Sometimes a Simple Change Isn't So Simple

Case Study - Sometimes a Simple Change Isn’t So Simple

Dakota Browne

Manuel Deleon

Melvin Montalvo

Elisha Peterson

Regina Pierson

Mariya Vasylkiv

Berkeley College School of Graduate Studies

November 22nd 2015

Introduction  

A large hospital in Tempe, Arizona decided to implement a computerized Medication Administration Record (MAR) into one of their small locations before rolling it out to the entire organization. The initial implementation would allow for reviewing, testing, analyzing and a modification period to have the process documented with the necessary strategy to support this new system. Art Baxter, the Chief Information Officer in charge of Medical Information Systems (MIS) at Central Hospital was designated the initiator who had assigned Kate Cohen, a programmer and analyst, as the project manager. The case talks about creating a computer based MAR to improve the current process and order entry function used by pharmacists but also gives us details of the lack of organizational structure and work specialization at Central Hospital.  One year into the project, it stalled and eventually failed because of a couple of reasons. The management and reorganization in the middle of the project was another factor and resulted the disaster because of the lack of coordination and support. The management team running it was incompetent, inexperienced, and lacked planning or time required for this project. The time line for the new MAR system was imposed by Art Baxter, who never completed a timeline or project at this scale. There was poor or inadequate communication, which triggered zero employee commitment to the change. Also lack of physician involvement during the stages didn’t help to move the project forward while out-of-date computer technologies at Central Hospital hindered on the performance. This evaluation case study reminds us in any business project rollout or change, a minimum of planning, study, and vision is required to make the project successful. The users and stakeholders must be identified, subject matter experts should be consulted, and the budget must be defined to reach the end goal; which should also be communicated properly to all those involved. The Program must be fully tested simulating the capabilities, production loads, and user interfaces (screens) of the system, to make it as efficient as possible. This case presents a perfect example of, “how not to manage change.” Despite the title of this case, going from a manual data entry system to computerized reports, and electronic transfers of data is not a trivial problem. The planning for change with a new system had many challenges at Central Hospital.