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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Yvonne Claudio, MS, Executive Director, National Association for Public Health Information Technology, One Research Court, Suite 450, Rockville, MD 20850, James B. Daniel, MPH, Bureau of Communicable Dis Control.Office of Integrated Surveillance and Informatics, Massachusetts Department of Health, 305 South Street, Boston, MA 02130, 617-983-6801, james.daniel@state.ms.us, and David W. Taylor, MPA, Chief Information Officer/Director of Information Technology, State of Florida Department of Health, 4052 Bald Cypress Way, Tallahassee, FL 32399.

At any point in time, health department program managers and IT leadership are envisioning, developing and implementing multiple projects. Health departments must meet organizational needs and program objectives, while efficiently and effectively completing projects. Effective project management is critical considering the extent to which project failure is possible. One source identifies statistics for IT project failure as follows: missed deadlines (75%); exceeded budget (55%); poor communication (40%); inability to meet project requirements (37%). Fortunately, considerable evidence suggests that adopting formal project management principles leads to successful IT projects.

The presentation is organized by the National Association for Public Health Information Technology (NAPHIT)—a nonprofit professional organization that represents the CIOs and Directors of Information Technology in health departments across the country. The objective of the session is to continue to impress upon health department executives and managers that formal project management is critical enterprise-wide to assure efficient use of the scarce resources available to health departments--for IT projects or otherwise.

CIOs can be the instrumental in developing strategies to adopt formal project management practices within their organization. An overview of project management principles set forth by PMI will demonstrate that these formal principles can be applied in a health department setting.

The session reveals best practices in establishing a project management function within health departments, the project tracking strategies that can be applied, and the challenges and opportunities that exist in establishing such a service to leverage PM expertise across the organization and region.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand what a project entails, and the extent of project implementation in health departments
• Identify the key challenges and opportunities involved in project management principles
• Learn how PMI principles can be applied across health department programs and services.

Keywords: Management, Public Health Nursing, Outcomes

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation