Grasso advises healthcare pros to use project management to implement stimulus package funds

HOBOKEN , N.J. – With approximately $20 billion for healthcare IT and in excess of $600 billion for healthcare reform included in President Obama’s stimulus package, those in the healthcare field will be faced with how to acquire and effectively manage the stimulus funding. Dr. S. Vincent Grasso, a lecturer for the Stevens Healthcare Educational Partnership (SHEP) at Stevens Institute of Technology, believes that project management has a critical role in helping hospitals go after and manage stimulus package funds. According to Grasso, project management expertise is a factor in successful evidence-based medicine and pay-for-performance programs.

Ongoing trends within the US healthcare delivery model now include a much greater emphasis on the value of evidence-based medicine at the point-of-care and pay-for-performance programs for decreasing the costs of care while also enhancing its quality.

According to the Center for Evidence Based Medicine (www.cebm.net), "Evidence based medicine is the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.”

Pay-for-performance (P4P) is an emerging movement in health insurance. Providers under this arrangement are rewarded for meeting pre-established targets for delivery of healthcare services. This is a fundamental change from the fee-for-service model.

“As a surgeon and software architect, I have used my healthcare IT-based project management experiences to edu cate hospital management and clinical staff as they migrate into evidence-based medicine and pay-for-performance programs. It is encouraging to see forward-thinking medical centers such as Hoboken University Medical Center take the lead on having their staff augment their existing knowledge base on topics that will play a role within President Obama’s healthcare directed stimulus package,” said Grasso. “I am formalizing my project management experience via an anticipated Project Management Professional® certificate during the spring of 2009 after completing the Stevens PMP exam prep course run by Dr. Michael Poli.”

The widespread implementation of electronic health records is a crucial step toward IT-enabled healthcare reform.

“What is not yet widely recognized is that the Obama funds will be disbursed to healthcare providers who can demonstrate ‘meaningful use’ of electronic health records—not just adoption. Both hospitals and physician practices will need to invest in HIT edu cation to achieve this goal and we are pleased to have an HIT program designed to provide this type of in-depth edu cation for both healthcare providers and IT professionals,” said Dr. Carol Brown, Distinguished Professor and Director of the Healthcare IT Management Program at Stevens.

The SHEP grant has given Hoboken University Medical Center access to faculty members from Stevens with real-world experience.

“Our employees have the opportunity to learn from teachers like Dr. Grasso, who are at the forefront of their fields in healthcare,” said Joseph Burt, Vice President for Development at Hoboken University Medical Center.

“The new administration is demanding transparency of initiatives arising from the stimulus package,” said Bob Floyd, Brigadier General , USA (Ret.), from Robbins-Gioia, a program management firm. “A key enabler to both transparency and program success is an integrated methodology as captured in the proper execution of program management.”

"The enormity of the healthcare reform initiative currently underway within President Obama’s administration will challenge the existing status quo concerning the use of existing resources and additional capital via the stimulus package,” said J. Anthony Forstmann, managing partner of Forstmann & Co., an asset management company. “Proposed projects, including the migration of our current centralized healthcare analog-based delivery model into a fully distributed digital experience will not only require the participation of well-trained clinicians but those possessing skill sets within the technical and project management domains. These capabilities will be essential for successful implementation, training, maintenance, quality assurance and the ever-present need for upgrades.”

About Stevens’ HIT Program

Stevens’ new Healthcare IT Management program (http://howe.stevens. edu /hith) is designed to provide healthcare professionals with specific best practices for different types of clinical systems. Under the directorship of Carol V. Brown, Distinguished Professor, this unique curriculum helps physicians, nurses, and healthcare managers make sound business decisions about HIT investments as well as to avoid typical pitfalls when implementing new clinical systems in various hospital and ambulatory settings. Besides physicians like Dr. Grasso, the Advisory Board members include CIOs at New Jersey hospitals.

For information about the graduate certificate program in Healthcare IT:

If you are a healthcare professional, visit http://howe.stevens.edu/hith

If you are an IT professional, visit http://howe.stevens.edu/hiti

For custom short courses, contact the Program Director, Carol V. Brown, at 201-216-5581.

About Stevens Institute of Technology

Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.

Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.  

For the latest news about Stevens, please visit StevensNewsService.com.