Healthcare Improvement Project—Project Evaluation and Closure (Capstone)
Nursing Leadership and Management Capstone — D161
This is your final performance assessment, which will act as the culmination of your healthcare improvement project (HIP). In this assessment, you will present the results of your evaluation and closure phase and write the conclusion section of your paper.
This assessment requires the submission of the following sections that will be developed and assessed in this task:
• Evaluation of the Project
• Project Closure
• Conclusion
The following templates should be submitted as appendices to your HIP paper:
• SMART Goal Worksheet (completed in D156) (Appendix A)
• Proforma Budget (completed in D157) (Appendix B)
The following template should be completed during your CPE and submitted in this task as an appendix to your HIP paper:
• “Final Status Report” template (Appendix C)
During your CPE, you will be evaluated on whether the elements found within the “Final Status Report” are completed. The CPE provides you an opportunity to practice and improve these items before addressing them in this performance assessment. In this task, these elements will be evaluated on the content and quality of completion.
Requirements
Your submission must represent your original work and understanding of the course material. Most performance assessment submissions are automatically scanned through the WGU similarity checker. Students are strongly encouraged to wait for the similarity report to generate after uploading their work and then review it to ensure Academic Authenticity guidelines are met before submitting the file for evaluation. See Understanding Similarity Reports for more information.
Evaluation of the Project
A. Evaluate the effectiveness of your goal by doing the following:
1. Compare the results of two process key performance indicators (KPIs) to the SMART goal to determine the success of the project.
2. Explain how you implemented your project efficiently and effectively by providing an example of each of the following components:
• efficiency in the project implementation
• effectiveness of your project implementation
3. Provide a comparison of the projected timeline to the actual implementation and determine if the project stayed on schedule.
a. Describe actions taken to maintain or adjust the schedule.
4. Provide a comparison of the proforma budget to the actual implementation costs and determine if the project stayed on budget.
a. Include a copy of your completed proforma budget from D157 (Appendix B).
b. Using the proforma budget items from D157, include the accurately completed “Final Budget Template” supporting document in the narrative of your paper, including the following:
• the proforma cost
• actual cost
• computed difference
• cause of variance between proforma budget and actual cost
B. Submit the “Final Status Report” that you completed during your CPE (Appendix C), which should include the following elements:
• a project summary with the report date, name of the project, and name of the person who prepared the report
• a description of the purpose of your HIP
• project milestones, including a major task and accomplishment for each phase of the project management life cycle
• a budget overview with the proforma cost, the actual cost, the computed difference between the two totals, and a cause for the variance
• a discussion of two process KPIs with a summary of project performance in meeting the KPIs
• an example of the efficiency of implementing your project and an example of the effectiveness of your project implementation.
• a conclusion of whether your project was successful or not
Project Closure
C. Discuss the processes you used to close your HIP and describe how you acknowledged the project team member(s).
D. Describe the details of your team’s recommendations, lessons learned, and next steps that you discussed with the project team member(s), stakeholder(s), and organizational leaders during the wrap-up session.
Conclusion
E. Write a conclusion that reiterates the rationale and purpose of your project, including how your improvement project addressed a need for a quality change, innovation, or improvement.
Note: Your conclusion should not present new information; rather, it should provide new insight and offer creative approaches to guide future work in this area.
1. Discuss the factors that facilitated or impeded the adoption of this improvement project, including specific examples.
2. Discuss how project management skills are significant to the role of a nurse leader.