As a health services manager, you have been asked to submit a project proposal to the Board of Executives to fully utilise a grant of AUD$150 000 recently received by your organisation.
The choice of health project is yours. You must provide sufficient information to enable the organisation's Board of Executives to understand the rationale for the program and the activities required to design, implement and evaluate the program including any additional data that would need to be collected. Based on your outline plan, the Board of Executives should be able to determine whether the benefits delivered by the program are justified given the effort, resources, risk factors and dependencies that you have identified.
As the project is hypothetical, you may make any assumptions you like. However, you need to state any assumptions that you make very clearly (for example regarding the scope or type of services to be provided, the target group, the area in which it will be implemented).
Remember, the aim of this assignment is to develop an outline plan for a project based on existing data available. You are NOT required to develop a complete project plan or to collect any additional data as part of this assignment.
Your outline project plan should be presented to a professional standard that can be submitted to the Board of Executives, including an executive summary, introduction, situation analysis, implementation plan including timeline, evaluation strategy, budget and resources, and a risk analysis including suitable management strategies.
Your project plan should include the following information and headings:
Title page
- Short title for the healthcare project
- Student declaration
Executive summary
• Describe the proposed healthcare project, the healthcare issues it will address, its evaluation and potential benefits Contents
- List all your main headings
Introduction to the project
Situation Analysis
Rationale
- Outline the current situation, justifying the need for the project, why the project should be done, and should be done by this organisation. Include relevant graphs and tables if appropriate.
Describe any data you have consulted, for example:
Mortality (e.g. number of deaths per 100,000)
Morbidity (e.g. number of cases per 100,000)
Trends (e.g. changes in rate over the last 10-20 years)
Distribution (gender, race, geographical, etc)
Feasibility Assessment
- Identify existing or emerging internal and external environmental factors which may affect the project (e.g. organisational, political, economic, cultural, existing programs)
- Speculate on likely future issues which should be considered
- Identify stakeholders who should be consulted or involved in the project
- Review the competitive environment in which the project will be implemented.
- Describe any additional data that needs to be collected in order to complete a feasibility assessment for the project. Describe how additional data will be collected.
Target Group
• Include details of the target group who will benefit from the project.
Goals and Objectives
- Write an overall project goal
- Write up to 3 SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound) objectives for the project which may be used to evaluate the project.
- Your objectives should indicate in specific and measurable terms what outcomes and impacts you expect to achieve.
Project Activities
• List and briefly describe the main program activities you will implement in order to achieve your program objectives.
Note: Remember this assignment represents an outline program plan. Therefore, your description of activities should be brief.
Timeline
• Provide a Gantt or other suitable chart showing the main stages and activities of the program matched to a realistic timeframe. Highlight any dependencies.
Evaluation
• Briefly describe how you will measure the achievement of your program objectives. What indicators will be used to evaluate if the program was successful?
Budget and Resources
• List the budget items (e.g. equipment, human resources, training, etc) associated with implementing the program plan along with a justification for each expenditure
• Describe the resources (human resources, technical resources, materials, physical space, etc) which will be needed
• Identify any resources that will need to be sourced from outside the organisation.
Risk Analysis
• Based on already introduced material, provide a risk management table identifying major risk factors, assessing their potential impact, and suggesting management strategies to eliminate or mitigate this impact