D257 Task 2 Project Plan Example

Project Plan: Bringing Computer-Assisted Coding to Two Hospitals' Emergency and Outpatient Work in Nine Months, With the Business Case Risks Owned and Controlled

Student Name

Leavitt School of Health, Western Governors University

D257: Healthcare Project Management, Task 2

Course Instructor

Month Day, Year

Project Plan: Bringing Computer-Assisted Coding to Two Hospitals' Emergency and Outpatient Work in Nine Months, With the Business Case Risks Owned and Controlled

Project Overview and Methodology

Riverbend Health's executive sponsor approved the business case for computer-assisted coding (CAC) with one-time funding of $180,000 and an annual subscription of $220,000. This plan describes how the project will be delivered, monitored and closed.

The project will use a hybrid methodology. Contracting, interface building and go-live follow a predictive, phase-gated approach, because each depends on the one before and the dates must be fixed with the vendor and IT. Configuration of coding rules and workflow will be refined in two-week iterations during testing, because the best settings can only be found by trying them on real records with coders. Both approaches are recognized in project management practice, which treats the choice of delivery approach as something to tailor to the project rather than a single required method (Project Management Institute, 2021).

Scope

In scope: CAC for emergency department, outpatient surgery, observation and outpatient imaging accounts at both hospitals; the interface between the electronic health record and the CAC software; coding workflow redesign; coder and auditor training; and a compliance review process for suggested codes.

Out of scope: inpatient coding, professional fee coding for physician practices, clinical documentation improvement software and any change in coder staffing levels. Writing these exclusions down protects the schedule from requests that are reasonable but belong to later projects.

Work Breakdown and Schedule

The work is organized into six phases with a milestone at the end of each. The steering committee must approve each milestone before the next phase begins.

Resources and Budget

The project manager is a senior HIM analyst assigned at half time. The coding manager is the business owner, with two experienced outpatient coders as super users, each released from production for eight hours a week during testing and training. IT supplies an interface analyst, the vendor supplies an implementation consultant, and the compliance department supplies an auditor for validation. The one-time budget of $180,000 covers vendor implementation fees, interface work, training time and backfill of coder hours through contract coding during the temporary productivity dip. The annual subscription begins at go-live.

Stakeholders and Communication

Communication is planned by audience. The steering committee, chaired by the chief financial officer and including the HIM director, IT director and compliance officer, meets every two weeks to review status, approve milestones and decide on changes. Coders receive a weekly update from the coding manager and attend a monthly question session, and they see the test results themselves so they can judge the tool's accuracy directly. Physicians and clinical documentation specialists receive a short briefing before go-live explaining that code suggestions depend on documentation. Patient financial services receives weekly reports during go-live so that billing staff can spot claim problems early. The project manager maintains an issue log visible to all team members.

Risk Monitoring and Control

The risks identified in the business case are carried into a risk register. Each has an owner, a sign that it is occurring and a planned response.

Risks are reviewed at every steering committee meeting. Automation bias deserves particular attention, because the review found that CAC has value for accuracy only when coders are trained to use it well and workflows are redesigned around it (Campbell & Giadresco, 2020). Coders remain responsible for every final code. The productivity trigger is also set with care: the business case assumed a 15% gain, below the roughly 22% reduction in coding time per inpatient record reported in an AHIMA Foundation study (Dougherty et al., 2013), because outpatient and emergency accounts are shorter and may benefit less.

Monitoring, Change Control and Closure

Progress is tracked with a weekly status report showing schedule status by phase, budget spent against plan, open issues and the key measures: days to code, unbilled outpatient charges, coding accuracy and contract coding hours. Any change that affects scope, adds more than $10,000 in cost or moves a milestone by more than two weeks must be submitted in writing and approved by the steering committee. At closure, the team will hold a lessons learned session, hand daily ownership to the coding manager and schedule benefits reviews at 6 and 12 months after go-live to compare results with the business case, including the expected payback of about nine months.

Conclusion

This plan turns an approved business case into a schedule the sponsor can check, a budget that matches the case, clear responsibilities and a risk register that assigns every known risk to someone who will act on it. With coders involved from testing onward and compliance review built in, Riverbend can gain the productivity it expects without giving up control of coding quality.

References

Campbell, S., & Giadresco, K. (2020). Computer-assisted clinical coding: A narrative review of the literature on its benefits, limitations, implementation and impact on clinical coding professionals. Health Information Management Journal, 49(1), 5-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1833358319851305

Dougherty, M., Seabold, S., & White, S. E. (2013). Study reveals hard facts on CAC. Journal of AHIMA, 84(7), 54-56.

Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (7th ed.). Project Management Institute.