Project Charter Part 2

Running head: PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 1

Project Charter Part 2

Student’s Name:

Institutional Affiliation:

PROJECT CHARTER PART 2 2

Project Description

Many health facilities across the world struggle with lengthy waiting times for their

patients. In the US, the Institute of Medicine has referred to the long waiting times, especially in

the emergency outpatient departments of health facilities as a national epidemic. Scholarly

studies as across the US have also shown that the average waiting times across health facilities to

be at least twice the recommended waiting time for acute patients (Xie & Or, 2017). In a study

showed that the average wait time across the US would be twenty minutes. A different study

conducted by Nottingham, Johnson, & Russell, R(2018), showed that at least more than half of

the patients would take four hours to receive treatment. According to Nottingham et al. (2018),

long waiting times will lead to more negative outcomes in health facilities. Some of the negative

outcomes on the individual level will include low satisfaction levels among the patients relating

to the services received and unhappy patients. Patients who are subjected to long waiting times in

health facilities may not return to such health facilities in the future while others may decide to

leave the health facilities without being attended to and therefore put their health at risk (Chu,

Westbrook, Njue-Marendes, et al., 2019).

The Technology Assisted Reduction in Time to Treatment (TARTx) project will,

therefore, focus on reducing the patient waiting time through the incorporation of electronic

health records management technology in a health facility. The projects will be implemented

throughout all the departments of the PGH hospital. In a past feasibility study in the hospital, it

was observed that the use of paper records across the facility was quite a time consuming and

patients had to wait for at least 5- 10 minutes before their records were tracked from the paper

files. Through the use of paper-based health records, the organization only served around six to

twelve patients every hour. The introduction of TARTx would help to reduce the tracking times


in the PGH hospital to about only one to two minutes. Through the implementation of the

TARTx project, which would lead to the introduction of electronic health records systems

(EHRS), the PGH hospital would thus be able to serve at least 30 patients an hour, which would

be an increase of the patients served by at least 150%. The effectiveness of the TARTx project in

PGH would thus be evaluated across a period of at least six months since the introduction of the

project. The number of patients served every hour in PGH hospital at this time would be

compared with the projected outcomes and improvements noted and the success of the project

evaluated. The Electronic Health Record-System (EHRS) manager will be the project manager

and would lead a team of physicians, clinicians, and IT experts in the implementation of the

TARTx project. The implementation of the project would mainly include the project manager

working with IT experts to install the EHRS in all departments of the PGH hospital. The IT

experts would need to digitize the paper-based file systems in the hospital. The next step in the

implementation of the TARTx would be the training of the physicians and clinicians to utilize

the EHRS, which would help reduce the waiting times in PGH hospital greatly. After they have

been trained, the physicians and clinicians would then be expected to train all their team

members and subordinates, including nurse practitioners, nurse assistants, and all the other staff

working in PGH hospital. The electronic health record system which would be utilized in the

TARTx project would be supplied by the Fast Track IT Company. The Technology Assisted

Reduction in Time to Treatment (TARTx) project would be funded by the PGH hospital in

partnership with the Department of health and human service and the Agency for Healthcare

Research and Quality (AHRQ). The implementation of the TARTx project s in PGH hospital

would take $250,000 and at least $100, 000 maintenance cost for the electronic health records

systems every year.


Project Purpose

The replacement of paper-based health records with electronic health record systems in

health facilities has been shown to reduce the waiting times for patients by at least two thirds and

promote positive outcomes across such facilities. The reduction in patient wait times in health

facilities leads to more patient satisfaction with the services they receive, more timely

interventions to patients which increase the chances of recovery and reduce recovery time, and

the likeliness of patients to return to a health facility in the future (Xie & Or, 2017). The

implementation of EHRS helps to reduce patient wait times in a health facility, which improves

patient outcomes and boosts the efficiency and profitability of a health facility (Jamoom, Yang,

& Hing, 2016). The purpose of the Technology Assisted Reduction in Time to Treatment

(TARTx) project would be to reduce the wait times of patients in PGH hospital from the average

ten minutes to just one or two minutes. This would have many benefits on PGH hospitals,

including improvement in patient outcomes, the rise of patient satisfaction rates in the hospitals,

and finally, an increase in profitability across the health facility as more patients would be

attended to in a short period of time. The TARTx project would revolutionize service delivery in

PGH hospital.

