Having a noteworthy project idea for an improvement in your functional area (i.e. HIM, Transplant, Revenue Cycle, Nursing, Provider Care, IT, Surgery, etc.) is a good start. However, getting your project approved often becomes a competition with others advancing their own good ideas. Understanding how your project aligns with leadership’s strategies and putting a strong project proposal (business plan) together that shows that alignment is key to improving upon its chances of being accepted.
As you prepare your project proposal, keep in mind that even though administrative leadership comes from an array of backgrounds (physician, nursing, finance, operations, etc.), they have all learned to think and speak “administration.” You can be assured that leadership has mastered the language of the project approval process over the course of their career. As a matter of fact, as an organizational leader, up to and including the president / CEO, they’re still engaged in the process to advance their own priorities. They’ll be looking for their team to speak “administration” in presenting requests to them. How do you learn the language?
Link to leadership’s strategic initiatives (pillars)
Address how it impacts leaderships’ Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Show how the project meets or exceeds financial return criteria
Highlight other functional areas’ (i.e. Revenue Rec., HIM, Nursing, Transplant, Physician, Laboratory, etc.) wins gained from your project
Address time to impact
Include measurement criteria and tools to assess impact
Link your project request to leadership’s strategic initiatives (pillars)
Leadership is driven by the organization’s strategic initiatives. Their success as leaders is tied directly to the advancement of those strategic initiatives. Anyone looking to advance their project will need to show that it links directly to the strategic initiatives as well as how the project will move the initiatives forward. Those that do will see their projects rise toward the top of the list. Also, the more strategic initiatives the project links to and the stronger the links are, the better the likelihood of getting project approval.
Address how the project impacts leadership’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
KPIs typically align with strategic initiatives. They are measurement criterion used to gauge how well the organization is doing in achieving its strategic initiatives. As with the strategic initiatives, knowing what they are and how much your project positively impacts them will draw attention to your project.
Examples of KPIs include Operating Margin, Revenue, Total Expense, Labor Expense, Length of Stay, Compensation, Productivity, Trainings Per Department, Number of Mistake Events, Staff Overtime, Number of Employees That Participate in Internal Training, Trainings Per Department, Average Monthly Full-Time Equivalents, Employee Turnover Rate, Employee Satisfaction, Total Number of Training Hours, etc.
Show how the project meets or exceeds financial return criteria
It is essential that your project request includes an expected financial outcomes proforma. The proforma should detail all the costs and expected financial benefits of the project under consideration and be in the format of leadership’s desired financial projection tool (i.e. Internal Rate of Return, Return on Investment, Annual Rate of Return, Net Present Value, etc.)
Costs should include:
The partnered vendor’s one-time implementation costs and re-occurring costs
Any one-time costs and re-occurring costs from any third-party vendors required to implement the project
Any one-time costs and re-occurring costs that arise due to implementation and ongoing support of the project that are internal to your organization
Highlight other functional areas’ (i.e. Revenue Rec., HIM, Nursing, Physician, Laboratory, etc.) wins gained from your project
A project may stand on its own merits in how it impacts your functional area. However, if the project positively impacts other functional areas, highlight the “hows, whens and wheres” in the project request. Doing so will bolster your project’s appeal, especially if it impacts functional areas with broad, direct impact on patient care (i.e. nursing and providers).
Having data that highlights the project’s quantitative impact is better than a qualitative assessment alone. Understanding the qualitative and quantitative wins for other functional areas can give you the tools to also build support with your peers as well as their leadership’s support for your project.
Address time to impact
Time to impact is the time it will take to implement and start to see the benefits associated with the project. It is always a key component of a decision. This is especially true of small and midsize projects that can provide quick wins.
Timelines for implementation and go-live are critical elements of your project request. Include internal and external resources required, how much time each of the resources will consume, and where they are located on the timeline.
Measurement criteria
Measurement (monitoring) of the project once it’s implemented will be critical. If you can’t measure the outcomes of the project, reporting its success back to leadership will be anecdotal at best and can make it less attractive in leadership’s eyes. The project request should have an explanation on how the outcomes with direct impact on KPIs, and consequently the strategic initiatives, will be measured. Baselines prior to implementation should be noted in the proposal too.
About Extract Systems
Extract Systems helps health system partners streamline the classification, indexing and, where needed, abstraction of discrete data from documents coming from outside the health system’s “doors.”
We impact strategic initiatives having to do with patient safety and care, efficiency, quality, process improvement, cost containment, EHR data integrity, physician alignment and engagement, and nursing productivity to name a few.
We impact KPIs inclusive of Patient Safety Events, Productivity, Trainings Per Department, Number of Mistake Events, Staff Overtime, Number of Employees That Participate in Internal Training, Trainings Per Department, Average Monthly Full-Time Equivalents, Employee Turnover Rate, Employee Satisfaction, Total Number of Training Hours, Operating Margin, Revenue, Total Expense, Labor Expense, and more.
Though our main stakeholders are those concerned with processing the data from outside documents and the documents’ location within the EHR, our impact goes well beyond that: Impacting functional areas such as nursing, physicians, transplant, laboratory, emergency services, etc.
Our partners yield remarkable rates of return and our time to impact is short.
Our built-in QA tools help measure success on an ongoing basis.
As part of our service, if we’re fortunate to be chosen as a project you’d care to pursue, we’ll help you prepare the project proposal. If you are interested in learning more about how we can help your functional area, please reach out to me.
About the author: Norm Kruse
Norm is a Business Development Manager with experience in HealthCare and Telecommunications technologies. He earned his BS – Business Administration at Winona State University and his MBA – IT Concentration at the Carlson School of Business at the University of Minnesota. Technology applied to workflow design is a focused area of interest.