Medication Safety Education Project Management Plan

PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN

Project Management Plan

The PICO project seeks to reduce the incidence of medication errors in the practice setting by introducing mandatory medication safety education for all clinical staff. The project serves as a means to respond to the high incidence of medication errors at the facility that has resulted in preventable injuries, death, and reputational issues. The project’s primary aim is to compare the effectiveness of medication safety education and the current alarm notification system at the facility in reducing the risk of medication errors. This assignment develops a project management plan for the proposed project. The plan details how the project will be carried out, including the scope, objectives, deliverables, timelines, and budget (Sipes, 2020). According to Sipes (2020), a project plan helps to keep a project on track, minimize wastage of resources, and keep stakeholders engaged because they understand the expected deliverables at each stage of the project.

Project Management Tool

The Gantt chart was selected to drive the project management plan for its simplicity – it is easy to read and the project participants can easily understand the timetable for project activities at a glance, thus enabling them to plan their schedules (Milosevic, 2003). The proposed project actively involves all clinical staff in the organization and there is a need to have a project communication tool that is easy to interpret even without instruction so that everyone understands the project timetable and what is expected to be realized in each stage (Milosevic, 2003).

Proposed Project Plan

Project Summary

The proposed project implements a medication safety education program for clinical staff as a means to reduce the incidence of medication errors at the facility. It will run for six months, beginning with nurses, and will be rolled out to physicians and pharmacists if found to be effective. The program will involve organizing weekly training sessions where participants will be educated on crucial medication safety themes. Themes to be covered will include the eight rights of medication administration, dose calculations, medication sensitivity, error management strategies, and international patient safety guidelines, among others (Abukhader & Abukhader, 2020).

Project Objectives

To reduce the incidence of medication errors at the facility by 50 percent by the end of the first year of project implementation

To increase the patient satisfaction index by 30 percent by the end of the first year of project implementation

To improve the hospital’s reputation as measured by public ranking by 25 percent by the end of the first year

Project Scope

The project will be conducted within the facility and will involve all clinical staff. The training, which will be based on a standard curriculum, will mainly be conducted through webinars. However, participants will also have access to physical copies of the training booklet to read at their free time. The training will cover two topics every month, after which participants will undertake an assessment to test their understanding.

Project Schedule

The project schedule, including start and completion dates for each project activity are presented in table 1 below and the Ganttt chart in figure 1

Table 1: Project Schedule

Figure 1: Gantt Chart

Possible Project Risks

The project faces two major risks. First, there is the risk that the staff will not be flexible to the changes that the project intends to bring. Further, there is a risk of inaccuracies in the reported incidence of medication errors resulting from employees’ reluctance to report such incidents for fear of punishment. To mitigate this risk, the project team will encourage the management to eliminate punishment as a way of encouraging staff to openly report incidents. Further, as Alhadhey et al. (2014) suggest, it may be beneficial to structure the training to integrate the culture of safety into their everyday work so that they are more open to report errors when they occur. To minimize staff resistance, the organization will offer allowances to participating staff and other forms of non-monetary rewards to motivate them to be flexible to the changes that the project proposes.

Project Budget

Table 2: Project Budget

The projected total cost for the project is $1.002 million, the greatest percentage of which will go towards paying consultancy fees for the contracted training company. The budgeted line ‘staff allowances’ covers the amount to be paid out to staff in allowances for taking time to participate in the trainings.

Monitoring and Evaluation

The project team will carry out weekly monitoring to assess progress relative to set targets and address unforeseen challenges that may have come up before they escalate (Hickey & Giardino, 2021). After three months of implementation, the project team will engage the preceptor for an interim evaluation to ascertain whether the project is on course toward realizing the set objectives and advise on possible corrective actions (Hickey & Giardino, 2021). A full evaluation will be done at the end of the six months project period to compare baseline data on medication errors to current data and hence, assess the effectiveness of the medication safety awareness program.