Introduction
Information campaigns are some of the more frequent methods of healthcare promotion used by hospitals, clinics, and other community healthcare organizations around the world. These campaigns are aimed at the elimination of ignorance, prejudices, and wrong assumptions about certain healthcare issues, diseases, and factors that may contribute to a person’s health. The scopes of these information campaigns can differ from informing the population of a widespread epidemic to talking about the importance of washing hands before food consumption. Learning how to organize such an event, allocating human and material resources, constructing a WBS schedule, and implementing it to achieve the project’s organizational objectives is a useful skill for any healthcare manager to have. This paper is dedicated to developing and planning an information campaign about Air Pollution Health Risks in a suburban community with a population of 20,000.
Project Scope Details
Air pollution presents significant healthcare risks for the people that live in communities located in close proximity to industrial centers, power plants, refinaries, factories, junkyards, large animal farms, and other potential sources of pollution. It is equally dangerous to anyone, and prolonged exposure to “bad air” can lead to serious health detriments, ranging from a variety of chronic respiratory diseases to lung cancer (“What are the health effects of air pollution?” n.d.). While everyone is susceptible to the detrimental effects of polluted air, older patients and young children are more vulnerable and more likely to develop diseases because of it. This information campaign is aimed at informing the population about the consequences of air pollution and of preventive measures that could be done to avoid any health risks associated with it.
Project Objective
The purpose of this project is to develop a cohesive and well-structured information campaign about health risks associated with air pollution. The information campaign will take 2 months, and would require a budget of no less than 3000 dollars. The project will involve designing, printing, and distributing informational brochures throughout the community. The budget is formed using the following numbers:
- 2000 dollars would be allocated for printing 4000 brochures. According to the information on contemporary prices for brochures, the average price for an 11’’ x 17’’ tri-folded brochure printed on a 100 lb. glossed paper costs around 50 cents per copy (“Brochures,” n.d.). The price typically decreases for large orders such as this one, but having extra funds ready for additional expenses is always helpful.
- 1000 dollars would be allocated for associated expenses. These include designing the brochure, instructing the nurses participating in this information campaign, delivering the brochures, hardware and software expenses, etc.
The project is expected to start on June 1, 2017, and end on August 1, 2017. The total number of days allocated for the project is 60 days, holidays, and weekends included.
Project Deliverables
According to Larson and Gray (2014), establishing project deliverables is paramount for its success or failure, as, without clearly outlined deliverables, it is impossible to plan accordingly and assemble a cohesive work breakdown schedule. As this is a healthcare project, all participants must understand the goals and objectives of this projects and be aware of the deliverables that must be met at the end of it. The list of deliverables for this project is as followed:
- Designing, printing, and distributing 4000 brochures to the population of the community. The scope of this goal is to provide the information to as many families as possible in order to ensure maximum coverage and spread of the information.
- Informing the population about the target healthcare problem through personal contact. Nurses participating in the project would be instructed to approach families (especially those with young children) and talk about the dangers of air pollution and what they, as parents, could do in order to avoid health-associated risks.
Project Milestones
Larson and Gray (2014) identify milestones as a list of key tasks and objectives that need to be completed in order for the project deliverables to be met. As such, identifying these key tasks and setting dates of completion for them is paramount for project completion. The list of milestones for this information campaign is as followed:
- Project plan completion and approval. Prior to allocating staff and resources to the proposed project plan, it must be reviewed by the board of the hospital that would be implementing it. It will have to approve the project’s budget, its objectives, deliverables, and other points worth noticing. This milestone must be achieved no later than 2017.
- Designing the brochure. Since the brochure would be the main distributive for this information campaign, designing it and filling it with all relevant information about air pollution and preventive health practices would be the next milestone. Due to the availability of the information and brochure design software, this milestone should not take more than a week to achieve. The brochure must be designed and presented to the reviewing board for approval no later than 2017.
