Report On Dental Service Management Assessment Answer

Project Definition

The project definition is the first step of project management as it contains the details of the project and the deliverables which are essential for planning the project. Thus, the stage consists of the basic idea of the project requirements and the overall scope of the project along with the specific needs of the client that makes the project necessary and how the project may benefit the client (Pohl, 2010). Hence, the following parts of the project definition will be used as a guide for the development of the further, more detailed stages where the technical aspects of the project would be explored. 

Background

The project requires the development of a dental service management system that would help in the transition of the manual records system into the digital one. The specific dental service in question was a small practice in the beginning but has since grown considerably. Thus the manual record keeping and management system that was once more suitable is falling short and thus affecting the performance efficiency of the organization.  The performance of the organization has been impacted in all aspects as well as its growth. The financial aspects of the operations like billing and patient information management along with the administrative aspects like the reminders of follow up visits for patients and stocking of the supplies are impacted by the growth as it became more expansive and complex t keep track of. The limitations of the manual system have become a part in the matter of the coordination as the staff number has grown three folds in the service. Therefore, the system to integrate all aspects of the service like patient database, financial record keeping and the scheduling and coordination has become an essential necessity for the organization. Thus, the project background clearly helps in the identification of the project requirements and the deliverables along with the client expectations from the project.

Project Objectives

The project objective for the particular project for development of system management software for a dental service that outgrew the manual service used till date are mostly related with the different aspects of the service that is to complex and vast for the manual system to cope with and the increase in the number of staff also contribute to the issue by adding the coordination as a requirement for the organization. 
The first objective of the project is the development of an information management system that would keep trace of the financial aspects of the operations like the billing and audit that would help in the organization of the financial activities of the organization. 
The second part is the patient information management which includes both the systematic storage of the information entry of the information in the system and a data base management that would help in the organization and easy access to the information and automate some of the operations like the reminders to follow up for patients and front office staff. 
The third part of the deliverables of the project is the development of the different layers of access that would concern specific information like financial, medial or coordination based that would allow for the increase of the organisational efficiency.

Desired Outcomes

The desired outcome for the specific software development is to streamline the operations of the client’s dental practice that would allow for the development of the management system software that would help the organizational on transition smoothly into the digital management system from the manual one that is too tedious for the current size of the organization. 
The outcome would more specifically be a system that is not only efficient but easy to use and contain all aspects of the operations of the dental practice that include patient appointment, automatic reminder, scheduling, patient information database management and the financial recording and reporting activity. 

Project Scope and Exclusions

The scope of the particular project mainly consists of the organizational efficiency perspective along with coordination and service efficiency and automation of certain operations that makes the information management system more thorough (Leau et al., 2012). Thus, the project scope contains the steps of the development of software that would help management of both patient and financial information and integrate both into automaton of some of the services like the reminder to follow up patients and suppliers o hygiene products used at the service. The project scope also contains the development of the data entry procedure that would depend several forms that would be used in the service to record relevant information in both the front and back office and hep in the easy segmentation of the patients into different categories that would help in the management of the patient record easier and more systematic. This would also involve search criteria for the patient information that would make the access to the information easier. The separation of the administrative information like the ordering of the supplies for the practice or billing for audit purposes and the medical information that would help he dentists make in understanding the case history of each patient that would lead to better service quality.  
The project scopes however hoes not include the management of the activities itself and the medical and employee technical trainings aspects that would help both the dentists and the dental assistants to develop their professional knowledge. This only includes the information management and scheduling aspect o the practice and patient database. 

Constraints and Assumptions

The main constraints are the stratification of the information into the different categories that would be divided into three parts that would consist of the financial information, administrative information and the medical information. The constraints that are applicable in all three cases as the people employed in the organization have need of only a specific type of information. While the dentists and dental assistants require medical information of the patient, the administrative assistants and the manger require only the financial information. The supplies inventory management requires input from both the medical and administrative staff which makes the division of the different access levels a complex process. Thus, the management of the access to the information and the stratification o the information while making sure that they are coordinated is the most important constraint for the project. 
The assumption that is made for the specific project is that all of the staff including the dental assistants and the administrative assistants has enough knowledge about operating computers and data entry and managing databases which would not require extensive training for them to be accustomed to the use of the system being developed. Hence, based on this assumption no training except for an orientation and demonstration session for the staff has been included in the project requirements. 