Business Case Justification for the Project

In contemporary times health facilities operate under tight margins, which come from

less funding and through reimbursement guidelines from government agencies. Patients in the

modern-day also demand more health services and are normally conscious of the cost that such

services may bring them. In this regard, every project that health facility takes up must make

business sense for the facility. The implementation of Technology-Assisted Reduction in Time to

Treatment (TARTx) in PGH hospital would be justified in the business angle as it would help


increase both the efficiency and the profitability of the health facility (Hirsch, Jones, Lerch, Tang

et al., 2017). It is estimated that the TARTx project, which would include the implementation of

an EHRS in PGH hospital, would cost the facility at least $250,000 and at least $100, 000

maintenance cost. Such cost would be low, considering that the implementation of the project

would provide the facility with the ability to increase the number of patients attended per hour by

at least 150%. This would correspond to at least a 50% increase in the profitability in the hospital

in the first year of the implementation of the project. As such, profitability would continue to rise

with time as more patients would be satisfied with the services they receive in PGH hospitals and

provide good reviews for the facility to their peers. The number of patients visiting the family

would rise gradually and result in increased profitability across the hospital without comprising

the quality of health services offered.

Impact of the Implementation of the Project

Though the implementation of the TARTx project in PGH hospital would be met with

resistance from the staff, effective training and education of such staff on how to utilize the

system would wear down this resistance. Through the adoption of change models such as Kurt

Lewin’s model of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing such resistance among the hospital staff

would be dealt with effectively (Nottingham et al., 2018). The implementation of the TARTx

project would lead to the establishment of an efficient and reliable health system in PGH


hospital. Such a system would ensure that processes across the facility are efficient with patient

satisfaction, patient outcomes, and the number of patients attended to expected to improve.

Objective Evidence to Support the Need for Project

According to Morais, Marti, Ramlawi, Sarasin, Grosgurin, & Poletti, (2018), the

average wait times across all the health facilities in the US was at least 18 minutes and 13

seconds. This has therefore been an improvement across the past decade; however, this is still

ways much longer than most patients are comfortable writing. A different study also indicated

that emergency rooms across the US had longer wait times, with the longest being 49 minutes,

which was recorded in the District of Columbia. On the other hand, Colorado had the lowest

average wait time for patients with only 10 minutes. According to Chu et al. (2019), longer wait

times of patients will have many effects on patients. Most of the patients who wait for a longer

period before being attended to in a health facility will be more likely to report lower satisfaction

rates towards the health services they receive and also state high levels of unhappiness.


According to Morais et al. (2018), patients who wait for long times may decide not to ever return

to the health facilities with such experiences while some patients can decide to leave unattended

and therefore risk their health.

In PGH hospital, the wait time for patients was 5- 10 minutes on average. There is a need

to reduce this wit time further to at least 1- 2 minutes average, which would be possible through

the replacement of the paper-based health records systems with the electronic health records

system. Such a reduction in wait times in the PGH hospitals through the implementation of the

TARTx project would ensure help to improve patients satisfaction rates in the health facility,

boost patients outcomes, improve efficiency and profitability of the health facility.

SMART Objectives Related To Project

The SMART objectives to achieve the success of the TARTx project would be as follows:


a) The purchasing of the electronic health records system from Fast Track IT Company and

installation in all the departments of PGH hospital within the thirty days since the

commencement of the project.

b) The training of physicians and clinicians on how to use EHRS by the IT experts and the

project manager within for a period of thirty days after the installation of EHRS.

c) The implementation of the EHRS in all the departments of PGH hospital within ninety

days after the commencement of the project.

d) The evaluation of patient wait times of patients in PGH hospital six months since the

commencement of the project.

Project Scope

The TARTx project aims at reducing patient wait times in PGH hospitals, which will help

improve patient satisfaction rates in the facility, improve patient outcomes, improve efficiency,

and increase the profitability of the health facility. This goal will be achieved through the

replacement of the traditional paper-based health records system with the modern electronic

health records systems. The implementation of the TARTx project would reduce the patient wait

times in PGH hospital from an average of 10 minutes to an average of 1-2 minutes. The success


of the TARTx project can only be affected by resistance to change in the organization and the

lack of adequate funding.

