NURS 6441 Week 8 Communication Plan Example

Course	NURS 6441 Project Management: Healthcare Information Technology
Week	Week 8
Paper type	Communication plan
Length	About 680 words, 5 pages
Format	APA 7 student paper
School	Walden University
Program	Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)
Updated	September 2026

Free sample paper for NURS 6441 Week 8

Communication Plan: Electronic Procedural Consent, Nine Audiences, Three Escalation Levels and a Route for Concerns to Travel Up

Student Name

College of Nursing, Walden University

NURS 6441: Project Management: Healthcare Information Technology

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

What this page is doingNaming the upward route in the title signals that the plan listens as well as broadcasts.

Communication Plan: Electronic Procedural Consent, Nine Audiences, Three Escalation Levels and a Route for Concerns to Travel Up

Purpose

This plan sets out who needs to know what about the electronic procedural consent project, from whom, how and how often, and how concerns reach people who can act on them. Communication problems are among the most often cited contributors to health IT project failure (Kaplan & Harris-Salamone, 2009), and a plan that only pushes information outward cannot hear what the units it is changing already know.

Communication Matrix

Table 1

Audiences, Content, Channel, Frequency and Sender

Audience	What they learn	Channel	Frequency	Sender	How they reply
Sponsor	Decisions needed, milestone status, risks above medium	Written one-page brief	Every two weeks	Project manager	Decision noted in brief
Steering group	Schedule position against baseline, open issues, change requests	Meeting with written summary	Every two weeks	Project manager	In meeting
Site leads	Training progress by unit, readiness conditions, go-live plan	Huddle call	Weekly; daily in go-live week	Project manager	On the call or by message
Surgeons and anesthesiologists	What changes for them, when, and how the timing test turned out	Department meeting slot and email from their chief	Monthly; once before each go-live	Perioperative medical director	Through their chief
Pre-procedure and procedural nurses	What changes in their bays, training dates, where tablets live	Unit huddle and one-page tip sheet	Weekly from four weeks before go-live	Site lead	Unit feedback form
Consent committee	Form configuration status, anything touching wording	Committee agenda item	At each meeting until forms accepted	Project manager	In meeting
Language services	Interpreter workflow testing and schedule	Email and test sessions	When testing is scheduled	Technical lead	Email
Help desk	What the system does, common problems, escalation route	Briefing and knowledge article	Event driven: two weeks before and on go-live	Clinical applications manager	Ticket notes
All staff at a hospital	That go-live is happening, what to do if a consent will not save	Intranet notice and screen saver	Event driven: one week before go-live	Chief nursing officer	Via site lead

Escalation

Level 1, a problem affecting one user or one bay that does not delay a procedure: reported to the super-user on shift, resolved or passed to the help desk within one hour. Level 2, a problem delaying a procedure or affecting a whole unit: reported to the site lead and the project manager by phone, contact within 15 minutes, decision on workaround or fallback within 30 minutes. Level 3, a problem affecting a whole hospital, patient safety or data security: reported to the project manager, the clinical applications manager and the sponsor, contact within 15 minutes, and the sponsor decides whether to invoke the fallback procedure.

Meeting Cadence

Table 2

Standing Meetings

Meeting	Who	Frequency	Length	Output
Steering group	Sponsor, co-lead, site leads, technical lead, project manager	Every two weeks	45 minutes	Decisions and change log updates
Build huddle	Analysts, technical lead, project manager	Twice weekly	15 minutes	Blockers and next steps
Site readiness call	Site leads, super-user leads, project manager	Weekly	30 minutes	Readiness condition status
Go-live command huddle	Command center roles	Twice daily in go-live week	15 minutes	Issue triage

How Concerns Travel Up

Every unit has a one-page feedback form at the nurses' station and online, which asks what happened, where and whether a patient was affected. Site leads review forms daily during go-live and weekly otherwise, and bring any concern that affects more than one unit to the site readiness call. Concerns that affect scope, schedule or safety go to the steering group, and the person who raised them receives an answer within one week saying what was decided and by whom. Surgeons' concerns travel through their chiefs to the perioperative medical director. Change succeeds more often when the people affected can see that their concerns were heard and acted on (Lorenzi & Riley, 2000), which is why the answer back matters as much as the form. The plan is reviewed with the stakeholder plan before each go-live, in line with guidance that communication should be adapted as a project moves through its phases (Project Management Institute [PMI], 2021).

What this page is doingThe upward route names who reads concerns, how often, where they go next and when the person who raised them hears back.

