American medical writers association conference 2015

Communication Plan

[Student Name Here]

Chamberlain College of Nursing

NR 631: Nurse Executive Concluding Graduate Experience

September/October 2018

Running head: COMMUNICATION PLAN 1

COMMUNICATION PLAN 1

Communication Plan

The project focus is on the inclusion of HRO Principles in conjunction with traditional pressure injury prevention strategies in the prevention of pressure injuries for the critical care patient population. Within this project, the stakeholders include the project sponsor (AVP of nursing), resource staff nurses know as SWAN Nurses (skin and wound assessment nurses), Wound Ostomy Continence Nurses (WOCN’s), Nursing Quality Coordinator, Nurse Managers (for all four critical care units), multidisciplinary team members, and the critical care nursing staff. Project plan and interventions will need to be communicated to all staff members (AM and PM Shifts) within four different critical care units. Traditional means of project communication include meetings, power point presentations, newsletters, minutes with summary of project highlights/next steps, and email updates. Will also be utilizing an online collaborative discussion forum site and skype ability for meeting attendance to ensure meaningful communication to the maximal number of individuals.

Effective communication is a critical aspect of project-based change management; poor communication has been associated with project failures (Parker, Kunde, & Zeppetella, 2017). Communication influences trust, commitment to the project, project coordination, and team member collaboration (Rimkuniene & Zinkeviciute, 2014). Team involvement and consideration for individual contributions and suggestions is important to the success of any project. In any project team meeting, it is important to establish ground rules where everyone’s input is encouraged and respected. Healthcare is challenging because team members work different shifts, many team members work only three days per week & may have difficulty coming to work when not scheduled a full shift, and unit needs may preclude a team member from joining a meeting that they intending to be a part of. Projects are increasingly complex and require integration of technology as well as flexibility to effectively communicate with all project team members that often may have differing cultural backgrounds, familiarity with technology, come from different generations, and live in various geographic locations (Parker et al., 2017).

Believe an important communication strategy for this project will be the initial team meetings with project stakeholders. Will utilize both meeting space along with ability to skype into the meeting from home (if not scheduled on a specific day). Kick off meetings can promote building of a rapport and trust as well as create an environment of open, transparent communication among team members (Downing, 2015). Additionally, a kick off meeting can help to introduce the goal of the project as well as role responsibilities (Downing, 2015). For any meeting it is important to begin with introductions, so each member is familiar with members of the project team. Especially since project members may have independent work and need share information learned/work progress with the team on an ongoing basis. The kick off meeting allows for introductions as well as discussion on project background, goal setting, definition of scope, and establishment of deliverables (Downing, 2015). Making sure that team members understand the why behind the project is important. This information is also useful in establishing project goals as well as a timeline.

Biweekly SWAN meetings allowing for meaningful discussion of work, barriers encounters, and feedback is essential. The use of a collaborative discussion forum site will be very helpful and allow for exchange of information, ideas, and suggestions from the critical care SWAN team over the course of a two-week timeframe (between meetings) with sharing of unit specific skin rounds audit results are important communication strategies. The SWAN team shares a monthly newsletter with divisional staff as a means for both education and communication. Additionally, the chair of the SWAN committee attends the critical care shared governance divisional coordinating council where project information, next steps, and progress will be shared with other staff leaders in shared governance.

The project manager will be responsible for sharing biweekly project status update reports with the project sponsor along with the project team and unit leadership. A formal presentation at the multidisciplinary attended Critical Care Committee will ensure that all the entire interprofessional team is both aware of the project and is engaged in interventions as appropriate. Nurse managers for the four critical care units are part of the project team and will be charged with sharing project information and progress in unit staff meetings and through weekly management updates. Nurse educators and clinical nurse specialists will be responsible for communication of educational material through HealthStream, the online education system that tracks completion compliance. Lastly, the nursing quality coordinator will be responsible for compiling HAPI incidence information from the organizational event reporting system and communicating this specific information from a unit-based perspective as well as developing charts/graphs to aid in understanding the data. This data will be displayed in each of the units on the unit’s quality board. Planning celebrations at project milestones can help also create enthusiasm and excitement about the project plan.

In conclusion, choosing the medium and manner of communication can be as important as the message itself and the timeliness of the delivery (Musynska, 2018). Effective, meaningful communication strategies are associated with successful project outcomes. It is important that communication is planned to consider the various approaches possible and preference of the audience (Musynska, 2018). In Attachment A below, please find specifics of the project plan including stakeholder/project member information, preferred communication method, timing associated with communication, and responsible party for the specific communication (report prepared by information).

