1. INTRODUCTION
This project plan is for a hypothetical struggling hospital in the NY Metropolitan area. The hospital is on the verge of bankruptcy but is the only pediatric hospital in the area. It also boasts of some of the most innovative researchers and physicians in the country. The walls are peeling, some of the equipment is outdated, and staff morale is low. As the consultant project manager, I intend to focus on identifying and replacing the outdated equipment, raising the required funds using appropriate strategies.

1.1 Purpose of Project Management Plan

The purpose of the Hospital Equipment Upgrade (HEU) PMP is to identify all outdated equipment in the target hospital, develop a plan of how this equipment will be replaced, and identify the source of the funds required for this purpose.

2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF PROJECT CHARTER

Hospitals in the U.S. lose a total of $8.3 billion a year because of older and outdated communication methods and technology, according to a recent study published by the Ponemon Institute and Imperva (Healthcare Business, 2013). The primary cause for those losses was decreased productivity of doctors and nurses, as well as longer patient stays. These days, healthcare providers have access to more electronic patient information, and that means it should be easier to share data within and outside the hospital to improve the quality of care and speed up care delivery. Among the clinicians surveyed, each wastes an average of 45 minutes per day because of outdated communication technology. These were the biggest time wasters identified in the poll. This problem goes beyond only communication equipment and affects all kinds of outdated equipment used in the hospital. Outdated technology supposedly causes as much as 35% waste in healthcare. This waste occurs in areas such as increased downtime, maintenance costs, reduced productivity, etc. (Lee, 2016).

The objective of this project is to identify, systematically, the equipment in the hospital environment that can be changed to have the most impact on patient outcome at the least cost to the hospital. Hence, the goals are to improve patient outcome, increase productivity, and boost staff morale, while maintaining or reducing current expenses. The key stakeholders include the hospital MD, the project manager, members of staff, and the general public that receive care in the hospital.

2.1 Assumptions/constraints

The primary constraint is funding for the project. Because of the current financial distress, the funding structure that will be adopted will have a significant impact on the level of success achieved. Also, low staff morale might have some impact on the project as staff members have a central role in identifying all the equipment with the potential to improve patient outcome.

3. SCOPE MANAGEMENT

To ensure this project does not overlap with other ongoing projects in the hospital, it will only address the following:

1. Identification of all outdated equipment.

2. Determination of the ones with the most impact on patient care as determined by the hospital staff and assigning order of importance to them.

3. Development of a funding plan and determination of the total amount available for this project.

4. Determination of which of the outdated equipment will be changed, and the order in which they will be changed.

5. Purchase, installation, and testing of the new equipment. 

3.2 Deployment Plan

Project deployment will involve the process of replacing the equipment with minimal disruption to normal hospital activity and testing to ensure they work as intended and achieve the desired outcome. 

3.3 Change Control Management

To address changes in project definition, scope or approach, all requested changes will have to pass through, and be approved by, both the project manager and project owner for all changes that will cause up to a 15% increase in time or cost of the original plan. For changes that will cause less than 15% increase in time and cost, either the project owner or manager can provide approval. In the event a consensus cannot be achieved between the project owner and manager, a third party (high-level member of staff or senior consultant) will be consulted for their vote on the ideas put forward by...…(Parand, Dopson, Anna, & Vincent, 2014). To this end, quality management will be handled by senior managers in the hospital and will be integrated into the existing strategy of the hospital. A clear alignment between control measures in place at the hospital and in the project will greatly motivate the staff to push for smooth integration of their daily work and the project activity (Pohjola, Suhonen, Mattila, & Meretoja, 2016). The quality management will be handled thus;

Quality Focus Area Minimum Grade Responsibility

Outdated but critical equipment that cannot be changed until replacement is in place Chief nurse, Hospital MD, Project manager Identify and secure this equipment to prevent un-scheduled removal before replacement is in place. This is necessary to prevent a critical failure.

Impact of new equipment on patient outcome Chief nursing officers Ensure the new equipment installed can support the hospital functions. 

Quality of equipment procured Senior procurement expert in the hospital or an external consultant Ensure the devices to be procured are reliable and have all required engineering and regulatory approvals.

Other areas of the project High-level member of staff to handle quality in areas they are specialized in

Quality Planning (QP) will be handled by the project manager and his team. Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) will be handled by the senior management of the hospital, as they are the project owners and have appropriate knowledge of how the project will impact their performance in the long run.

7.COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT

The overall objective of a Communications Management Plan is to promote the success of a project by fulfilling the information needs of project stakeholders. The HUE Communications Management Plan (CMP) defines the project’s structure and methods of information collection, screening, formatting, and distribution, and outlines understanding among project teams regarding the actions and processes necessary to facilitate the critical links between people, ideas, and information that are necessary for project success.

The intended audience of the HUE CMP is the project manager, project team, project sponsor, and any senior leaders whose support is needed to carry out communication…