References

Kaplan, B., & Harris-Salamone, K. D. (2009). Health IT success and failure: Recommendations from literature and an AMIA workshop. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 16(3), 291-299. https://doi.org/10.1197/jamia.M2997

Lorenzi, N. M., & Riley, R. T. (2000). Managing change: An overview. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 7(2), 116-124. https://doi.org/10.1136/jamia.2000.0070116

Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (7th ed.).

Reading the NURS 6441 Week 8 instructions

The Week 8 assignment usually asks for a communication plan for your project, identifying audiences, information needs, methods, frequency and responsibility, and often an escalation path. Many prompts use a matrix. Plans are commonly two to four pages. Describe each communication by what it tells the audience, not just its name, and vary frequency to match need. Name sending roles. Include how information and concerns travel upward from the units being changed, since a plan that only pushes information outward will miss problems until go-live. Define escalation levels with who is contacted and how quickly. Check whether your section wants the plan tied to the stakeholder analysis from the previous week.

Inside the NURS 6441 Week 8 example

A short purpose paragraph cites a review of health IT failure on communication. Table 1 lists nine audiences with content, channel, frequency, sender and how each replies, including event-driven rows for the help desk and all staff. The escalation section defines three levels by effect on patients and procedures, with contact and decision times. Table 2 sets four standing meetings with attendees, frequency, length and output. The final section describes the unit feedback form, who reviews it, where concerns go and the one-week answer back, citing work on managing change and project management guidance on adapting communication. The matrix and the upward route are designed to be read together.

Where the marks sit in the NURS 6441 Week 8 rubric

Communication plan rubrics usually score identification of audiences, fit of content and channel to each audience, frequency, responsibility, escalation, feedback mechanisms and presentation. Audience fit is judged on whether the plan meets different needs differently. Responsibility rewards named sending roles. Escalation is often required and earns credit for defined levels and response times. Feedback mechanisms distinguish strong plans, since two-way communication is a common rubric row. Presentation rewards a matrix that fits on a page and a coordinator could run without asking questions. Some rubrics also reward event-driven communication, such as notices tied to go-live, because it shows the plan follows the project's rhythm rather than a fixed calendar. Graders also look for a named sender on every row.

Common NURS 6441 Week 8 mistakes, and how to avoid them

The most common mistake is a matrix in which every audience receives a weekly email from the project team. Another is describing content by title, such as status report, without saying what it contains. Some plans omit escalation, or define it without response times. Many never explain how staff concerns reach decision makers. Describe what each audience will learn, set frequency by need, name the sender, define escalation levels and write out the upward route, including when people hear back. Also test the matrix by asking whether a coordinator who joined yesterday could run it without questions. Include the help desk as an audience, since it hears about problems first.

Get a NURS 6441 Week 8 example written to your instructions

The audiences your section specifies shape every row of the matrix, so send those with the prompt and the rubric. What arrives is a NURS 6441 communication plan for a composite rollout: a full matrix, three escalation levels and an upward feedback route. Distribution lists and internal reports from your employer are never used. First sample free, inside 24-48h.

More NURS 6441 papers and MSN samples

NURS 6441 Week 8 questions, answered

How detailed does the matrix need to be?

Detailed enough that a coordinator who joined yesterday could run it. That means a named sending role, a channel, a rhythm and a description of the content by what it tells the reader. Rows saying regular updates to stakeholders read as placeholders, and most rubrics have a specificity row written precisely for that habit. A coordinator who joined yesterday is the right test to apply.

Does the plan cover communication upward as well?

It should, and the example gives it a section. Plans that only push information down describe broadcasting, and a rollout that cannot hear from the units it is changing will discover its problems at go-live. Naming how a concern travels up, and who has to answer, is often the difference between adequate and strong here. Silence from the units is not evidence that anything is working.

Should every audience get the same frequency?

Almost never. A sponsor needs less volume and more decision content; unit staff need more frequency and more operational detail; a help desk needs a burst around cutover and little before it. The example varies rhythm by audience and makes two rows event driven, which is what a differentiation row is written to reward. Rhythm that ignores its audience gets ignored by that audience.

Where can I find a free NURS 6441 Week 8 sample paper?

The whole communication plan, matrix, escalation levels, meeting table and upward route, is free to read here. A plan for your own project's audiences can be drafted on request.

Does the NURS 6441 communication plan need an escalation section?

Most prompts expect one. Define severity levels by their effect on patients and work, and say who is contacted and how quickly at each level.

NURS 6441 Week 8 communication plan example