References

Downing, T. W. (2015). How to successfully host and effectively participate in kick-off meetings. American Medical Writers Association Journal, 30(4), 176-177. Retrieved from https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=9&sid=85f9319f-fbd3-4dcd-bc0b-a69fe815c770%40pdc-v-sessmgr03

Musynska, K. (2018). A concept for measuring effectiveness of communication in project teams. Journal of Economics and Management, 33(3), 63-79. http://dx.doi.org/10.22367/jem.2018.33.04

Parker, D. W., Kunde, R., & Zeppetella, L. (2017). Exploring communication in project-based interventions. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 66(2), 146-179. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/docview/1860055492?accountid=147674

Rimkuniene, D., & Zinkeviciute, V. (2014). Social media in communication of temporary organizations: Role needs, strategic perspective. Journal of Business Economics and Management, 15(5), 899-914. http://dx.doi.org/10.3846/16111699.2014.938360

Appendix A:

Communication Plan for Critical Care Division - Hospital Acquired Pressure Injury (HAPI) Reduction Project Utilizing HRO Principles (High Reliability) in Conjunction with Traditional Pressure Injury Prevention Strategies

Project Team Member/Stakeholder

Communication*

Preferred Format

Timing

Report Prepared by

Project Sponsor

· In person meetings - monthly

· E-mail updates

· Ongoing on a biweekly basis

· Project Manager

SWAN Nursing Team

(Representing skin and wound assessment team members from each critical care unit)

· Kick off meeting with campaign planning and goal setting

· Biweekly meetings with meeting agenda and minutes

· Organizational collaborative site discussion forum

· Biweekly skin audits with sharing of audit results in unit huddles and on quality dashboard

· At least 4 weeks prior to project start

· Ongoing biweekly following kickoff meeting

· Ongoing (technology available for input/viewing 24/7 by all project team members

· Biweekly basis (2nd and 4th Friday of each month)

· Scheduled by Project Manager

· Critical Care SWAN Team chair to create and forward to team

· Site created by organizational request to information technology department – Project Manager to request

· Audit completed by SWAN team and results shared in unit huddles and posted on unit quality boards

WOCN (Wound Ostomy Continence Nurses)

· Attendance at biweekly SWAN meetings

· Biweekly project status update report emailed

· Monthly HAPI Incidence Report with chart

· Biweekly meeting

· Biweekly email

· Monthly report received via email

· Project manager to send appointments; swan chair to email agenda and minutes

· Project manager to send biweekly project status update

· Nursing quality coordinator to pull incidence information from event report system and forward to the project team. To also create unit-based chart to be emailed as well

Nursing Quality Coordinator

· Notification of HAPI incidence through organizational event reporting system

· Biweekly project status update report emailed

· Systems notification through event report system the morning following entry

· Biweekly email

· Automatic notification set through event reporting system

· Project manager

Nurse Managers (Unit Managers from the four critical care units)

· Attendance at biweekly SWAN Team Meeting

· Biweekly project status update report

· Notification of unit specific HAPI incidence information at the time of reporting

· Notification of results of unit auditing

· Biweekly meeting

· Biweekly email

· Systems notification through event report system the morning following entry

· Biweekly basis (2nd and 4th Friday of each month)

· Appointment invite from project manager; agenda and minutes received from SWAN chair

· Project Manager

· Automatic notification set through event reporting system

· Unit SWAN Nurse

Multidisciplinary Team

(providers, therapists, nutrition, etc.)

· Communication of project status and unit specific data at Critical Care Committee Meeting (through power point presentation and review of minutes)

· Monthly meeting (fourth Tuesday of every month)

· Skype/call in ability

· Critical Care Director sends meeting invite, agenda, and minutes

Critical Care Nursing Staff

Project communication though multitude of methods; specifically:

· Staff meetings

· Divisional Shared Governance Coordinating Council Meetings

· Weekly nurse manager update

· Monthly SWAN newsletter

· Education through online organizational program: HealthStream

· Unit Quality Board with Graphs/Charts

· Monthly

· Monthly (second Tuesday of each month)

· Weekly (sent via email on Fridays)

· Monthly

· Ongoing program (monthly educational classes assigned)

· Ongoing (updated monthly)

· Nurse Manager

· Divisional Shared Governance Chair

· Nurse Manager

· Unit SWAN Nurse

· Unit Educator or Clinical Nurse Specialist

· Nursing Quality Coordinator, Nurse Manager, and Unit Council Chair