HI540 Unit 4 Stakeholder Analysis Example

Five for Change, Two for Influence: A Unit 4 Stakeholder Analysis That Rates Seventeen Groups by How Much Their Work Will Change

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

HI540: Project Management of Health Information Systems

Unit 4 Stakeholder Analysis

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[Date]

Ashby Valley Health, its groups and every score are composite; the sources cited are real.

Introduction

The charter for the Ashby Valley Health perioperative rollout names ten stakeholder groups in one sentence. That list says who is affected; it does not say who can stop the project, who will carry its burden, or who is not yet paying attention. This analysis rates seventeen groups across the three hospitals on two axes, places them on a grid, compares where their engagement stands today with where the plan needs it to be, and assigns an owner to the widest gaps. The aim is not a complete map of opinion but a working tool that the project manager and sponsor revisit at each phase gate.

Method

Groups were identified from the work breakdown structure's owner column, the charter's stakeholder line, and interviews with the perioperative nurse managers at each hospital. A group was listed separately when its work or its authority differed from its neighbors, so surgeons and surgical technologists appear apart, and the interface team appears apart from application analysts because it reports to a different vice president. Most stakeholder grids rate interest and power. Interest proved hard to score honestly, because nearly every group said it was interested when asked. Work change was easier to define and to check. It was scored from 1 to 5: 1 means routine work is unchanged; 2 means a new screen or report is used occasionally; 3 means one recurring task changes; 4 means several daily tasks change; and 5 means the core of the role is performed in a new way. Influence was also scored from 1 to 5, from no say over the project's decisions to the ability to stop or delay it. Bryson (2004) describes such grids as a starting point for deciding whose interests must be addressed, not a final judgment, and the scores here were reviewed with each nurse manager before use. Salience theory adds that a group's claim gains weight when it has legitimacy and urgency as well as power (Mitchell et al., 1997). That idea is used below to explain why some low-influence groups still warrant close engagement.

Results: The Grid

Circulating nurses score 5 for work change and 2 for influence. Every intraoperative note they write moves from paper to real-time entry, implant use is scanned rather than written, and the timing of their documentation shifts into the case itself. Yet they have no seat on the steering committee, and their manager's influence over the build is indirect. Circulating nurses sit alone in the high-change, low-influence corner, which makes them the group whose silence the project should trust least. Surgeons score 3 for change and 5 for influence. Their direct change is validating preference cards and reviewing a new case request screen, but a surgeon who refuses to schedule in the new system can stop the flagship go-live by himself or herself. Surgical technologists score 3 and 1; they scan implants handed to them and use new pick lists, but have little formal voice. The interface team scores 1 for change and 4 for influence. Its routine work stays the same, yet its calendar controls two of the project's most critical builds, and because it reports to the vice president of infrastructure, the perioperative sponsor cannot direct it. Sterile processing technicians score 3 and 1, revenue integrity analysts 3 and 3, perioperative schedulers 5 and 2, anesthesia providers 2 and 4, and the chief medical information officer's office 1 and 5. The remaining groups are materials management (3 and 3), charge entry staff (4 and 1), perioperative nurse managers (3 and 4), the chief nursing officer (1 and 5), finance (1 and 4), patients and families (1 and 1), the surgical services vice president as sponsor (2 and 5) and the information security office (1 and 3).

Results: The Engagement Matrix

Engagement was marked on five levels: unaware, resistant, neutral, supportive and leading. Current levels came from manager interviews and attendance at the first two project briefings; needed levels came from what the schedule asks of each group and when. Six groups show the widest gaps. Circulating nurses are currently unaware at two of the three hospitals and need to be supportive by the start of training, a gap of three levels. Perioperative schedulers are neutral and need to be leading, because their super-users will teach the new booking workflow to everyone else. Orthopedic surgeons are resistant, having heard that card validation will take hours, and need to be supportive before the validation window opens. The interface team is neutral and needs to be supportive during integrated testing. Charge entry staff are unaware that their keying work will largely disappear and need at least neutral engagement, since uncertainty about their jobs could slow reconciliation testing. Anesthesia providers are neutral and need to remain at least neutral, because their records stay on paper in this project and confusion about that boundary could produce duplicate documentation.

Engagement Owners and First Actions

1. Circulating nurses. Owner: perioperative nurse manager at each hospital. First action: a thirty-minute session at each staff meeting showing the intraoperative note on a working screen, with two nurses invited to the build review.

2. Perioperative schedulers. Owner: lead scheduler. First action: named super-user roles with protected time, announced before the build is finished.

3. Orthopedic surgeons. Owner: orthopedics section chief. First action: validation sessions booked inside block time and a sample showing that a typical card takes about four minutes.

4. Interface team. Owner: project sponsor. First action: a written agreement with the vice president of infrastructure fixing analyst hours during integrated testing.

5. Charge entry staff. Owner: revenue cycle director. First action: a meeting stating which tasks end, which continue, and what reconciliation work replaces keying.

6. Anesthesia providers. Owner: chief medical information officer's office. First action: a one-page boundary note explaining that anesthesia records are outside this project and when the follow-on project begins.

Discussion

The grid changes the usual reading of stakeholders. A conventional power-interest grid would place circulating nurses as a group to keep informed, since their power is low. Rated by work change, they become the group whose days change most while their formal voice stays weakest. Salience theory helps explain why their claim is still pressing: it is legitimate, because the documentation is theirs, and it is urgent, because training begins in four months (Mitchell et al., 1997). Ignoring a group like this does not remove its influence; it moves that influence to the go-live floor, where workarounds appear. The interface team shows the opposite pattern: a group whose own work barely changes but whose calendar can stall the project. Reviews of large health IT implementations list engagement of all affected parties as a core condition for success (Cresswell et al., 2013), and this analysis shows that engagement takes different forms. For nurses it means involvement in design; for the interface team it means a signed agreement about hours. Two limits apply. Scores came from managers rather than from the groups themselves, so a short survey of circulating nurses and schedulers is planned to test them. Engagement levels also move, which is why the matrix is revisited at each phase gate rather than filed.

Conclusion

Seventeen groups were rated on influence and on how much their work will change. The widest gaps sit with circulating nurses, schedulers, orthopedic surgeons, the interface team, charge entry staff and anesthesia providers, and each now has an owner with authority and a first action due before training. The analysis feeds directly into the risk register, where surgeon validation and interface availability reappear as named risks.

References

Bryson, J. M. (2004). What to do when stakeholders matter: Stakeholder identification and analysis techniques. Public Management Review, 6(1), 21-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719030410001675722

Cresswell, K. M., Bates, D. W., & Sheikh, A. (2013). Ten key considerations for the successful implementation and adoption of large-scale health information technology. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 20(e1), e9-e13. https://doi.org/10.1136/amiajnl-2013-001684

Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. R., & Wood, D. J. (1997). Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts. Academy of Management Review, 22(4), 853-886. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1997.9711022105