By applying project management techniques, from waterfall to agile methodologies, organizations can plan, organize, and execute a set of tasks efficiently in order to maximize resources and achieve specific goals. This article explores project management techniques and offers considerations for healthcare leaders when adapting these techniques for clinical, financial, and operational process improvement.
The author also shares a pragmatic application and practical tips for implementing these project management techniques in a healthcare environment. Healthcare project management skills have become increasingly important to businesses, including the healthcare industry , because they help control costs, manage risk, and improve project outcomes. By applying project management techniques, from waterfall to agile methodologies, organizations can systematically plan, organize, and execute a set of tasks maximizing resources and achieving specific goals.
It also provides practical and pragmatic approaches for implementing project management in a healthcare setting. There are a variety of project management techniques developed for other industries that can be applied in a healthcare setting, but the most common and the ones this article will focus on are Agile and Waterfall project management.
Although many organizations see this as an either-or decision, there are ways to use these techniques in a hybrid approach to realize the best of both methodologies.
Waterfall project management is a sequential, linear process that consists of a number of distinct phases. In waterfall, the project is mapped out with clear requirements and deliverables for each phase. Progress is regularly documented along the way and each phase is completed before the next one begins.
In healthcare, there are a lot of people who are both familiar and comfortable with a waterfall approach. This is especially true of healthcare executives who want to see a sequence of tasks laid out from beginning to end organized in a Gantt chart, which provides a visual overview of the project see Figure 1. They can see a timeline of events and have a good idea how long each phase of the project is going to take.
Senior executives within large hospital systems like to have an idea of what the work is, the effort necessary to complete a project, how the work is broken out, and a rough approximation of when each of the phases can be started and finished.
Waterfall project management does a great job of communicating the overall project scope, tasks, and timeline. Waterfall tends to be rigid in structure—for good reason.
However, with the translation of waterfall to other industries, such as software development or in process improvement projects, the rigidity is often challenging and can hinder a project, both in terms of speed and effectiveness.
With healthcare process improvement projects using a waterfall-only approach, it can be difficult stick to a sequential, step-by-step process of a project from beginning to end.
These PDSA cycles allow teams to iterate and show progress earlier, the results are usually better, and the client is more satisfied with the end result. Waterfall project management has been used successfully for decades to complete large-scale projects, but these projects are often over budget and behind schedule.
This is where lean methodologies such as agile project management can be utilized by process improvement teams to achieve faster, high-quality results. A program like this covers both project and people management skills. You learn about the stages of project management and how to adapt to different nuances yet achieve key metrics.
Hospitals and healthcare workers rely on healthcare informatics to access sensitive data all the time. If you use any project management software that accesses patient data, it must safeguard:.
If Dr. House wants to keep his hold on diagnostics and become a smart manager, he needs to be familiar with terms like sprint planning , agile and scrum , automated workflows , and more.
ClickUp is a highly-rated project management software used by healthcare project managers and other productive teams worldwide. An agile tool like ClickUp can empower you and your project team to deliver faster results efficiently.
Employ it to manage your organization, right from doctors to IT department to nurses and janitors. Moreover, ClickUp has a wide variety of project management features for free! A health organization never sleeps, and neither should your healthcare management operations.
And the only way to keep things awake and running effortlessly is with a project management software—like ClickUp! Get a free shot of ClickUp to keep your healthcare project immune to risks to help your patients better!
Excellent healthcare project management skills. You cannot afford any mistakes. At all. So what can you do? Hire a project manager to keep things organized, alive and kicking. We hope these tools can help our colleagues who are feeling the pressures of short-staffed teams or chaotic internal communications.
We pulled together five of our go-to tools that help keep projects organized and on track. These tools have well-designed interfaces and are relatively intuitive, which means your team can jump on board quickly and ramp up productivity. Plus, there are a couple on our list that are either free or have free versions available. If you think we missed something on this list, be sure to share your go-to project organization resources in the comments section below.
Basecamp is one of the most popular project management tools available today, and WriterGirl is no stranger to the platform. The cloud-based platform allows us to easily communicate internally about projects through to-do lists and message boards.
We can also upload files to send drafts to team members and editors, or to share final versions with clients. Asana allows you to easily collaborate on projects and track milestones for your team and your clients.
You can also upload files, ask questions and start discussions within individual tasks. One of my favorite features of Asana is the timeline. Empower your people to go above and beyond with a flexible platform designed to match the needs of your team — and adapt as those needs change. The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed.
Try Smartsheet for free, today. Get a Free Smartsheet Demo. In This Article. What Is Project Management? What Is Healthcare Project Management? Waterfall Project Management in Healthcare The waterfall methodology is one of the most common methodologies in project management. Agile Project Management in Healthcare Agile project management began in software development.
A Hybrid Approach — A Combination of Waterfall and Agile Healthcare project management teams sometimes use a hybrid approach, employing a combination of waterfall and Agile to manage a project. These issues include the following: Decreasing payments from government health programs and private insurance companies have compelled healthcare organizations to find ways to save money.
New and complicated systems for electronic health records on patients need continual monitoring and improvement. New technologies also need tracking and improvement. New regulations continue to emerge. There is greater scrutiny from outside groups, including government, health insurance companies, and patients. The Huge Costs of Healthcare, the Size of the Industry, and Issues with Safety A range of statistics indicate the enormous size of the healthcare industry and its effect on the overall economy and the life of Americans.
After the passage of the Affordable Care Act in , the rate of people without health insurance had dipped to 9. Nearly five million doctors and nurses work in the U. Experts predict that the industry will add another 3. Eighteen of the 30 fastest growing occupations in were in healthcare.
Meanwhile, the healthcare industry has significant problems with safety and with deaths from medical errors: A Johns Hopkins study estimated that more than , people in the U. A report by the National Institutes of Health estimated that , deaths in the U. Some studies have estimated that medical errors affect as many as one in three patients. Benefits of Healthcare Project Management Strong project management helps improve healthcare and the healthcare industry in a number of ways.
Project management can do the following: Improve the quality of care by improving processes used to provide that care. Improve communication among healthcare staff caring for patients. Improve budgeting, as strong project management directly aligns resources with important work. Increase staff productivity. Improve processes that are established to decrease the risk of lawsuits — in large part because improved processes increase the quality of care.
Improve relations with stakeholders, including insurance providers, government agencies, patients, and others. Challenges of Healthcare Project Management The healthcare industry can present special challenges to good project management. Here are some of those challenges: There are high stakes. There is heavy governmental regulation. Healthcare is a continually evolving industry. There is a high risk of lawsuits.
There is a broad array of involved stakeholders, including hospital boards, medical providers, state and national governments, and patients. There is skepticism among some important stakeholders about the importance of project management. Why Healthcare Project Management Fails Managing projects in a wide range of industries can be complex, and those projects sometimes fail.
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