| Course | HI501 Health Informatics |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 10 |
| Paper type | Informatics project brief |
| Length | About 1,100 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Health Informatics |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HI501 Unit 10
Held, Refused or Never Sent Up From Pharmacy: A Unit 10 Informatics Project Brief Proposing One Required Reason List for Doses Not Given
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
HI501: Health Informatics
Unit 10 Informatics Project Brief
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Harlow Ridge Health, its sample, its staff and every figure are composite; the sources cited are real.
Project Charter
1. Problem: reasons for scheduled doses not given are missing in 46 percent of entries and uncountable in the rest.
2. Change: a required choice among seven defined reasons whenever a scheduled dose is documented as not given, with optional free text.
3. Sponsor: Chief Nursing Officer.
4. Owner: Nursing Informatics Manager.
5. In scope: scheduled doses on all adult inpatient units.
6. Out of scope: as-needed doses, which are not expected to be given on a schedule, and the emergency department.
7. Cost: about 5 seconds per not-given entry, roughly one nurse minute per shift.
8. Decision requested: approval to build in the next quarterly release and pilot on two units for six weeks.
The Problem
A sample of 300 composite not-given entries from the past quarter showed that 138, or 46 percent, carried no reason at all. The other 162 used free text so varied that no report could count it: "held," "pt off unit," "not here," "see note," "refused x2," "BP low," "NPO?" and dozens more. As a result, the hospital cannot answer simple questions. How many doses are missed because pharmacy has not delivered them? Which units lose doses to imaging trips? Are refusals concentrated in one drug? One case shows the cost. A patient on apixaban for atrial fibrillation missed two consecutive evening doses on a surgical unit. Both were marked not given with no reason. A pharmacist found the gap on a chart review three days later: the drug was not stocked on that unit, the first dose had been sent in a batch that went to the wrong floor, and the evening nurse assumed it would arrive. Nobody was harmed, but nobody would have known without a manual review. Reviews of medication administration errors find that missing supplies and breakdowns between pharmacy and wards are among the most common contributing causes (Keers et al., 2013), and Harlow Ridge cannot see them in its own data. The record already notes that a dose was not given; what it cannot say is why, and the why is what every department needs to act.
The Change, Field by Field
When a nurse documents a scheduled dose as not given, the administration screen will require one choice from the following list:
1. Patient refused.
2. Held for a clinical parameter, such as blood pressure, heart rate or glucose, per order or nursing judgment.
3. Patient off the unit for a test, procedure or transfer.
4. Dose not available on the unit.
5. Patient not allowed anything by mouth for a test or procedure.
6. Route not available, for example no intravenous access or the patient vomiting.
7. Held on prescriber instruction not yet entered as an order change.
Each reason is defined in a one-line help text so that no two overlap. A dose held for a low blood pressure is reason 2, not reason 7, unless a prescriber said to hold it. A patient away at imaging is reason 3 even if the nurse also thinks the dose would have been held. Free text remains optional below the list. No other field or screen changes.
Cost
The cost is nurse time. Selecting a reason from a short list takes about 5 seconds. On the medical and surgical units, a nurse documents about 12 not-given scheduled doses in a 12-hour shift, so the change adds about one minute per nurse per shift. Across Harlow Ridge's 410 inpatient nurses, each working about three shifts a week, that is roughly 1,230 nurse minutes, or about 20 hours, a week across the hospital. The build cost is about 24 hours of analyst time within an existing release. The brief states plainly that nurses absorb the ongoing cost, and the benefits below must justify it. Nothing else is asked of them: no new screen, no new note and no change to how a dose that is given is documented.
Benefits Tied to Named Uses
1. Pharmacy: a weekly count of reason 4 by drug and unit, used to adjust unit stock and delivery times. This is the use that would have caught the apixaban case on the first evening.
2. Imaging and procedures: a monthly count of reason 3 by unit and time of day, used to avoid scheduling tests that collide with dose times for drugs such as antibiotics.
3. Nursing quality: trends in reason 1 by drug, used to target patient education for frequently refused medicines.
4. Prescribers: a list of reason 7 entries at the end of each day, so that verbal holds become written orders.
Structured fields make this kind of reuse possible where free text does not, though they also narrow what a nurse can say, which is why free text remains available (Rosenbloom et al., 2011).
Pilot and Measures
The change will be piloted on one medical and one surgical unit for six weeks.
1. Share of not-given entries with a reason: target 98 percent, from 54 percent.
2. Share using reason 7: if above 15 percent, the list or the order process needs review.
3. Nurse report of time added, from a two-question survey at week three.
4. Number of reason 4 entries followed by a pharmacy action within 24 hours.
5. Balancing measure: share of entries choosing a reason that does not match the free text, from a sample of 50, to check that nurses are not choosing the first option to get past the screen.
Risks
The main risk is reflexive selection, choosing any reason to clear the screen. The balancing sample will detect it, and the list order is deliberately not alphabetical, so the first item is not the default. A second risk is resistance to any new required field. That is why the brief limits the change to one field, prices it honestly and ties each benefit to a department that has agreed to use the data. Projects in health IT more often succeed when the benefit to users is visible and the change is small enough to adopt (Kaplan & Harris-Salamone, 2009).
