A Journey in Project Management of an Enterprise Clinical RTLS Program Kimberly Brayley Director, RTLS Project Management Office Veterans Health Administration

Areas of Concentration Defining your Project Schedules and Tasks Resourcing Communication & Education Tracking Progress Risks, Issues, and Lessons Learned Measuring Success

Hospital System to Health System In 1996, VA began the creation of Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs) to transform VA Health Care from a “Hospital System” to a “Health System.” VHA currently has 21 VISNs: 152 Medical Centers 974 Outpatient Clinics 807 Community-Based 152 Hospital-Based 9 Mobile 6 Independent 288 Vet Centers 98 Domiciliary Residential Rehab Programs 133 Community Living Centers

VA RTLS Primary Objectives Deploy the set of nationally standardized RTLS solutions to: VHA Medical Centers, Clinics, non-patient care locations That will: Improve operational efficiency and the quality of Veteran care Decrease operational costs Maximize equipment utilization Increase efficiencies and staff productivity Reduce delays and improve patient care Minimize lost and misplaced items Improve customer and staff satisfaction Improve the quality and safety of service from patient, physician, and institution perspectives

VA RTLS Primary Objectives (cont.) Establish a capability that is compatible and interoperable with existing information systems internal and external to VA Ensuring integration, scalability and ease of sustainment across technologies Provide medical centers and other VA facilities with the real-time capability to actively track: Selected assets, significant medical supplies, staff, patients, and environmental conditions (e.g., temperature and humidity) through a common interface and reporting tool Deploy a single instance of a NDR solution for: Aggregation and in-depth analysis of data from individual “front-end” RTLS instances: National Data Repository (NDR)

RTLS Program Approach Implement Review Prior Change Procure and Management Review Prior Investments Procure and Install Design Plan Determine sequential dependencies between requirements and procurements Identify and apply critical success factors Standardize procurement strategies and outcomes Provide solution on a National Contract Implement comprehensive, sustainable and repeatable system and user training Controlled deployment in VA facilities for system and applications / use cases. Assess requirements Study lessons learned Document programmatic information Assess process flows Identify outcomes and ROI Determine needs for hardware and software Ensure active involvement of leadership and staff for adopting use of technology Sustain communication and education Ensure programmatic and business concerns are addressed Continue to grow uses for technology

Defining your Complex Project VISN 7 Facility A Facility B Facility C Facility D Facility E Facility F Facility G Facility H VHA RTLS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Asset Tracking Temp Monitor Sterile Processing Cath Lab Supplies National PMO National Workgroups Contractor Subs Leadership Clinical Departments Support Services Patients & Staff

Defining your Complex Project (cont.) Project Manager Leader Educator Change Manager Project Planner COR OnBoarding Deliverable Management Contractor Point of Contact Financial Manager

Schedules and Tasks What tasks go into a Project Plan? Your Tasks Workgroups Committees – not in project Named resources Contractor Tasks Subcontractors Who manages the schedule? How often do you review it? What is the real time to complete a task? Milestones -Impacts for not meeting dates? Other Projects and Issues impacting your schedule Joint Commission Construction Schedules Budget Cycles Vacations, Holidays, Shift work, Patient Care Areas

Schedules and Tasks: RTLS PMO Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) Developed an RTLS IMS, integrating all project schedules into a single high-level source view: RTLS Procurements RTLS Deployments RTLS Associated Projects RTLS National Application Workgroups RTLS PMO

Schedules and Tasks: 30/60-Day Outlook Report Developed and provide a monthly 30/60-Day Outlook Report at the beginning of each month of the entire RTLS program

Resources Roles and Responsibilities Can you name all the players on your team? Who’s on First, What’s on Second? Exactly… Do you have more than 1 SME in an area? Don’t task yourself Is everyone on the right bus and in the right seat?

Communication and Education Email Groups SharePoint's Messaging Internal PR Plan Newsletters Education Seeing and Understanding Change management Frequent Tiered levels for audience Lunch and Learns The task of a leader is to get his people from where they are… to where they have not been - Henry Kissinger

Tracking Progress Action Item List Deliverables Paying Bills Timely Performance Requirements Reviews with Contractor Internal Gate Reviews

Tracking Progress: RTLS Manager Dashboard Developed a Pilot RTLS Dashboard for VISN Managers: Serves as an overarching and holistic tool for each VISN TO, through aggregation of preexisting data sources Budget (Schedule B, Invoices) Schedule (Project Schedule) Resources (onboarding, Training)

Tracking Progress: Gate Reviews for Procurement

Tracking Progress: Gate Reviews for Applications

Workgroup Gate Review Deliverable Approval Matrix Update timeline

Tracking Progress: Tools and Templates Do you have them? Can others access? Does it tell a story? Is it helpful? How often do you update it? Managing your tasks vs the tasks managing you…

Risks, Issues, and Lessons Learned Will create a negative effect on your program Must be mitigated Issues: Problems, situations, findings and decisions that arise during the program that you may need to take action on or document the outcome. Lessons Learned: Complexity provides for greatest usage Understanding our mistakes, help us to not repeat them Can you avoid same mistakes others have already made? Would you rather Fail Alone.. Or Succeed as a Team?

Measuring Success The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year. - John Foster Dulles

Measuring Success (cont.) Did you document your expected outcomes? What story can you tell after you have completed your project? Soft vs Hard Benefits… Pre and Post measurements

Cath Lab Inventory Management Benefits Realization Functional Area Benefit Name Asset Management SPD Workflow Temp Monitoring Cath Lab Inventory Management Improve Patient Care  Improve Managerial Decision Support Reduce Inventory and Equipment Costs Improve Staff Efficiency Improve Consistency of Services Benefit #1: Improve Patient Safety Currently Measured? Performance Metric Name: Recall Turn-Around Reduction Metric 1.1: Length of time it takes to respond to a recall after receiving recall order 

It's not easy… but it's worth it What type of PM are you? Leading or Managing You manage things and lead people… Problem Solving or Creating Are you carrying around a fire extinguisher? Partnering - not just hiring the help Are we all on the same team? It's not easy… but it's worth it

IF IT’S NOT WORKING… “That's just stupid. We need to look at the right way to do things instead of the way we're doing them now.”