- Printing the brochure. After the reviewing board approves the brochure design and content, it will be required to find a company that provides printing services. Since the community features several companies specializing in such services, it would be required to contact all of them and see which one offers the best deal. This would allow saving time and resources. The standard time required for printing and delivering brochures is between 2 to 5 business days. Taking search times into account, it should not take more than a week to find a printing company and procure 4000 copies of the brochure. This milestone should be achieved no later than 2017.
- Finding a courier. Due to the size of the community, distributing all 4000 brochures in person would likely be a challenging task for the nurses. In order to save time and effort, half of these brochures should be delivered to individual mailboxes. Hiring a courier to perform the task more swiftly is more efficient than allocating a nurse to perform a mailperson duty. Deadline for this milestone: 2017.
- Instructing the nurses. Nurses would be approaching families inside and outside of the hospital in order to engage in a conversation and provide information about health-related risks associated with air pollution. They must be acquainted with the material of the brochure, instructed on how and whom to approach, and be prepared to research the subject more in-depth to answer any additional questions that members of the community may have. Deadline for this milestone is set for 2017.
- Delivering the brochures via courier. The courier will be instructed to deliver brochures to households that are known to have young children or older family members. Since no personal contact is required, this task can be achieved relatively swiftly. The courier is expected to deliver 2000 brochures to individual mailboxes in no more than a week. Deadline for this milestone is 2017.
- Distributing the brochures and instructing the population. Having nurses engage the population and provide them with brochures and explanations as to why it is important to know about how air pollution affects health and learn coping strategies to counteract it would take time. Since this is the main milestone of the project, it is expected to be completed around 2017.
- Debriefing. After the rest of the brochures are successfully distributed, the information campaign is declared finished. All participants are debriefed, the results are reviewed, and notes are made for the future. Date: 2017.
Technical Requirements
If the hospital chose to design the brochure without addressing any professional brochure designers, it would require specialized hardware and software to do so. Adobe InDesign is considered to be one of the best engines for brochure-making. Alternatively, freeware could be used to design the brochure. Other than that, this project would not need much in terms of technical requirements, as equipment-heavy tasks such as printing the brochures have been outsourced.
Limits and Exclusions
The limits this project faces largely include the quality of information that will be distributed and the number of households that it will reach. Since the project is limited by the number of brochures, finances, and time constraints, it is possible that not everyone will be reached and informed. Households that would receive the brochure from the courier will be limited to the information it offers, while those contacted by a nurse would be instructed and informed in greater detail. The information provided within this campaign would include only the members of the local community and will not extend its reach to other communities within the same area. Another limitation this project faces is the number of nurses that could be allocated to the project without undermining the hospital’s capabilities. The estimated number would be from five to ten.
Conclusion
This project is dedicated to informing the population about the dangers of air pollution and health risks related to it. Breathing polluted air can cause the development of numerous chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma, allergies, obstructive pulmonary disease, reactive airway disease, lung cancer, and many others (“What are the health effects of air pollution?” n.d.). Young children and old patients are particularly vulnerable to such diseases, but all age groups are endangered, in one way or another.
The estimated number of brochures to be distributed is 4000. The estimated project budget is 3000 dollars. The project will take 60 days to complete and will involve 5-10 nurses employed in the instruction and distribution of educational materials. The hospital has been deemed capable of allocating that number of nurses to the information campaign without compromising its healthcare-providing capabilities.
The information campaign proposed in this project would involve the distribution of brochures that contain helpful information about air pollution and ways of minimizing its dangerous effects on the organism. These brochures will be distributed through mail or through personal contact. Nurses would be instructed to approach families and engage in conversation about air pollution. Brochures will be distributed at the end of the conversation.
References
Brochures. (n.d.). Web.
Larson, E., & Gray, C. (2014). Project management: The managerial process (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
What are the health effects of air pollution? (n.d.). In University of Rochester Medical Center. Web.