Co-Create Solutions: Innovate or Evaporate: the Value Driven PMO: Fulfilling the Promise of Information Technology in Healthcare

Project Management Offices (PMOs) are commonplace in today’s technology-driven healthcare organizations. This case study is about a Middle Eastern PMO that was instrumental in opening a greenfield hospital and optimizing the services provided by the technology department. The Hospital opened in 2015 by delivering simple clinical services (e.g., ophthalmology exams). However, to provide just this single service, a comprehensive suite of integrated applications needed to be in place (e.g. ERP, Nurse Scheduling, Electronic Patient Record, RIS/PACS, Laboratory systems, Learning Management Systems, firewall security systems, call centre systems, etc.) in addition to Eye Institute specific applications like Zeiss FORUM. This first service offered the opportunity to stabilize, learn and optimize systems, processes and the tasks caregivers complete to deliver exceptional care. More complex services followed such as additional ambulatory clinics (e.g., allergy and immunology), opening acute care, intensive care, and emergency services. The team planned and managed the purposeful stabilization, optimization, and learning for each progressive systems and service deployment. The purpose of this paper is to explain the maturity of the Hospital’s IT PMO where principles of Agile and innovation are becoming core competencies. However, it is the innovation elements that distinguishes the Hospital PMO.