The APHL Informatics Project Management Plan (PMP) identifies what the project will do, when, by whom and describes how major aspects of the project will be managed.
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Only Section 2: Scope of the PMP should be updated after Project Startup. The APHL Project Lead approves scope changes. |
Project Name | Policy Education |
APHL Project Lead | Brooke |
Project Manager | TBD |
Sponsor | Brooke |
Target Audience | Management, PHAs, PHLs, CSTE, ASTHO, other national partners |
Created By | Crystal and Brooke |
When Created | 2/2023 (Word) |
Document Date |
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Document Status |
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Template Version # and Date | (v. 1) |
Approved By and Date |
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Sections with “*” are optional for small projects. PMs need to mark unused sections with “N/A due to <reason>.” An example reason might be “small project” or “not a factor.”
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1 PROJECT OVERVIEW
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Provide a brief description of the project and its associated product. Also, briefly state the business need for the project, its public health/business impact, and how the project goals align with the goals of APHL, CDC (if applicable), and other Public Health Agencies. It is strongly recommended that you include a technical diagram, if feasible. Suggestions would be a high-level conceptual data flow diagram, technical architecture, current/future state, or something similar. |
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Describe the Problem or opportunity addressed, Justification, Customer’s needs, primary use cases. |
PHA/Ls are under-resourced and PHA/L SME implementers don’t have time to read federal policies that will have large impacts to their work, operations, and critical data quality and availability.
In the past CSTE, APHL, and others (JPHIT1.0) have reviewed various federal policies and have occasionally presented draft comments to PHA/Ls, submitting a comment letter with various signatories as the association. As policy analysis has not previously received dedicated funding, these reviews and information sharing only ever occurred at the last second for PHA?Ls, though national leaders, within-association, and association leaders were aware somewhat sooner. This “scramble” did not allow PHA/Ls to work through agency internal review procedures that would allow them to submit a letter as the organization, and education about the potential to submit comments as an individual was not available. Finally, agencies, associations, and national leaders may not have realized the degree to which numbers of letters are weighted differently from letters with several or many signatories, which still only counts as one letter. These, as well as chronic under-resourcing, have contributed to low awareness of and participation of STLTs PHA/Ls in federal rule-making input procedures.
?may be too much detail about why submitting individual PHA/L letters is needed??
In addition, when there are conflicts in perspective between PHAs, due to the nature of submitting one letter, letters do not reflect full spectrum of impact to different PHA/L operations, and may not reflect differences in different types of public health reporting (immunization, syndromic, and ELR all have different structures and needs). In addition, PHLs and their unique perspectives have not been well reflected in submitted Association (CSTE, APHL) group comment letters. (is that true? I don't' recall any lab participation in CSTE’s discussions…)
The needs the policy education project plans to address, and our resulting goals, are threefold:
Efficiently review and identify predicted impacts of high-priority proposed policies and requests for information and identify potential impacts on PHA/Ls.
Share findings and rapidly-developed draft comments our public health community, especially PHA/Ls themselves in a way that allows them to contribute directly to the draft comments to allow all to see the variety of impacts depending on the agency, lab, public health reporting standard and other environmental (or is operational a better word?) differences.
With these draft comments, PHA/Ls and agency staff will be empowered to submit their own comment letters as well as meeting their agency’s internal review processes so that their letters will reflect their priority concerns, and include specific impacts, especially if those are unique (for example; AK v NYC, unique challenges faced by territories and the differences in operations among different tribal nations. With timely drafts to work from, these letters will be easier and faster for time-constrained SMEs to write.
This efficient method of developing and sharing draft comments will empower PHA/Ls to comment on federal policies that will impact their work intimately as well as meeting agency and laboratory review procedures in a timely manner. They will be empowered to voice the diversity of their STLTs PHA/L needs directly, rather than being spoken for.
Federal partners will receive a greater number of letters from STLTs PHAs including staff and agencies who have not otherwise been able or comfortable to comment previously.
Provide education about federal policy-making processes, timelines, comment review procedures, including understanding what makes more and less useful comment letters from the perspective of policy-writers and reviewers. This education will assist PHA/L staff in understanding of policy-making, and develop their confidence and skillsets in this area, ideally contributing their perspectives and input to leaders directly, though submission of their own letters. If we are lucky, they’ll share with colleagues and friends, and we will begin to develop a robust policy-contributing core of STLTs practitioners, with critical operational and implementation knowledge to share with policymakers and leadership.
