| Course | HI540 Project Management of Health Information Systems |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 6 |
| Paper type | Resource and budget plan |
| Length | About 1,000 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 HI540 Unit 6
One Hundred Seventy Percent Booked: A Unit 6 Resource and Budget Plan That Finds a Double-Booked Interface Team
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
HI540: Project Management of Health Information Systems
Unit 6 Resource and Budget Plan
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Ashby Valley Health, its staff and every dollar figure are composite; the sources cited are real.
Resource Roster
The roster lists twenty-three roles drawn from the owner column of the Unit 3 breakdown. For each role the plan records the home department, the person's manager, and the hours released to the project per two-week pay period, as agreed in writing with that manager. Examples: the lead build analyst, information services, 72 hours of 80; two interface analysts, infrastructure, 40 hours each; the perioperative informatics nurse, clinical informatics, 80 hours; the orthopedics surgeon lead, surgery, 6 hours; the lead scheduler, surgical services, 24 hours; and the revenue integrity analyst, revenue cycle, 16 hours. Released hours matter more than headcount. A role released for 40 hours who is asked for 68 is overloaded even though one name appears on the chart.
Loading Against the Enterprise Calendar
Each activity in the Unit 5 schedule was given hours by role, and the hours were summed by pay period. The project's own load fit within released hours for every role but two. The interface analysts' project load during integrated testing, pay periods 11 through 14, was 38 hours each, inside their 40. When the enterprise project calendar was added, a laboratory information system upgrade claimed 30 hours of each analyst's time in the same four periods. Combined demand was 68 hours against 40 released, or 170 percent. The overload was invisible inside the project and obvious the moment the project was loaded against the organization's calendar, which is why that calendar is part of the plan. The lead build analyst also peaked at 104 percent in pay period 9, the load that the Unit 3 owner count predicted when it showed one analyst holding fourteen packages.
Leveling Within Float
Resource leveling moves work within the float the schedule allows so that demand falls below capacity without changing the end date (Kerzner, 2017). For the lead build analyst it worked: two security role packages with twelve days of float moved out of period 9, bringing peak load to 92 percent with no change to either go-live. For the interface analysts it did not. Both their project activities in periods 11 to 14 sit on the implant charge chain, which the schedule analysis found at zero float. There is no float to move them into. The laboratory upgrade could move instead, but its sponsor reports that its go-live is tied to a reference laboratory contract date. Two options remain.
Option A: Slip Wave 1 by Nine Working Days
Spreading the interface analysts' project hours at 40 hours per period lengthens the charge chain by nine working days. Wave 1 moves from day 196 to day 205 and wave 2 from 226 to 235, cutting the margin before vendor support ends from sixty-four days to fifty-five. Cost of the slip: nine more days of project team salaries, about 41,000 dollars; nine more days of unbilled implants at the audit rate, about 57,600 dollars, using the charter's estimate of 1.6 million dollars a year over 250 working days; and a smaller margin before the support deadline, which the risk register will price. Total measurable cost is about 98,600 dollars.
Option B: Contract Interface Analyst
A contract analyst with the enterprise vendor's interface certification works sixty working days, covering the laboratory upgrade's interface work so that the two staff analysts can stay on the perioperative build. Quoted cost is 86,000 dollars. Hiring takes about three weeks, so the contract must be signed by pay period 8 to be useful.
Recommendation
The plan favors Option B, which comes in about 12,600 dollars below than the measurable cost of a slip and keeps the full margin before vendor support ends. The project management guide notes that resource decisions involve trade-offs between schedule, cost and risk that the sponsor, not the analyst, should make (Project Management Institute, 2021), so both options go to the steering committee with this recommendation attached.
Budget
The budget totals 3,400,000 dollars, matching the charter's ceiling: a base of 3,090,000 and a contingency of 310,000 held by the sponsor.
1. Vendor licensing and implementation services: 1,240,000.
2. Internal information services labor: 760,000.
3. Workstations, wall-mounted displays and barcode scanners for 26 rooms: 410,000.
4. Scheduler data archive and read-only access: 120,000.
5. Backfill for perioperative staff attending training: 214,000.
6. Command center staffing for two go-live waves: 100,000.
7. Super-user stipends: 96,000.
8. Contract interface analyst, if Option B is approved: 86,000.
9. Training rooms, materials and printing: 64,000.
Backfill is budgeted at eight hours for each of about 410 perioperative staff, at blended hourly rates for nurses, technologists and schedulers, so that training does not cancel cases. Super-user stipends pay 58 staff a fixed amount for protected time, since super-users are a recognized route by which peers learn a new record system (Yuan et al., 2015). Contingency is roughly 10 percent of the base, and it is held provisionally until the risk register in Unit 7 tests whether that figure matches the expected value of the identified risks.
Cash Flow by Quarter
Spending is uneven. The first quarter carries most of the vendor's initial payment and hardware orders; the second and third carry internal labor, conversion and training; the fourth carries command center costs, the archive and the final vendor milestone payment. Finance has asked for the quarterly figures to be updated monthly against actual invoices, so that unused contingency can be released early if the risk picture improves.
