1. A Journey in Project Management of an Enterprise Clinical RTLS Program
Kimberly Brayley Director, RTLS Project Management Office Veterans Health Administration

2. Areas of Concentration
Defining your Project
Schedules and Tasks
Resourcing
Communication & Education
Tracking Progress
Risks, Issues, and Lessons Learned
Measuring Success

3. Hospital System to Health System
In 1996, VA began the creation of Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs) to transform VA Health Care from a “Hospital System” to a “Health System.”
VHA currently has 21 VISNs:
152 Medical Centers
974 Outpatient Clinics
807 Community-Based
152 Hospital-Based
9 Mobile
6 Independent
288 Vet Centers
98 Domiciliary Residential Rehab Programs
133 Community Living Centers

4. VA RTLS Primary Objectives
Deploy the set of nationally standardized RTLS solutions to:
VHA Medical Centers, Clinics, non-patient care locations
That will:
Improve operational efficiency and the quality of Veteran care
Decrease operational costs
Maximize equipment utilization
Increase efficiencies and staff productivity
Reduce delays and improve patient care
Minimize lost and misplaced items
Improve customer and staff satisfaction
Improve the quality and safety of service from patient, physician, and institution perspectives

5. VA RTLS Primary Objectives (cont.)
Establish a capability that is compatible and interoperable with existing information systems internal and external to VA
Ensuring integration, scalability and ease of sustainment across technologies
Provide medical centers and other VA facilities with the real-time capability to actively track:
Selected assets, significant medical supplies, staff, patients, and environmental conditions (e.g., temperature and humidity) through a common interface and reporting tool
Deploy a single instance of a NDR solution for:
Aggregation and in-depth analysis of data from individual “front-end” RTLS instances: National Data Repository (NDR)

6. RTLS Program Approach Implement Review Prior Change Procure and
Management
Review Prior
Investments
Procure and
Install
Design Plan
Determine sequential dependencies between requirements and procurements
Identify and apply critical success factors
Standardize procurement strategies and outcomes
Provide solution on a National Contract
Implement comprehensive, sustainable and repeatable system and user training
Controlled deployment in VA facilities for system and applications / use cases.
Assess requirements
Study lessons learned
Document programmatic information
Assess process flows
Identify outcomes and ROI
Determine needs for hardware and software
Ensure active involvement of leadership and staff for adopting use of technology
Sustain communication and education
Ensure programmatic and business concerns are addressed
Continue to grow uses for technology

7. Defining your Complex Project
VISN 7
Facility A
Facility B
Facility C
Facility D
Facility E
Facility F
Facility G
Facility H
VHA RTLS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Asset Tracking
Temp Monitor
Sterile Processing
Cath Lab Supplies
National PMO
National Workgroups
Contractor
Subs
Leadership
Clinical Departments
Support Services
Patients & Staff

8. Defining your Complex Project (cont.)
Project Manager
Leader
Educator
Change Manager
Project Planner
COR
OnBoarding
Deliverable Management
Contractor Point of Contact
Financial Manager

9. Schedules and Tasks What tasks go into a Project Plan?
Your Tasks
Workgroups
Committees – not in project
Named resources
Contractor Tasks
Subcontractors
Who manages the schedule? How often do you review it?
What is the real time to complete a task?
Milestones -Impacts for not meeting dates?
Other Projects and Issues impacting your schedule
Joint Commission
Construction Schedules
Budget Cycles
Vacations, Holidays, Shift work, Patient Care Areas

10. Schedules and Tasks: RTLS PMO Integrated Master Schedule (IMS)
Developed an RTLS IMS, integrating all project schedules into a single high-level source view:
RTLS Procurements
RTLS Deployments
RTLS Associated Projects
RTLS National Application Workgroups
RTLS PMO

11. Schedules and Tasks: 30/60-Day Outlook Report
Developed and provide a monthly 30/60-Day Outlook Report at the beginning of each month of the entire RTLS program

12. Resources Roles and Responsibilities
Can you name all the players on your team?
Who’s on First, What’s on Second? Exactly…
Do you have more than 1 SME in an area?
Don’t task yourself
Is everyone on the right bus and in the right seat?

13. Communication and Education
Groups
SharePoint's
Messaging
Internal PR Plan
Newsletters
Education
Seeing and Understanding
Change management
Frequent
Tiered levels for audience
Lunch and Learns
The task of a leader is to get his people from where they are… to where they have not been - Henry Kissinger

14. Tracking Progress Action Item List Deliverables Paying Bills Timely
Performance Requirements
Reviews with Contractor
Internal Gate Reviews

15. Tracking Progress: RTLS Manager Dashboard
Developed a Pilot RTLS Dashboard for VISN Managers:
Serves as an overarching and holistic tool for each VISN TO, through aggregation of preexisting data sources
Budget (Schedule B, Invoices)
Schedule (Project Schedule)
Resources (onboarding, Training)

16. Tracking Progress: Gate Reviews for Procurement

17. Tracking Progress: Gate Reviews for Applications

18. Workgroup Gate Review Deliverable Approval Matrix
Update timeline

19. Tracking Progress: Tools and Templates
Do you have them?
Can others access?
Does it tell a story?
Is it helpful?
How often do you update it?
Managing your tasks vs the tasks managing you…

20. Risks, Issues, and Lessons Learned
Will create a negative effect on your program
Must be mitigated
Issues:
Problems, situations, findings and decisions that arise during the program that you may need to take action on or document the outcome.
Lessons Learned:
Complexity provides for greatest usage
Understanding our mistakes, help us to not repeat them
Can you avoid same mistakes others have already made?
Would you rather Fail Alone.. Or Succeed as a Team?

21. Measuring Success
The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year. - John Foster Dulles

22. Measuring Success (cont.)
Did you document your expected outcomes?
What story can you tell after you have completed your project?
Soft vs Hard Benefits…
Pre and Post measurements

23. Cath Lab Inventory Management
Benefits Realization
Functional Area
Benefit Name
Asset Management
SPD Workflow
Temp Monitoring
Cath Lab Inventory Management
Improve Patient Care 
Improve Managerial Decision Support
Reduce Inventory and Equipment Costs
Improve Staff Efficiency
Improve Consistency of Services
Benefit #1: Improve Patient Safety
Currently Measured?
Performance Metric Name: Recall Turn-Around Reduction
Metric 1.1: Length of time it takes to respond to a recall after receiving recall order 

24. It's not easy… but it's worth it
What type of PM are you?
Leading or Managing
You manage things and lead people…
Problem Solving or Creating
Are you carrying around a fire extinguisher?
Partnering - not just hiring the help
Are we all on the same team?
It's not easy… but it's worth it

25. IF IT’S NOT WORKING…
“That's just stupid. We need to look at the right way to do things instead of the way we're doing them now.”