Introduction
Project management in healthcare is crucial for the successful execution of projects. For a successful project, there needs to be proper design and control of its phases, and a suitably elected team of members, stakeholders, and sponsors. The latter needs to be more thoroughly reviewed, including the people who should be involved in such projects. For a project to be successful, it needs to be properly managed and include the following counterparts: stakeholders, a project manager, healthcare professionals, and sponsors.
Discussion
As a rule, hospital project teams require are required to specify the objectives and plans for it. The size may depend on the scope and amount of resources (AHRQ, n. d.). Moreover, they need to be controlled by a director, whose responsibilities consist of supervision, cooperation with stakeholders, and controlling the schedule of the assigned project. The team is required to ensure its direction and leadership, identify the necessary resources, set goals, and predict the upcoming results. That way, the team can ensure that the project will be successfully completed.
In hospitals, stakeholders consist of patients, providers, payers, and policymakers. They tend to vary in goals and requirements, opinions, and influence. Payers, for example, want to ensure comfort for the patients (Pressbooks, n. d.) (Lubekke et al., 2019). As a result, they demand shorter waiting times, cheaper re-admissions in case of health complications, and smaller delays. These stakeholders review healthcare services while representing their patient beneficiaries. Moreover, they need to guarantee the financial sustainability of healthcare and inform crucial information to policymakers.
Policymakers review data on hospital activity and need reviews and plans for macroeconomic healthcare policies. They gather data from the other three kinds of stakeholders and are usually represented by jurisdictional entities. Besides the aforementioned responsibilities, they assess specific features, such as the kind of healthcare services, method of payment, and the accessibility of said services. Providers in stakeholding ensure that patients get the necessary care. Moreover, they gather information about the patients’ health and help them receive health services (Pressbooks, n. d.). Usually, providers are represented by independent businesses that must control their finances and tasks. Patients are represented by citizens, voters, and taxpayers and are seen as beneficial customers for the payers. They are necessary in order to ensure the population’s trust and the policy framework of the country.
Project sponsors are rather valuable in hospital projects as well. Generally, their occupation requires them to be accountable in order to guarantee effective control of said projects. The scope of their responsibilities and the time they may dedicate to sponsorship depend on how senior a person is in the organization (Breese et al., 2019). Unfortunately, this implies that they may not be able to meet other necessary characteristics, such as availability and commitment. Moreover, senior managers tend to distance themselves from the challenges that confront project employees and lack the necessary amount of control. Meanwhile, mid-level managers are more considerate of those aspects and have a greater scope of monitoring work standards and rewards. Thus, seniority is not always beneficial for proper project sponsorship.
Finally, project managers are another crucial figure in management. They need to gather the necessary items and techniques for their projects. Some of them include cost, monitoring, reporting, and planning resources (Indeed, n.d.) (Holder, 2021). The managers’ most highly required features are leadership and proper communication skills. These skills matter as they need to state the scope, deadline, and finances to their team members. Moreover, they must have the capability to find suitable stakeholders and inform them about every ongoing step of the project.
Conclusion
Upon reviewing the responsibilities of each member of the project (stakeholders, managers, team members, and sponsors), their roles and importance become more explicit. All of the aforementioned groups contributed to the successful completion of the project. Proper leadership, communication, and teamwork ensure that a certain project will be met with the necessary resources and with various concerns and factors in mind (deadlines, scope, and quality).
References
AHRQ. (n. d.). Step 1: Form a project team. Web.
Breese, R., Couch, O., & Turner, D. (2019). The project sponsor role and benefits realisation: More than ‘just doing the day job’. ScienceDirect. Web.
Holder, J. (2021) Why healthcare project management jobs are on the rise. Web.
Indeed (n.d.). Project management in healthcare: Definition and stages. Indeed Career Guide. Web.
Lübbeke, A., Carr, A. J., & Hoffmeyer, P. (2019). Registry stakeholders. NIH. Web.
Pressbooks. (n.d.). Introducing the key stakeholders: Patients, providers, payers and policymakers. PB Pressbooks. Web.