Important Facts
The most important fact from the selected case scenario is that a large number of mini-health information exchange programs (HIO) established in today’s medical facilities often fail. The trend is partly associated with a lack of clear goals at the initial stage of HIO development (Holmgren & Milstein, 2017). While most hospital managers invest in programs and technology, they lack a well-developed outline for each concept.
Key Issues
Despite Worthington Health Care (WHC) investing in an Enterprise Project Management Service (EPMS) to manage various projects in the Center using the Plan View, the facility’s information system is yet to incorporate the program in its operations. This is due to a lack of understanding among project managers on the value that the initiative adds to the institution. To some, the program is a mere “document-driven” strategy (Schultze, 2014). The second issue is inadequate co-operation among stakeholders on whether the EPMS should become a project office or a full Project Management Office (PMO) (Schultze, 2014). The leading cause of the problem is the organization’s culture, which was initially characterized by total independence across acquired hospitals. This fostered an environment of limited collaboration among employees.
Alternative Courses of Action
The selected issues are both solvable. Firstly, the healthcare facility should adopt a new organizational process. In particular, the management should foster an environment of joint efforts across the Worthington Information System. Secondly, the EPMS should draft a summary report indicating the value associated with each approach included in project governance. Besides, all stakeholders across the 27 healthcare facilities should be educated on the objective of the established procedures.
Alternative Actions Evaluation
By fostering a culture of teamwork, WHC can make sound decisions on the scope of EPMS and Plan View without triggering conflict among different stakeholders. However, this may be unachievable, considering the Center’s enormous employee capacity. On the other hand, developing a clear summary report of the value proposition would eliminate doubt among workers on the essentials of the initiative and facilitate acceptance of project governance in their operations.
Final Recommendation
Based on the above evaluation, I would recommend the management to focus on developing a clear goal for the initiative. The approach would not only save the company resources required to restructure EPMS, but also clear doubt among project leads on the benefits of the program. Besides, the facility would only need to invest time in developing the report, which can be updated upon introducing incremental changes.
References
Holmgren, A., & Milstein, J. (2017). Health information exchange in U.S. hospitals: The current landscape and a path to improved information sharing. Journal of Hospital Medicine, 12(3), 193-198.
Schultze, U. (2014). IT project governance at Worthington health-care system. Journal of Information Technology Cases, 4(1), 1-10.