Reference no: EM133562281
Case Study: My practicum project focuses on implementing an alert in Meditech and providing education to increase compliance with inpatient surgical handoff communication and documentation in Meditech. An appropriate project methodology for this project is the Waterfall Model. The Waterfall Model is most appropriate when working on small projects with fixed deadlines, budgets, and scope reports Andrei et al. (2019, p. 127). Since this is a small project with only two objectives and a narrow scope, the Waterfall Model will allow me to focus on one phase of the project and ensure its completion before moving on to the next.
Two predominant theories related to this project are the General Systems Theory and Lewin's Change Management Theory. According to Sipes (2019), the General Systems Theory provides insight into the complexity of a technology or system by breaking things down into smaller parts to understand better a process to see how one might affect the other (p. 23). For this project, understanding the surgical communication handoff process and corresponding documentation in Meditech is necessary to evaluate where and why the process is broken and if a buildable solution within Meditech is feasible to change the problem. Lewin's Change Management Theory is a framework for managing organizational change (Sipes, 2019, p. 24). Recognizing the three change phases will help to effectively plan and execute the necessary system and workflow change to address the problem.
Question:
Evaluating a practicum project involves both formative and summative evaluation plans. Formative evaluation occurs during project planning and implementation, and it involves determining if the project is meeting its objectives or how it can be improved during its implementation, explains the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (n.d., p. 2). For the formative evaluation of this project, I plan to obtain regular feedback from the stakeholders involved to measure the project's effectiveness, relevance, and efficiency. I will also perform regular audits of the project's tasks and activities to ensure the project is progressing as planned and meeting its objectives.
A summative evaluation should be completed once the project is well established to determine to what extent the project is achieving its goals (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, n.d., p. 2). Compliance documentation rates will be reassessed two and six months post-alert implementation, then quarterly to determine the intervention's efficacy and outcome of the project. Unfortunately, due to the limited time frame of the practicum, a summative evaluation for this project will not be possible.
Potential ethical issues during the project include patient confidentiality issues since the project focuses on preoperative inpatient documentation. All patient-specific information collected during the project will be removed and kept confidential and only used for the purposes of the project to avoid any ethical concerns.