Analysis and Recommendations for Improving County Public Health System

This report examines the communication plan for a project aimed at improving the County Health Department (CHD)'s public health information system. The current system's limitations, including standalone databases and the inability to track infectious diseases effectively, are addressed through a proposed database integration. The report assesses the project's communication plan, which involves engaging stakeholders through various methods, including business process analysis, redesign, and requirements definition. A comparison is made between the communication plan and project management practices, highlighting the importance of stakeholder updates and risk management. Recommendations are provided to enhance the communication plan, particularly regarding official communication with government agencies and employee engagement. The report concludes that an effective communication plan is crucial for the successful implementation of the project, leading to an improved health information system with future expansion capabilities and better data management.

Running head: IMPROVING COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEM
Improving county public health information system
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1IMPROVING COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEM
Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................................2
Discussion:...................................................................................................................................................2
Assessment of the current project communication plan:.......................................................................2
Comparison of assessment from the case study and project management practices:...........................3
Recommendation:...................................................................................................................................3
Justification:............................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion:..................................................................................................................................................3
References........................................................................................................................................4
Introduction:

2IMPROVING COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEM
The information system of each of the County Health Department (CHD)’s community health
services program lacks features such as future expansions and inclusion of revised public health data
plan as all the databases of the system are standalone. As a result, the system cannot able to track
infectious diseases as well as well-timed report of all inquiries. This issue can be resolved by integrating
the databases [1.]. For ensuring the success of the above implementation, the project manager must
regularly provide relevant information to the stakeholders. This report assesses the viability of the
communication plan for the project in the above scenario of CHD along with proper recommendations
and justifications.
Discussion:
Assessment of the current project communication plan:
CHD has enunciated that the database integration of its health information system must be
incorporated in such a way so that in a timely manner it can provide report about the infectious diseases
and probable disruptions based on which the decision maker can take suitable decision. The project
team of CHD has initiated the following communication plan for implementation of the project. Through
collaborative process, the project team has involved both internal and external stakeholders to make
them understand about the support role of the information system and working of the system [2. ]. The
following methods for the collaborative process make the communication plan reasonably effective.
1)Analysis of the business process, which is done by clarifying objectives and goals, modelling the work
context, identifying the rules of business, describing tasks and workflow along with identification of sets
of common tasks.
2) Redesign the business process, which involves inspection and restructuring of tasks and workflow,
identification of inefficiencies and efficiencies with quotable processes, clarification of the process and
rules of business, remodelling the work context.
3) Defining requirements, which include particular tasks description for enhancing business processes,
description of implementation of business rules, diagrammatic description about structure of
information system and identifying the extent of activities of the next phase [3.].
From the communication point of view of all stakeholders of project it can be said that the
adopted communication plan is completely feasible due to the following reasons.
 The project manager continuously updates about project status to the required stakeholders that
include client, senior management, sponsor, employees, government agencies, project team
member, news media and community [4.].

3IMPROVING COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEM
 The primary message that is communicated to the stakeholders is key milestones and other relevant
issues that are associated with project.
 The communication mode that is followed is one-to-one.
 The used methods of communication most of the concerned stakeholders are formal as well as
greatly detailed and they include telephoning, teleconferencing, email, and meeting. However, in
case of for community the communication methods are conferences and town hall meetings.
Comparison of assessment from the case study and project management practices:
The main objective of preparing the communication plan is to expedite the communication with
the stakeholders. The plan has been designed in such a manner so that messages can be conveyed to all
the employees of CHD [5.]. The project is expected to be complete with a minimum duration of 6
months to maximum duration 12 months. When the stakeholders come up with any queries or request
for any solution then project team provides monthly updates to the stakeholders. In addition, the
project manager has asked its information technology (IT) engineers for their support and plans for
proper running of the project [6.]. The current communication plan in the given case study will enable
the project team to implement and deliver a successful project in time.
Whereas the project management practices consists of certain steps or activities that makes a
project successful. The activities include defining the project scope, project objective, the possible
outcomes of the project, the projects findings, the details of project plan, criteria of communication plan
among the people that are involved in the project, keeping track and maintaining the project’s progress
report, changing the management in order to increase the productivity and finally the risk management
[7.]. In addition, there must be a risk management plan for a project in order to overcome any risk that
is generated during project development [8.].
Recommendation:
It is notable that every developed project is different from others in some way and also
development and implementation of a public project is remarkably different from that of a private
project. However, it is recommended that the communication plan can be devised in a different way to
improve the functionalities of the stakeholders in the project. In order to smoothly run the public
project of CHD without any disruption, the communication among the concerned government agencies
rare required to be done with officially and legal documents. In addition, it is also recommended that
prior to settle on any deals, the project team should properly address, discuss and communicate with
the employees and authorities of CHD. This will enable all member of the project team to understand
the project’s working and manage it in time.

4IMPROVING COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEM
Justification:
The proposed communication plan will help to develop an integrated database that will
maintain all the information and help the senior manager to get through all details quickly at their
fingertips to make appropriate decision. This inclusion of integrated database will improve the
informatics capacity of the heath information system and the health related data and information will
be maintained as well as collected easily. Thus, besides achieving the project goal of improving the
county public health information system the recommended communication plan will help in improving
better communication among concerned stakeholders of CHD.
Conclusion:
From the above report, it draws conclusion that a better and appropriate communication plan
will help the CHD to implement a successful project regarding improving the informatics capacity of the
health information system as has been proposed in the given case study. By implementing the
appropriate communication plan among the concerned stakeholders of CHD, the health information
system will have the option of future development and further inclusion of revised health data within its
databases. In the report, the project manager has asked IT engineers to provide their valuable input
regarding the development of communication plan for the proposal of the improved health information
system. After the development of the plan it has been comparatively assessed in view of the project
management practices. Finally, the project manager has proposed appropriate recommendation and
justification for the implementation of the current communication plan.

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References:
[1.] Plough, A., Fielding, J.E., Chandra, A., Williams, M., Eisenman, D., Wells, K.B., Law, G.Y., Fogleman, S.
and Magaña, A., “Building community disaster resilience: perspectives from a large urban county
department of public health”. American Journal of Public Health, 103(7), pp.1190-1197, 2013.
[2.] Recker, J., Mendling, J. and Hahn, C., “How collaborative technology supports cognitive processes in
collaborative process modeling: A capabilities-gains-outcome model.” Information systems, 38(8),
pp.1031-1045, 2013.
[3.] Dick, J., Hull, E. and Jackson, K., Requirements engineering. Springer, 2017.
[4.] Muhammad, F., Rizwan, B., Sijun, B. and Libiao, B., “Project management knowledge transfer
upshots: Success story of Chinese project management firm.” International Journal of Multimedia
and Ubiquitous Engineering, 8(3), pp.225-238, 2013.
[5.] Heagney, J., Fundamentals of project management. Amacom, 2016.
[6.] Cascetta, E., Carteni, A., Pagliara, F. and Montanino, M., “A new look at planning and designing
transportation systems: A decision-making model based on cognitive rationality, stakeholder
engagement and quantitative methods.” Transport policy, 38, pp.27-39, 2015.
[7.] Kerzner, H., Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. John Wiley & Sons,
2018.
[8.] Cleden, D., Managing project uncertainty. Routledge, 2017.