Clinical Project Management

A healthcare project is not finished when the plan is complete. It is finished when a safe service is running and the people who will run it can carry on without the project team. This guide shows how to get there.

Projects in health services happen while patients are still being treated: an emergency department renovated without closing, a new clinical system going live on a busy ward, a medical service set up on an offshore platform where the next delivery depends on the weather. Standard project methods help, but they were not written for this work. This book adapts them to it.

The approach, called Governed Adaptability, keeps clear gates, clinical authority and patient safety at the centre and works in short, flexible cycles between the gates. Safety is not an item on the list; it is the condition for continuing.

It is organised in five parts:

Context and leadership: how projects differ from clinical operations, the role of the clinical project manager, strategy, business case and benefits, and stakeholders and clinical authority. Design and governance: the hybrid governance model, scope, requirements and change, schedule, people, procurement and budget, clinical governance and risk, and data protection and digital health. Delivery and control: mobilisation and workforce readiness, medical logistics and supply chain, work packages and the weekly rhythm, quality, audits, incidents and corrective actions, and reporting, contracts and escalation. Transition and value: commissioning, go-live and go/no-go decisions, handover and service continuity, and benefits and operational KPIs. Applications and tools: clinical research projects, and a toolkit of templates and lessons learned.

Inside you will find:

"From practice" boxes with the authors own experience from hospital, offshore and remote projects; illustrative scenarios, checklists and "decision trap" boxes; six ready-to-use templates: project charter, plan with gates, risk register, go-live readiness checklist, weekly status report and handover record; questions for review with model answers, a glossary and a comparison with PMBOK, PRINCE2, Scrum and other approaches.

For clinicians who lead projects, and for project managers who are new to healthcare.