To increase ambient awareness of PHA/Ls staff of the various proposed policies and published rules federal partners are working on, develop clear and readable summaries of policies for those federal publications that are not of large enough impact to develop comments, but may still interest PHAs, PHLs, or our partners. These summaries will increase awareness among PHA/Ls about policies relevant to their work and contribute to their engagement.
Encourage PHAs to share impacts they identify from summaries or comments they were inspired to develop and submit, encourage conversation and other interactions.
Develop and grow member knowledge and confidence with the goal of growing the (nascent?) STLTs policy community and increasing the space that STLTs perspectives take up in national discussions and policy-making. Encourage relationship-building that will improve awareness of STLTs perspectives and that could move STLTs towards putting their needs and goals on the federal agenda.
To encourage interaction, we will remove barriers, lower the stakes of interaction and discussion, facilitate and encourage to provide a supportive and responsive space for discussion and learning.
This is what I’m imagining, and yes, I realize it’s pretty pie in the sky
(for example, perhaps a rule only affects STLTS STI data collection in some way, is not high-priority for APHL resources to develop draft comments and gather input, but for staff working in STIs, it may be important enough to develop their own comments. We hope PHA/Ls will feel comfortable enough sharing those too, so others can benefit and are inspired to take opportunities to practice and grow their policy analysis and commenting skillsets.) However, if we get three people who do this in a year, we’ve just identified STLTs policy leaders - and can start introducing them to feds and leaders who will benefit from talking to them. This is like identifying a future Nancy, Karla, or Annie - I’d consider that an incredible win, even if it’s only one person, because they will set direction and become a pillar of the community.
2 SCOPE
2.1 Scope of Work
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Describe what the project is intended to achieve in business and technical terms. Use bulleted lists. |
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Lists other systems or projects that might be impacted by this project – needed for coordination. (If none, delete this section.) |
3 ASSUMPTIONS, CONSTRAINTS, AND RISKS
3.1 Assumptions
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A factor that, for planning purposes, will be taken to be true, real, or certain but is outside the project team's total control. These are recorded to gain agreement with the Client and to take swift action during the project if they do not hold true. These are potential risks! Include external assumptions such as a product’s availability, suitability and reliability, legislative changes, relative importance of scope vs. cost or time. Each assumption should spell out the consequence. |
Dedicated availability of APHL resources and project team.
The project team consists of the relevant policy expertise, skills, and experience.
PHA and PHL staff (notably those with the relevant expertise and experience) have sustained availability and interest in engaging with the project team.
Partners have dedicated staff, and sustained availability and interest in engaging with the project team.
Barriers to PHA and PHL access, participation, interest, are identified and removed.
The relevant subject matter expertise breadth is identified, recruited, and retained.
The project team can demonstrate sustained project value to APHL Management and the project is adequately funded to support necessary resources.
In the case of resource changes: project knowledge, processes, and relationships can be readily transferred and maintained.
The project team can socialize and emphasize the importance of project engagement with partners in the relevant arenas (e.g., Joint Public Health Informatics Task Force (JPHIT 2.0).
The project team and partners agree on the process and tools to collaboratively develop and review comments.
Federal policy makers appreciate or benefit from this work.
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(This is an initial list only; to be maintained in a Risk Log at <URL>)
Risk | Mitigation(s) |
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The project team inadvertently makes or maintains barriers to participation, or does not execute on the value that PHAs and PHLs hoped to receive from the project. If this occurs, engagement in the project – and therefore project success - will falter. | |
PHAs and PHLs do not feel informed enough about policy content to participate meaningfully in the project. | |
Political nuances and sensitivities may arise when providing public comment, which may deter the perceived ability and willingness of PHAs, PHLs, and partners to contribute. | Anon comments are possible and common, I planned to educate about that I do think this is an unmitigated risk for PHA/Ls though, b/c org comments aren’t anon, only individuals. |
Disagreement on an approach, tools, and expectations to collaboratively develop comments | |
Opportunities to provide feedback to NPRMs, RFIs, and other policy initiatives may be identified “late in the game,” significantly reducing the time available to convene and collaborate with PHAs, PHLs, and partners. | |
4 SCHEDULE
4.1 Major External Dependencies
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CSTE agreement on approach, trial, location of draft comments
PHA/L advisors (resources)
Sufficient resources with wide SME brought to post-pilot project ??
