Assignment #$1$ Develop a Business Case and Outline

the Project Scope

General Instructions

Assignment $1$ involves the development of a business case and project scope statement for a new

project. Choose from one of the $2$ projects listed below $($Options A or B$)$ for your assignment. If you

have a project idea of your own, bring it forward to the instructor for consideration.

Use the SBAR method for your business case.

NOTE: Assignments #$2$ and $3$ will expand upon the same project that you

choose here.

Option A $$ Endoscopy Suites

You are a Special Projects Project Manager reporting to the VP of Nursing for a large, pediatric, urban

hospital. There is a long surgical wait list at your hospital. The VP has an idea to free up much needed

OR space by moving endoscopies out of the surgical suites. Currently, endoscopies are being done in $2$

areas of the hospital, i$)$ In the OR$$s at a volume of roughly $8-10$ cases$/$day across $3$ OR suites, ii$)$ in a

separate endoscopy suite located on a portion of an inpatient unit where there is $1$ procedure room and

a recovery room adjacent to it$.$ The recovery room has a small nursing station and $3$ stretcher bays, each

with headwalls. The volumes of endoscopies performed in this satellite unit is $3-4/$day$.$

The VP suggests that the recovery room can be converted into a second endoscopy suite, and that the

nearby playroom can be converted into a recovery room.

The playroom is across from the main nursing desk. The playroom is currently accessible to the

inpatients on the unit and their caregivers.

The main nursing desk serves $2$ purposes:

$$ Registration and check$-$in for endoscopy procedures

$$ Central hub for the rest of the inpatient unit

In real life $$ you would have access to a Project Manager from the hospital redevelopment team to

initiate the project and develop a business case. Use your imagination on this option. You will not be

assessed on your knowledge of hospital redevelopment; just your thought process and the things that

you consider from a clinical and operational perspective.

Background Information:

$$ To meet the needs of the organization and address the OR waitlist, the new endoscopy suite

must open in $8$ months

$$ Converting the playroom is a controversial solution and will require consultation with patient

and family advisors The playroom is filled with donated toys made possible by the hospital foundation.

$$ Once the procedures are finished, patients are transferred into the recover room. The path of

travel brings patients past the nursing station and registration desk where other families are

registering their children for procedures.

Option B $$ Emergency Department Annex

You are the Manager of the Emergency Department in a small, but busy rural hospital. You report to the

Director of Nursing who also has responsibility for the $4$ inpatient units in the hospital. Together, and

with support from the Chief of Emergency Medicine, you have been analyzing the increasing emergency

room visits over the last $3$ years. It is common knowledge that this increase in visits is a result of the loss

of $2$ of the local family physicians who left your small town $3$ years ago. The CEO of your hospital has

been working closely with members of town council on a recruitment campaign and have found $2$

physicians who can start in $10$ months$-$time.

In the meantime, however, you have come up with an idea to manage the increased volumes by

managing the throughput of patients in the department. Your observations are that patients who must

be admitted are often waiting in the emergency department up to $24$ hours for an inpatient bed. These

$$admitted but holding$$ patients are taking up exam rooms in the emergency department that could be

used to see patients from the waiting room. Several of the emergency room physicians have told you

that they could see more patients if there were more rooms to see them. You know that your Director

has an old ward room on one of her inpatient units $2$ floors above the emergency department that is not

on the current inpatient census. This ward room is used mainly during the flu season as overflow or

surge space. You believe that you can create an ED Annex in this space, for the admitted but holding

patients until their inpatient rooms become available. This will free up some space in the department to

move patients through the system.

Background:

$$ The charge nurse has been vocal about their lack of support for this plan.

$$ The nurses are unionized.

$$ The local paper regularly reports about the long wait times and town locals have been vocal in

the $$letter to the editor$$ section. They want to see a solution.