5 Project closure 6 days Mon 20-07-20 Mon 27-07-20
22 5.1 Documenting the project 5 days Mon 20-07-20 Fri 24-07-20 20
23 5.2 Making payments 1 day Mon 27-07-20 Mon 27-07-20 22
24 5.3 Project end 0 days Mon 27-07-20 Mon 27-07-20 23
31-03
09-04
17-07
27-07
T S W S T M F T S W S T M F T S
09 Feb '20 08 Mar '20 05 Apr '20 03 May '20 31 May '20 28 Jun '20 26 Jul '20
(Figure 1: The Timeline for the Project)
(Source: Created by author)

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4. Communication Plan
Description Frequency Method Audience Owner
Name of
communication
Frequency of
occurring
Method of
communicating
Receiver of the
communication
Responsible
authority for
communication
Team meetings Weekly Meeting Project team,
Hospital
Management
Project Manager,
Business Head of
hospital
Stakeholder
allocation
Once Meeting Stakeholders Project manager
Defining risk
management
reports
Daily Email newsletter Project Team Project manager
Defining cost
estimates
Daily Email newsletter Hospital
management
Financial analyst,
Project Manager
Defining project
schedule
Once Email newsletter Project team Project Manager
From the above communication plan, it can be discussed that this plan would help the
involved people to follow each instructions in an appropriate manner. The communication plan
highlights the important activities that needs to be communicated to which stakeholders and the
owner of each levels within the communication. The communication plan also details the
frequency in which communication needs to be made (Golini, Kalchschmidt & Landoni, 2015).
Hence, based on the following of the communication plan, stakeholders and other involved
people within the project would be able to meet with the project goals.
Phase III: Evaluation
In order to determine the success over the project implementation, certain metrics that
would be followed are:

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1. Productivity – The defined metric helps in determining the overall capabilities of the
hospital and the ways in which they make use of their available resources. It is also measures as
the different form of inputs put by the involved project manager along with their teams and the
gained outputs.
2. Customer Satisfaction – This is another metric that helps towards determining
whether the customer for whom the service is being prepared would be liking the service
(Todorović et al., 2015). This is measured with a score based on a rating from 1 to 100.
3. Employee Satisfaction Score – A satisfied employee would be helpful for delivering
more productivity. Hence, the morale of employees is a concerning factor towards the project
success.
The project team would monitor the project and detail the reports on project progress
during the entire lifetime of the project. The project team should be responsible for analyzing the
steps of the project at every six months based on the monitoring over the collected data (Serra &
Kunc, 2015). The project team would consider each of the phases and align them with the
requirements as defined earlier within the project management plan.

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References
Dhir, S., Kumar, D., & Singh, V. B. (2019). Success and failure factors that impact on project
implementation using agile software development methodology. In Software
Engineering (pp. 647-654). Springer, Singapore.
Golini, R., Kalchschmidt, M., & Landoni, P. (2015). Adoption of project management practices:
The impact on international development projects of non-governmental
organizations. International journal of project management, 33(3), 650-663.
Hans, R. T. (2017, April). Work in Progress-The Impact of the Student Scrum Master on Quality
and Delivery Time on Students' Projects. In 2017 International Conference on Learning
and Teaching in Computing and Engineering (LaTICE) (pp. 87-90). IEEE.
Marić, A. (2017, January). Comparison of project management frameworks and tools and their
impact on project success. In 2nd International Scientific Conference LEAN Spring
Summit 2017.
Partington, A., Wynn, M., Suriadi, S., Ouyang, C., & Karnon, J. (2015). Process mining for
clinical processes: a comparative analysis of four Australian hospitals. ACM Transactions
on Management Information Systems (TMIS), 5(4), 1-18.
Serra, C. E. M., & Kunc, M. (2015). Benefits realisation management and its influence on
project success and on the execution of business strategies. International Journal of
Project Management, 33(1), 53-66.

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Todorović, M. L., Petrović, D. Č., Mihić, M. M., Obradović, V. L., & Bushuyev, S. D. (2015).
Project success analysis framework: A knowledge-based approach in project
management. International Journal of Project Management, 33(4), 772-783.
Tsai, T. C., Jha, A. K., Gawande, A. A., Huckman, R. S., Bloom, N., & Sadun, R. (2015).
Hospital board and management practices are strongly related to hospital performance on
clinical quality metrics. Health Affairs, 34(8), 1304-1311.