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Final Project Management Plan

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After meeting with your preceptor, revise your project management plan. Please wrap up this project management in 2-3 pages.

NB: please do not put physician as a stakeholder instead put Nurse Practitioner.

Final Project Management Plan

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Final Project Management Plan

Planning is a crucial phase of project management. Project planning entails the establishment of the project scope, the definition of the project’s objectives, and documenting a clear course of action that the project will take (McCaskell et al., 2019). Investigators normally use project management tools to plan for their projects. They follow those tools to document the specific tasks that they will accomplish at every stage of the project. Doctorally-prepared nurses should have an adequate understanding of different types of project management tools, including how they can use those frameworks to plan and accomplish their projects (VanderKooi et al., 2018). The purpose of this assignment is to describe the final project management plan founded on the steps of the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Worksheet.

Overview of the Clinical Practice Problem

In addition to their clinical roles, nurse practitioners serve as change agents in their organizations by identifying clinical practice problems and proposing evidence-based change interventions to address those issues. The clinical practice issue at the practicum setting is the high number of patients with obesity seeking medical care at the facility. 50-60% of patients who are treated at the site have obesity. Following a detailed assessment of the issue, it is evident that patients are not receiving proper obesity management guidance from healthcare professionals after obesity diagnosis. The healthcare providers lack sufficient obesity management knowledge and skills and thus they cannot offer proper advice to patients. Eventually, patients with obesity are unable to engage in self-care management activities such as enrolling in weight loss programs. According to Osmundsen et al. (2019), limited obesity management knowledge and competence among healthcare providers affect healthcare delivery and prevent proper engagement with patients. In a study conducted by Flint et al. (2021), the researchers discovered that healthcare professionals have an influence on the health promotion behaviors among adult patients with obesity. Therefore, the nurse practitioner anticipates that an intervention that increases staff knowledge of obesity management will promote the health of patients with obesity.

Overview of The Proposed Practice Change

Nurse practitioners must ensure that there is adequate evidence to support the reforms that they propose. They utilize a research question to identify the target population, the proposed intervention, a comparison, the intended outcome, and the timeframe for the proposed project (Salmond & Echevarria, 2017). The proposed practice change that will be the focus of the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) project is the implementation of a staff education program on obesity management to improve patients’ enrolment in weight loss programs. The research question that the project will address is that “For adult obesity patients (P), does the implementation of a staff education on obesity management (I) as compared to lack of staff education (C) improve patient’s enrollment to weight loss program (O) over a period of 6 weeks(T)?”

Strategic Project Management Plan

The PDSA worksheet is one of the project management tools used by nurse practitioners to develop their project management plans. Using the worksheet, nurse practitioners are able to clearly document a plan for testing the proposed change (Plan), conduct the actual tests (Do), observe the outcome and state the lessons learned from it (Study), and make modifications where necessary (Act) (Institute for Healthcare Improvement, 2022). The primary rationale for selecting the PDSA worksheet is that it will direct the nurse practitioner and the project team to organize tasks, assess results, make adjustments where necessary, and perform a re-test (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2020). The plan below will give the project team an opportunity to evaluate varied measures based on the project objectives.

‘Plan’ Section: The project team will document the general objective of the project, specific objectives, the action that the team will implement to achieve the named objectives, the steps that the team will execute, members of the project team, measures that the team will use to evaluate the proposed change, and the timeframe for the project. The team will include the following information under the ‘Plan’ section of the PDSA worksheet.

  • General objective of the project: To improve staff knowledge regarding obesity management.
  • Specific objectives:
  1. To train all healthcare providers employed in the facility on obesity management in the next 4 weeks.
  2. To increase the number of obese patients receiving guidance from healthcare providers regarding obesity management by 50% in the next 6 weeks.
  3. To increase the number of obese patients enrolled in weight loss programs to 50% from the current percentage of 0% in the next 6 weeks.
  • The action that the team will implement to achieve the named objectives: Implement the obesity training program with staff employed in the facility.
  • The steps that the team will execute:
  1. Gather training/education resources
  2. Develop a training/education manual
  3. Conduct the actual staff education/training
  • Members of the project team: Principal investigator, nurse educator, nurse practitioner, project manager, and staff.
  • Specific measures that the team will use to evaluate the proposed change:
  1. The level of staff knowledge regarding obesity management.
  2. The number of obese patients receiving guidance from healthcare providers regarding obesity management.
  3. The number of obese patients enrolled in weight loss programs
  • Timeframe: 6 weeks.

‘Do’ Section: The project team will document its observations during the actual training. The team will document nurses’ reactions to the training including things that went as planned, those that did not go according to plan, and challenges/surprises experienced.

‘Study’ Section: The project team will document the project results and compare them with predictions, factors that contributed to the results, lessons learned, and next actions that it is planning to take to improve the situation (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2017).

‘Act’ Section: It is under the ‘Act’ section of the PDSA worksheet that the project team will document any modifications that it needs to make before proceeding to the next cycle. The team will roll out the change if there are no modifications required (Garay et al., 2021). It will also include the specific focus of the next cycle.

Conclusion

The framework that guided the development of the project management plan is the PDSA Worksheet. As the plan indicates, the project team will use the worksheet to break down tasks into four clear steps, evaluate outcomes, make necessary improvements, and test again. The project team will fill out the PDSA worksheet for every test it performs

References

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2017). Appendix D. PDSA Worksheet. https://www.ahrq.gov/hai/quality/tools/cauti-ltc/modules/resources/tools/implement/pdsa-worksheet.html

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2020). Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) directions and examples. https://www.ahrq.gov/health-literacy/improve/precautions/tool2b.html

Flint, S. W., Leaver, M., Griffiths, A., & Kaykanloo, M. (2021). Disparate healthcare experiences of people living with overweight or obesity in England. EClinicalMedicine, 41, 101140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101140

Garay, B., Erlanson, D., Binstadt, B. A., Correll, C. K., Fitzsimmons, N., Hobday, P. M., Hudson, A., Mahmud, S., Riskalla, M. M., Kramer, S., Xiong, S., Vehe, R. K., & Bullock, D. R. (2021). Using quality improvement methodology and tools to reduce patient wait time in a paediatric subspecialty rheumatology clinic. BMJ Open Quality, 10(4), e001550. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2021-001550

Institute for Healthcare Improvement. (2022). Tools. http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/Tools/default.aspx

McCaskell, D. S., Molloy, A. J., Childerhose, L., Costigan, F. A., Reid, J. C., McCaughan, M., Clarke, F., Cook, D. J., Rudkowski, J. C., Farley, C., Karachi, T., Rochwerg, B., Newman, A., Fox-Robichaud, A., Herridge, M. S., Lo, V., Feltracco, D., Burns, K. E., Porteous, R., Seely, A., … Kho, M. E. (2019). Project management lessons learned from the multi-centre CYCLE pilot randomized controlled trial. Trials, 20(1), 532. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-019-3634-7

Osmundsen, T.C., Dahl, U. & Kulseng, B. (2019). Enhancing knowledge and coordination in obesity treatment: a case study of an innovative educational program. BMC Health Services Research, 19, 278. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4119-9

Salmond, S. W., & Echevarria, M. (2017). Healthcare transformation and changing roles for nursing. Orthopedic Nursing, 36(1), 12–25. https://doi.org/10.1097/NOR.0000000000000308

VanderKooi, M. E., Conrad, D. M., & Spoelstra, S. L. (2018). An enhanced actualized DNP model to improve DNP project placements, rigor, and completion. Nursing Education Perspectives, 39(5), 299–301. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NEP.0000000000000384