Project Liaisons—Gaining Commitment

HIS projects require dedicated effort and involvement from each and every department that will utilize the system.  Most hospitals do a fairly good job of obtaining representatives or “subject matter experts” from the larger departments, radiology, lab, nursing.  But is it enough?

In order for a project to be most successful, every department needs to be involved in the decisions, the design, the build, the testing, the training, and the activation.  How involved?  It depends on the complexity of the system in each area.  For example, if physical therapy will only receive electronic orders into the new system, their involvement won’t be nearly as much as radiology, which might have an interface to an RIS, generate charges, post results, and insert PACS images.

In either case, all involved departments need to assign a Liaison to the project.  And it is up to the project manager to estimate the amount of effort necessary from each.  This is tricky to do, but not impossible.  The amount of time required of a Liaison may be heavier in certain phases of the project.  The project manager should also clarify the duties of the Liaison—how much of their committed time will be spent in testing, design, communication, etc.

In order to solidify commitment from the department and the Liaison, we recommend a Liaison Commitment Form—a simple agreement between the project team and the department and Liaison which outlines the importance and the expectations.  It empowers the Liaison to make decisions on behalf of the department and helps secure the mindset that the project belongs to every department, not just IT.

Atlanticon is willing to discuss this in more detail with anyone challenged by a lack of departmental commitment.

Related posts:

1. Making the Project Scope Useful, not Useless
2. Vendor Contracts—Keeping Control