Application of project management in healthcare

Abstract

Project management is used to produce specifically defined deliverables, by a certain time to a defined quality, with a given level of resources, so that planned outcomes and benefits may be achieved. The health care systems from different countries are choosing project management as a tool to meet their budgets and increase the quality of medical care.  In health, a project is recognized a particularly useful way to introduce innovations, address new challenges, or find solutions for problems that the existing procedures and routines do not accommodate.

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the literature on project management applications in the healthcare field.

The search of the literature on project management applications in the healthcare field was conducted utilizing r scholarly databases PubMed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Embase.

The findings of this research show the significant and increasing role of project management in healthcare. The results indicated the existence of different types of health projects, describing the specific characteristics of each type. Project management is an effective tool to improve healthcare quality management outcomes. The healthcare experts can apply project management to improve healthcare quality management outcomes. Recent systematic reviews identified healthcare project success factors and project management's role in healthcare quality management outcomes improvement. Additional research is needed to improve knowledge about project management applications in public health projects.