Limits of the Plan
Released hours are agreements, not guarantees. If a manager pulls an analyst back for an outage or an audit, the loading must be rerun. The plan therefore repeats the calendar check at each phase gate, the same cadence used for the schedule.
References
Kerzner, H. (2017). Project management: A systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling (12th ed.). Wiley.
Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (7th ed.). Project Management Institute.
Yuan, C. T., Bradley, E. H., & Nembhard, I. M. (2015). A mixed methods study of how clinician "super users" influence others during the implementation of electronic health records. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 15, Article 26. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-015-0154-6
What the HI540 Unit 6 assignment asks for
The sixth unit usually asks you to identify the people and other resources your project needs, show when they are needed, and prepare a budget. Expect a resource roster, some form of loading chart or histogram, a discussion of overallocation and how it is resolved, and a budget by category with a total and a contingency. Many prompts also ask for cash flow over time. Internal staff time should be counted even when no invoice arrives, and backfill for clinical staff in training is often the line students forget. If the charter set a ceiling, the budget should meet it or explain why not. Options for resolving conflicts can be compared in cost, schedule and risk, with a recommendation. Cite the project management guide and a source on resource leveling or IT budgeting.
How this HI540 Unit 6 example is built
A roster of twenty-three roles, built from the breakdown's owner column, opens the plan with released hours per pay period. Loading against the enterprise calendar comes next, and the highlighted sentence explains why the overload appeared only once another project was included. Leveling within float is shown working for one analyst and failing for the interface pair, whose work sits on a zero-float chain. Two options are then priced side by side: a nine-day slip with salary and lost implant revenue, and a sixty-day contractor. A recommendation goes to steering with both options attached. The budget lists nine lines summing to a base of 3,090,000 and a 310,000 contingency, with backfill and stipends explained. Quarterly cash flow and the plan's limits close the document. Margin notes point to the roster, the external conflict and the slip's price.
Reading the HI540 Unit 6 grading rubric
Rubrics for this unit often weigh the budget and the resource plan about equally. Budget marks go to completeness, realistic figures with a stated basis, a contingency with a reason and a total that matches the charter. Resource marks depend on showing demand against availability and on resolving conflicts in a way the schedule supports. A comparison of options with costs on the same scale earns credit for analysis. Cash flow, assumptions and limits share a smaller block. Writing and APA format complete it. Points are frequently lost by leaving out internal labor, by budgeting a single lump for contingency with no explanation, or by naming an overload without saying how it will be fixed. Recommendations that ignore schedule effects also cost marks.
Common HI540 Unit 6 mistakes, and how to avoid them
The plan most often comes back with internal labor missing, which makes the project look cheaper than it is. Another common problem is a roster listing people with no released hours, so overload cannot be seen. Students sometimes level resources by moving critical work, which quietly moves the end date. Contingency is often a round 10 percent with no link to risks. Options are compared on cost alone, without the schedule or revenue effects. Figures that disagree with the charter's ceiling also draw comments. If you would like a plan built for your own project, gather the schedule and breakdown, the charter's budget line and the prompt, and a custom resource and budget plan can be developed with the same pricing of options.
Get an HI540 Unit 6 example written to your instructions
Budgets and rosters rest on figures your section may already supply, such as labor rates or vendor quotes, so include them with the Unit 6 instructions, the rubric and your earlier schedule. Within 24-48h a free first sample returns, leveled and priced for your project, each budget line carrying its basis. 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 HI540 papers and MS in Health Informatics samples
- HI540 Unit 1: Discussion Post
- HI540 Unit 2: Project Charter
- HI540 Unit 3: Work Breakdown Structure
- HI540 Unit 4: Stakeholder Analysis
- HI540 Unit 5: Schedule and Critical Path
- HI540 Unit 7: Risk Register
- HI540 Unit 8: Seminar Reflection
- HI540 Unit 9: Change Control Procedure
- HI540 Unit 10: Project Closeout Report
- HI530 Unit 6: Data Dictionary Excerpt
- HI520 Unit 6: Multi-Table Join Query
- HI510 Unit 6: Registry Submission Analysis
- HI501 Unit 6: Adoption Evaluation
HI540 Unit 6 questions, answered
Should internal staff time appear in the budget?
In most sections, yes. Salaried analysts and nurses in training cost the organization real money even when no invoice arrives, and in the example the internal labor and backfill lines together exceed the hardware line. Leaving them out understates the project and is among the more common comments on health information budgets, where vendor quotes tend to dominate early drafts.
Where can I find a free HI540 Unit 6 sample paper?
The resource and budget plan for Unit 6 appears here in full, from the roster and loading through the priced options and a nine-line budget.
Why was the contract analyst chosen over a slip?
It cost about 12,600 dollars less than the measurable cost of nine late days and kept the full margin before the old scheduler's support ended.
What is the difference between leveling within float and moving the end date?
Moving work inside its float leaves go-live unchanged; once a chain has no float, resolving the overload means adding people or accepting a later date.
Should internal staff time be in the budget?
Yes. The sample budgets 760,000 dollars of internal information services labor and 214,000 for training backfill, though no invoice arrives for either.