HCIS 410 Week 5 Implementation, Go-Live and Project Closure Example

From Pilot to Six-Month Review: Implementing and Closing a Hospital's Video Interpreting Project, With Results Measured Against the Charter

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

HCIS/410: Project Planning and Implementation in Health Care

Week 5 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The hospital, its results and its final budget are composites written for a model paper; research findings, rules and methods come from the sources listed.

Three weeks of work remained on the schedule when the video remote interpreting project at a composite community hospital began its pilot in two inpatient units. The project had been chartered to end the use of relatives as interpreters, which an audit had found in 31% of encounters with patients whose first language is not English, and to connect staff to qualified interpreters within two minutes. This paper describes the project's implementation and closure and measures the results against the charter.

The Pilot

Two units, a medical floor and the maternity unit, used the tablets for two weeks before full go-live. Three problems appeared. Nurses on the medical floor could not find the tablet when it had been taken to another room, so each unit received a second tablet and a docking location by the nurses' station. The documentation template saved the interpreter's identification number only if staff pressed an extra button, so the button was removed and the field made automatic. And several nurses were unsure when video was better than phone, so a one-page decision guide was added.

Phased Go-Live

Remaining inpatient units and the emergency department went live on April 6, and the nine clinics on April 13, as approved in the change request. Each unit had trained super users on every shift, and vendor trainers were on site for the first three days.

Intensive Support

For two weeks after go-live, the team met briefly every morning, standing by the command center board, to go over help-line calls, tablet problems and usage data. Most problems were small: tablets not charged, volume too low in noisy rooms and a wireless dead spot in one emergency department hallway, fixed by moving a docking location.

Adoption in the First Month

Usage rose steadily, from about 60 video calls a day in the first week to about 140 by week four. Data showed one exception: the night shift on a surgical unit made almost no video calls. A follow-up found that its tablet had been locked in a supply room by a well-meaning staff member worried about theft. The unit manager fixed the location and retrained the night staff.

Objective One: Deployment

Every inpatient unit, the emergency department and all nine clinics were live by April 13, one week later than the original charter date for clinics, as approved.

Objective Two: Relatives Interpreting

The six-month audit of 180 encounters found relatives interpreting in 4%, down from 31%, meeting the target of fewer than 5%. The remaining cases were mostly brief conversations at discharge. Karliner et al. (2007) found that professional interpreting is associated with better communication, comprehension and outcomes, which is the benefit the reduction is meant to deliver. The project's success is measured not in tablets delivered but in conversations no longer interpreted by a patient's teenage son.

Objective Three: Connection Time

Median connection time was 38 seconds for Spanish, 71 seconds for Vietnamese and Arabic and 94 seconds for American Sign Language, all under the two-minute target.

Objective Four: Training

Training reached 93% of nurses, 81% of physicians and 96% of front desk staff before go-live in their areas. Physicians fell short of the 90% target; the medical staff office added a five-minute video to physician onboarding.

Objective Five: Budget

Final first-year spending was $227,400 against the revised baseline of $226,000, which included the approved $12,000 increase for interpreting minutes. The small overrun came from two replacement tablets, one dropped and one lost, which the service agreement now covers.

Compliance

The service now provides qualified interpreters by real-time video meeting the federal standards for video remote interpreting (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2024), and language services audits a sample of encounters monthly.

What Patients and Staff Said

The evaluation included interviews with 12 patients and families and a staff survey. A Vietnamese-speaking daughter said her mother, for the first time, asked her own questions about a new heart medicine instead of waiting for the family to translate. Two deaf patients praised having an interpreter within two minutes in the emergency department. Staff satisfaction with interpreting access rose from 41% before the project to 86%. Some nurses still preferred in-person interpreters for long family meetings, and language services now schedules staff interpreters for those conversations.

Transition to Operations

The service was handed to language services, which now owns the vendor contract, usage reports and audits. Biomedical engineering owns the tablets under a service agreement, and the IT help desk owns connection problems. A handoff meeting reviewed open issues, support contacts and the monthly report format before the project team disbanded.

Lessons Learned

The team recorded specific lessons. Test documentation templates with real users before the build is finished. Give every device a home and an owner by shift. Plan for more use than forecast when a service solves a real problem. Include physicians' schedules in training plans from the start. Keep the scope exclusions visible; they prevented at least four expansions. Budget interpreting minutes from similar hospitals' actual use, not from current phone volume, which undercounted need.

Closing the Project

The project manager confirmed acceptance of each deliverable against its criteria, reconciled the budget with finance, closed the equipment purchase orders, transferred the vendor contract to language services, archived the charter, schedule, change log, status reports and evaluation in the project repository and presented a final report. The sponsor signed the closure document, which project management guidance treats as the formal end of the project and the release of its resources (Project Management Institute, 2021).

Conclusion

The video interpreting project delivered its purpose. A pilot fixed three problems before full go-live, intensive support stabilized the service and six-month results met four of five objectives, with relatives interpreting falling from 31% to 4% and connections in under two minutes for every major language. Handing the service to its operational owners, recording specific lessons and closing formally turned a successful rollout into a lasting service.

References

Karliner, L. S., Jacobs, E. A., Chen, A. H., & Mutha, S. (2007). Do professional interpreters improve clinical care for patients with limited English proficiency? A systematic review of the literature. Health Services Research, 42(2), 727-754. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6773.2006.00629.x

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

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2024). Nondiscrimination in health programs and activities. Federal Register, 89, 37522. https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2024-08711