Stalled IT projects

[CompuNurse]

I'm presently managing a Pharmacy and CPOE project in an academic health center. Unfortunately, the organization is in a state of chaos, due to poor revenues, staffing layoffs, reorganization, and general poor morale.

I've been in healthcare IT for 8 years, and I've never seen it quite this bad. Any major system implementation is stressful, however I'm looking for some advice from other informatics nurses on how they are managing to keep their projects "on course" in these difficult times.

Right now, I'm dealing with such things as implementation deadlines and major upgrades for HIPAA due in the next few months, while upper management is telling my staff that they may be laid off in March.

Anybody else experiencing this sort of thing at their hospital?

[rninformatics, DNP, RN]

Originally posted by CompuNurse

I'm presently managing a Pharmacy and CPOE project in an academic health center. Unfortunately, the organization is in a state of chaos, due to poor revenues, staffing layoffs, reorganization, and general poor morale.

I've been in healthcare IT for 8 years, and I've never seen it quite this bad. Any major system implementation is stressful, however I'm looking for some advice from other informatics nurses on how they are managing to keep their projects "on course" in these difficult times.

Right now, I'm dealing with such things as implementation deadlines and major upgrades for HIPAA due in the next few months, while upper management is telling my staff that they may be laid off in March.

Anybody else experiencing this sort of thing at their hospital?

So sorry to hear about the upheaval at your facility and within your organization.

Related to staff moral I would suggest keeping it all in perspective. As I've told my super-users, end-users and clinical staff related to system crashes and unexpected down times, "No ones heart has stopped beating and this is not a code, so lets all take a deep breath and put it into perspective.

I was responsible for a house-wide multiple clinical applications implementation that went live in July of last year. The systems and their functionality have been criticized on an on-going basis. We had our JCAHO accreditation survey last week and received a score of 99 with full accreditation. Many users and the administration congratulated and thanked IS for our role in the success of the survey. Perspective, its all a matter of perspective!

Remind your staff that because of the impending implementation, the "upgrades related to HIPAA" and the resulting post-go live tasks and ongoing maintenance their positions are as secure as any of our positions can be.

I'd also suggest you post to

nrsing-l maillist - [email protected]

http://mailman.amia.org/mailman/listinfo/nrsing-l