User(s) and any other known interested parties

There would be four types of users in the in the dental service management software being developed in the project who would then be divided into two basic categories regarding the kind of information they need access to and the type of information they would update into the database.  The users of the software are 
Dentists- they would need patient medical records, documentation and description of the previously availed treatments for the individuals along with the previous diagnosis if any has been made by one of the practitioners in the specific service. They would also need to have clearance to update patient medical information along with a change or new development in the dental health of the patients. 
Dental assistants- the dental assistants would require access to the medical history of the patient to understand if there are any specific needs to the patient needs that is concerned with the procedure of preparing them for the dentist.
Administrative assistants- the administrative assistants require aces to the financial and other general patient information that would enable them to prepare the bills for the services availed by the patients. 
Service manager- the service manger needs to have access to both aspects o the information that would allow for her to understand the expenditure and income of the service that would require the information of the utilities and supplies used in the medical procedures and the billing system that would indicate the income of the service. This is essential for the tax purposes and ordering of supplies that would help in the overview of the operations. 

Interfaces

The system would use a simple graphical user interface that would include a search option that would search the database of the patient information based on a unique identification number given to each patient serially (Wysocki, 2011). However the system access level would determine that part of the information that is displayed in the interface of the system. The manager of the system would be given a specific administrator and maintenance account that would allow for the system, to be modified along with the adding for more user account and define their access levels. This would allow for the system to grow along with the practice to accommodate more people accessing the system in different capacities.

Project Approach

The project approach in this case is designed with the client needs in mind and the project approach would allow for the client to be appraised of the project objectives, progress and the outcome throughout the project where they can give input and be apprised of the progress. The waterfall approach would be used in this case as the requirements of the project are quite normal and there are no specific constraints unique to the system. Thus, the following stages of the project approach would be essential for the development of the project and the protection of the client interest by ensuring client input. 

Requirements

The preparing of the project requirements from meeting with the client is the first step of the project and this stage would be followed by the preparation of the project scope document and the project deliverable list. These documents after initial perusal would be used to form a draft statement with the specified price and schedule for the different stages of the project and the specifications of the deliverables.  The subject mater specialist would then evaluate the project draft and upon approval the client review of the requirements and schedule would lead to approval of the project.

Design

The design phase of the project would then commence and the preparation of the detailed technical requirements and the specifications would be developed. This design document would also list the resources needed and the roles of the different specialist that would be required for the successful completion of the project. This design is completed with the client and project manager review of the resource list and finalised schedule for the project with specification of the different project milestones that would be then subjected to approval process. 

Development

The development stage of the project would include the majority of the work done through the project and the schedule and the work breakdown structure to organize the activities and efforts of the different elements of the project (Chen et al., 2011). The project process is market by the achievement of the different mile stones to give the clients a clear indication into the progress of the project. This would also include the different quality standards checking for the system that would be conducted to check the functionality of the individual elements of the system. The coordination of the different processes and the optimal use of the resources would be ensured by the constant monitoring of the progress of the individual tasks which would then be used to determine the adherence to the schedule and make adjustments in the resource allocation and the schedule to keep track of the and maintain the pace of the overall project. 

Test and implementation

The testing and implementation of the system is the final stage where the finished software is given to testers to check the functionality of the system and identify and correct any issues that might affect the function and effectiveness of the system. The implementation is concluded by the installation of the system in the dental clinic and the initial demonstration and user orientation for the potential users of the system and the administrator of the system developed.