Project Deliverables

The TARTx project deliverables will include:

a) Delivery of the EHRS system to PGH hospital.

b) The installation of the EHRS system to all departments by the project manager and IT

experts within the first month of delivery.

c) The training of physicians and clinicians on how to use the EHRS by the project

manager and the IT experts.

d) The training of all subordinates in all the departments of PGH hospital on how to use the

EHRS.

e) The adoption of the EHRs systems in all departments of the PGH hospital.

Project Milestones


The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of PGH hospital, Chief Information Officer (CIO),

R.M, with the approval of the hospital board will appoint the project manager to introduce the

electronic health records management systems on August 8, 2020. The project manager will then

embark on planning the implementation of the TARTx project, which will take at least thirty

days. The Project manager will then get the approval of the TARTx project on September 8,

2020, from the CEO, the CIO, the hospital board, and the health professionals. After approval,

the fusing for the TARTx project will then be provided with both the AHRQ and the HHS being

expected to chip in. This will take a month for the funding to be obtained. The project manager

will then purchase the EHRS system by October 15, 2020, from Fast Tack IT solutions. With the

help of the IT experts and expatriates from Fast Tack IT solutions, the project manager will

ensure that the new EHRs systems are installed in all departments of PGH hospital and that the

old paper-based records are digitized by December 20, 2020. The project manager will then

coordinate training sessions for clinicians and physicians through the assistance of IT experts by

February 20, 2021. The physician and clinicians will then train their team members and

subordinates on how to use the EHRS by March 15, 2021. The use of EHRS systems will then be

adopted across the PGH on March 22, 2021. At the end of six months since the adoption of the


EHRS program, the patient wait times across PGH hospital will be evaluated on September 22,

2021.

Timeline Completion Date

The project manager will embark on the

planning of the TARTx project August 9,

2020

September 6, 2020

Project manager gets approval for the TARTx

project from CEO, CIO, and Hospital board

on September 7, 2020

September 8, 2020

The project manager will seek funding for

the TARTx project beginning September 9,

2020

October 9, 2020

The project manager will purchase the EHRS

from Fast Tack It Solutions October 10, 2020

October 15, 2020


The project manager and IT experts will

embark of the installation of the EHRs system

o in all PGH hospital department from

October 16, 2020

December 20, 2020

Training session for clinicians and physicians

will begin on January 10, 2021

February 20, 2021

Training session for subordinate members of

PGH will begin on February 22, 2021

March 15, 2021

Implementation of EHRS system across PGH

March 22, 2021

March 22, 2021

Evaluation of patient waiting times across

PGH from September 22, 2021

October 22, 2021


References

Chu, H., Westbrook, R.A., Njue-Marendes, S. et al. (2019). The psychology of the wait time

experience – what clinics can do to manage the waiting experience for patients: a

longitudinal, qualitative study. BMC Health Serv Res 19, 459.

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4301-0.

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4301-0


Hirsch, A. G., Jones, J. B., Lerch, V. R., Tang, X., Berger, A., Clark, D. N., & Stewart, W. F.

(2017). The electronic health record audit file: the patient is waiting. Journal of the

American Medical Informatics Association, 24(e1), e28-e34.

Jamoom, E., Yang, N., & Hing, E. (2016). Adoption of certified electronic health record systems

and electronic information sharing in physician offices: United States, 2013, and 2014.

US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics.

Morais O. M, Marti C, Ramlawi M, Sarasin FP, Grosgurin O, & Poletti P-A, (2018). Impact of

a patient-flow physician coordinator on waiting times and length of stay in an emergency

department: A before-after cohort study. PLoS ONE 13(12): e0209035.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209035.

Nottingham, Q.J., Johnson, D.M., & Russell, R.S., (2018) The Effect of Waiting Time on

Patient Perceptions of Care Quality, Quality Management Journal, 25:1, 32

45, DOI: 10.1080/10686967.2018.1404368.

Xie, Z., & Or, C. (2017). Associations Between Waiting Times, Service Times, and Patient

https://doi.org/10.1080/10686967.2018.1404368


Satisfaction in an Endocrinology Outpatient Department: A Time Study and

Questionnaire Survey. Inquiry: a journal of medical care organization, provision, and

financing, 54, 46958017739527. https://doi.org/10.1177/0046958017739527.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0046958017739527

Project Charter Part 2

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