Decision Requested
Approve the seven-reason list for build in the next quarterly release and a six-week pilot on two units, with results reported to the Nursing Practice Council before hospital-wide spread.
References
Kaplan, B., & Harris-Salamone, K. D. (2009). Health IT success and failure: Recommendations from literature and an AMIA workshop. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 16(3), 291-299. https://doi.org/10.1197/jamia.M2997
Keers, R. N., Williams, S. D., Cooke, J., & Ashcroft, D. M. (2013). Causes of medication administration errors in hospitals: A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative evidence. Drug Safety, 36(11), 1045-1067. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40264-013-0090-2
Rosenbloom, S. T., Denny, J. C., Xu, H., Lorenzi, N., Stead, W. W., & Johnson, K. B. (2011). Data from clinical notes: A perspective on the tension between structure and flexible documentation. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 18(2), 181-186. https://doi.org/10.1136/jamia.2010.007237
The Purdue Global HI501 Unit 10 instructions
The final unit usually asks for a project brief proposing one informatics change, written for a sponsor who will decide whether to fund it. Expect a charter-style summary with the problem, the change, the sponsor, the owner, scope, cost and decision requested, followed by a body that supports each point. Many instructors want the change specified precisely enough to build, the cost stated in time or money for a named group and the benefits tied to specific uses. A pilot with measures, including a balancing measure, is typically expected, along with risks and responses. Cite sources on the clinical problem and on implementation or data structure. Keep the organization and data composite. Six to eight pages is common, and the brief should be readable by someone who stops after the first page.
Inside the HI501 Unit 10 example
The brief opens with an eight-item charter. The problem section reports the 300-entry sample, quotes the free text that cannot be counted and tells the apixaban case, then cites a review of administration error causes; the highlighted sentence explains that the record knows a dose was missed but not why. The change is specified as seven numbered reasons with rules for separating overlapping cases. The cost section works from seconds per entry to hours per week and states who absorbs it. Benefits are tied to four named uses, from pharmacy stock reviews to verbal holds becoming orders, with a note on why free text remains. A six-week pilot carries five measures, including a check for reflexive selection. Risks and the decision requested close the brief.
HI501 Unit 10 rubric: what earns full points
A project brief's rubric typically rewards the charter, problem evidence, specification of the change, cost and benefit analysis, evaluation plan and writing. The charter earns credit when a sponsor could decide from it alone. Problem evidence rewards local data and a concrete case. The specification weighs heavily, since instructors want a change defined well enough to build and test. Students lose points when costs are hidden or benefits are general claims about better data rather than named uses by named departments. The evaluation plan should include a pilot, targets and a balancing measure. Expect credit for risks matched to responses. Clear structure, consistent figures, accurate citations and a direct decision request complete the rubric.
Common HI501 Unit 10 mistakes, and how to avoid them
The commonest error in Unit 10 is proposing several changes at once, which makes cost, benefit and evaluation impossible to separate. Another is a brief whose first page describes background instead of the decision requested. Many students specify a change loosely, such as better documentation of missed doses, so no analyst could build it. Costs are often omitted or placed on a group without saying so. Benefits stated as improved data quality, with no department committed to using the data, read weakly. Pilots without a balancing measure miss how a new required field can be gamed. Students building their own brief can send the problem they want to solve, any sample data and the template provided, and the brief can be shaped around one change with its cost and uses spelled out.
Get an HI501 Unit 10 example written to your instructions
Name the one change your Unit 10 brief proposes, or the problem it answers if the change is still undecided, plus the rubric and any charter template your section uses. The brief states that change precisely, prices it in someone's minutes and lists the measures. Delivery takes 24-48h; no cost attaches to a first custom sample. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More HI501 papers and MS in Health Informatics samples
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- HI501 Unit 2: Capture Workflow Analysis
- HI501 Unit 3: Structured Data Memo
- HI501 Unit 4: Decision Support Rule Design
- HI501 Unit 5: Usability Walkthrough
- HI501 Unit 6: Adoption Evaluation
- HI501 Unit 7: Workflow Redesign Proposal
- HI501 Unit 8: Patient Engagement Analysis
- HI501 Unit 9: Seminar Reflection
HI501 Unit 10 questions, answered
Where can I find a free HI501 Unit 10 sample paper?
The finished Unit 10 project brief is on this page, proposing a seven-reason list for doses not given.
What should the first page of an informatics project brief contain?
A charter with the problem, the change, sponsor, owner, scope, cost and the decision requested.
Why require a reason when a dose is not given?
Without one, the record cannot show whether doses are missed for clinical holds, refusals or supply problems, as the sample's apixaban case shows.
How much nurse time does the change cost?
About 5 seconds per entry, roughly one minute per nurse per shift, or about 20 hours a week across 410 nurses.
How will the pilot detect careless selections?
A balancing sample of 50 entries compares the chosen reason with the free text, and the list is ordered so the first item is not a default.