Business Case

The specific business requirements driving the project are a dental practice named ‘Dentists R us’ that started two years ago in the business and residential area that was going through development. The business started a small one as there was one dentist practicing with the aid of an administrative assistant and a dental assistant. The initial system process was done manually and the patients’ records were kept in the same way. This was all right when the practice was of the same size but the practice has since expanded as the customer base grew due to the redevelopment in the area and the rise of the patient population led to expansion of the service. The current service boasts three dentists along with equal number of dental and administrative assistant and the development of a new post of administrative manager who coordinated their efforts. Therefore, the growth o the business led to the higher amount of data to be managed with more details f the processes to be kept track of. This was extremely difficult for the specific manual process and the need for system management software to handle the high volume of data and automate some of the processes to make them free from human error. This would not only help the organization retain the efficiency of the data management and scheduling but also help retain quality standard. Thus, the owner of the business decided to outsource the development of the service management software to a local company to ensure eh administrative and medical record keeping and scheduling would be able to keep up with the growth of the business.

Project Management Team Structure

Project management team structure is based on the overall requirement of the project and the specifics to be taken care of which varies according to the specific needs of the client and the deliverables of the project. The structure of the team therefore is unique for the project of the dental service management system development (Schach, 2011). The specific team consist of the project manger under which the analysis team leader, development team leader and quality analysis team leader control their respective domains. The analysis team consists of subject matter experts and business analysis that help understand the client requirement and express them in terms that make sense to the development team. The development team consists of the software developers who can be divided into programmers and graphic designers. The quality analysis team consists of the testers who point out any flaws and approve the system for implementation. Thus, the teams all contribute to the development of the system to various degrees in different capacities. In some cases like the development and testing the development team and quality analysis team have to coordinate as the feedback of the quality analysis is used by the development team to make adjustments so their functions are interconnected and their roles intersperse. There is also an assistant working under the project manager who acts as a liaison to the client representative to appraise them and take their input on the development specifications and progress.  The following hierarchy lists the structure of the elements that comprise of the project team.

Role Descriptions

The people involved in different capacities in this project would have specific responsibilities according to their expertise. Thus the role descriptions outline those capacities in which they would be contributing to the project.

• Project manager- the role of the project manager is to oversee the project and ensure the project objectives and milestones are achieved. He is also responsible for the allocation of the resources and duties to the different teams. His responsibilities include decision making regarding the project specifics and mile stone or deadlines where there might be changes made in the project due to circumstances that might affect the time, quality or resource constraints of the project. Therefore the project manger oversees and makes appropriate changes to the resource allocation and adjusts the schedule to ensure satisfaction of the client.  

• Assistant/ client liaison- the role of the assistant in not only to aid the project manager in his duties but to keep abreast of all the details regarding progress of the project or necessary adjustments and inform the clients or confer with them on the matter when their input is needed. 

• Analysis team leader- the analysis team leader acts as the go between who oversees the analysis part of the project and oversees the actions of the analysis team. He also sends the findings of the team to the development team for the next stage of the project.

• Development team leader- the development team leader oversees the progress of the development of the system and coordinates with other team leaders whenever necessary.

• Quality analysis team leader- the quality analysis team leader oversees and controls the project quality which ensures the client satisfaction and compliance of the final product with client requirements as analysed by the analysis team.

• Subject matter experts- the subject matter experts are specialists who are familiar with eth business setting of the client and their expectations that can transfer the knowledge to the technical experts for ensuring that project development team understands what the client requires in technical terms.

• Analysts- analysts use the requirements and check their feasibility for the specific project and the technical requirements which acts as a filter between the development team and the project requirements. 

• Programmers- the programmers develop the program that fulfils the technical requirements of the project and develops the system that would suit the client requirements. 

• Graphic designers- graphic designers are responsible for the development of the user interfaces for the different levels of users which would make the system operation easier and attractive aesthetically.

• Testers- the testers are the ones who check the developed program for the compliance with the client requirements and the n report any available issues that need the attention of the developers to ensure client satisfaction and if the program meets the project deliverables they approve the project implementation in the client location.

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