4.2 Timeline / Gantt Chart / Schedule
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(This is an initial timeline only; to be maintained at <URL>)
4.3 Executive Milestones (* optional for small projects)
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Executive Milestone | Estimated Completion Timeframe | Project Phase (Planning, Execution, Monitoring/Control, Closing |
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Planning and Process Development:
| Planning, approval, and preparation: Planning:
Approval:
Prepare:
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Pilot Project Processes/Workflow: | Pilot Test processes, revise based on feedback and findings, final approval of modified and ready-to execute project | |
Ongoing Project Operations:
| Execute |
5 PROJECT ORGANIZATION
5.1 Interested Parties, Roles, and Responsibilities
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Name & Organization | Role | Primary Project Responsibilities |
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CSTE | Partner | Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), including mechanisms to build and document PHA consensus on policy, surveillance, and the data modernization initiative (DMI). |
Joint Public Health Informatics Taskforce (JPHIT 2.0) | Partner? | |
DMI initiative work | Various | |
APHL Public Policy Program | ||
ASTHO, NACCHO, PHII, CDC | Additional interested parties that should be informed | Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII), through DMI work CDC (funding, through DMI, through relationships with CMS, ONC, policymakers) |
Steering committee ? | ? | |
Crystal | Pilot…. person | Do the thing |
?? | Editor | Makes everyone’s life easier |
Brooke | Approve the thing | |
Vanessa | Review the thing? Promote and publicize with PHAs and PHLs? | |
Michelle | Aware of the thing? | |
Tom and Mel | PMO | Very tolerant explanations and hand-holding - thank you! |
CSTE - Annie | Aware of the thing? (I hope/suspect she’ll contribute comments, which would be awesome) | |
CSTE - Meredith? | Aware of the thing? | |
CSTE - Becky? | Promoting and publicizing with PHAs? | |
CSTE - Gillian, others? | Aware? | |
5.2 Reporting Structure
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(This is an initial reporting chart; to be maintained at <URL>)
TBD post-resourcing (?)
6 QUALITY MANAGEMENT
6.1 Risk Management Approach
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Issues will be monitored weekly, and the project manager will update the issue log as needed. The Issue Log will be stored in a document repository located at <URL>.
6.3 Change Management Approach
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Creation of policy review tracking (i.e. SS)
Creation of policy summaries for some policies (i.e. summaries requested on Confluence)
Creation of draft comment letters for some policies (i.e. draft comment letters req on Confl)
7COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT
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Communications management is an integrated approach to conveying clear, consistent, and timely information to stakeholders who can affect or may be affected by the objectives and outcome of the project. Also, define the approach that will be used to communicate with these stakeholders, including messages, messengers, vehicles, and timing. |
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Name | Title | Contact | Communication | Vehicle |
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TBD | Subject Matter Expert | |||
TBD | Subject Matter Expert(s) | |||
TBD | Pr ger | <email address> | Status Reports And Internal Project Status Meeting | Email, Phone, Skype, Formal Written Communications |
Brooke | APHL project owner? | <email address> | Status Reports, Progress Reports | Email, Phone, Skype, Formal Written Communications |
TBD | BA (s) or other resources | <email address> | Status Reports, Progress Reports | Email, Phone, Skype, Formal Written Communications |
Crystal Snare | Temporary SME to launch |
7.2 Project Documentation (* optional for small projects)
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Documentation Type | Where Stored (include URL) |
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Brooke, this is all you - I don’t have access to anywhere outside of smartsheets and Confluence. From my POV, Confluence is fine, but happy to do something else – ? | |
Policy Tracker | Smartsheet |
7.3 Project Meetings (* optional for small projects)
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Meeting | Target Audience | Description & Purpose | Frequency | Owner | Distribution Vehicle | Internal / External |
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<project> TA Team Biweekly Meeting | <project> Technical Assistance Internal Team | Brief Progress Report including <project> Project Updates, MMG development updates, pilot state implementation updates, deliverables updates | Biweekly | APHL | Phone/web conference | Internal |
<project> Core Team Meetings | <project> Core Team: Project Coordinator, Terminologist, Technical Architect | TA Pilot Jurisdiction Implementation status reports | Weekly | APHL | Phone/web conference | Internal |
Pilot State Checkpoint Meetings | Pilot State Implementers, TA Team | Update on MMG implementation progress, milestone progress | Weekly | APHL | Phone, Web conference, email | External |
8 APPLICATION DEPLOYMENT PLAN (* optional for small projects)
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This section can be detailed or broad, formal or informal, describing the approach to deploying the product or service. For example, if the project involves deploying an application to state health partners, this section will discuss the strategy for rolling out the application to the end users, including conducting environmental assessments, developing memorandums of understanding, hardware/software installation, and data conversion. |
N/A?
Potentially could describe pilot project then resourcing and modifying and then executing vs plan then launch, which I’m guessing is more typical for APHL?