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Certified Pharmacy Informatics Analyst (CPIA)
Module 15: Project Management for Informatics Initiatives
From Dispensing Prescriptions to Directing Projects: Mastering the Art and Science of Implementation.
Translating Your Innate Skills into a Formal Discipline
As a pharmacist, you are, by nature and training, a project manager. You may not use the formal terminology, but you live the principles every single day. Resolving a complex prior authorization is a mini-project with a clear goal, stakeholders (patient, physician, insurer), and a deadline. Coordinating a patient’s medication synchronization is a project in logistics and communication. Rolling out a new vaccination service in your pharmacy is a project with a budget, a timeline, and required training. You are an expert at managing complexity, mitigating risk, and communicating with diverse stakeholders to achieve a specific outcome.
This module is designed to bridge your innate, practical experience with the formal, structured discipline of project management as it applies to large-scale informatics initiatives. The challenge is no longer a single patient’s therapy, but a hospital-wide smart pump implementation; not a single prescription, but an entire EHR upgrade. The core skills are the same, but the scale, complexity, and required tools are vastly different.
Here, we will give you the language, frameworks, and documents to translate your ability to manage a prescription into the ability to manage a project. You will learn how to take a vague idea, define its scope, break it into manageable tasks, identify what could go wrong, and communicate progress to leadership. By mastering these skills, you will become not just a clinical expert who uses technology, but a leader who directs how technology is chosen, implemented, and optimized to improve patient care.
Your Roadmap to Successful Implementation
This module provides the complete lifecycle of an informatics project, from initial concept to post-live evaluation.
Project Lifecycle and Scope Definition
Learn the foundational phases of any project (Initiation, Planning, Execution, Closure) and master the single most important document: the Project Scope Statement. We’ll teach you how to define clear boundaries to prevent “scope creep” and ensure everyone agrees on the definition of “done.”
Work Breakdown Structure and Scheduling
Discover how to deconstruct a massive project into a hierarchy of small, manageable tasks using a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). We will then introduce you to Gantt charts and other scheduling tools used to visualize timelines, dependencies, and the critical path of a project.
Risk Assessment and Mitigation Strategies
A core task for a pharmacist is preventing harm. In project management, this is called risk assessment. Learn how to systematically identify potential project risks (technical, clinical, financial), assess their probability and impact, and develop proactive mitigation plans before they become project-derailing problems.
Stakeholder Communication and Reporting
An informatics project involves a vast array of stakeholders: nurses, physicians, IT analysts, hospital executives, and frontline pharmacy staff. We will provide practical templates and strategies for creating effective communication plans and status reports that keep everyone informed and engaged.
Post-Implementation Evaluation
How do you know if your project was truly a success? Learn how to define key performance indicators (KPIs) and conduct a post-implementation evaluation to measure the project’s return on investment (ROI), its impact on clinical outcomes, and to capture valuable “lessons learned” for future initiatives.
