| Course | DNP 835 Strategic Leadership and Business Management |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 4 |
| Paper type | Project charter and work plan |
| Length | About 1,019 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Aspen University |
| Program | DNP |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for DNP 835 Module 4
Chartering the Change: A Project Charter, Work Breakdown Structure and Timeline for Acute Care for Elders Components on One Unit
Student Name
Doctor of Nursing Practice Program, Aspen University
DNP 835: Strategic Leadership and Business Management
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Chartering the Change: A Project Charter, Work Breakdown Structure and Timeline for Acute Care for Elders Components on One Unit
Good ideas fail in health care as often through poor execution as through poor design. Project management provides tools for turning an approved idea into defined work with owners, time and money. This paper presents the charter, work breakdown structure and timeline for a project to implement acute care for elders components on one 30-bed medical unit, 5 West, at a composite 300-bed community hospital, following standard project management practice (Project Management Institute, 2021). The project follows the leadership analysis that recommended starting with components on an existing unit rather than a dedicated new unit.
The Project Charter
Purpose: to reduce functional decline, falls and delirium among patients aged 70 and older on 5 West by implementing core acute care for elders components, based on evidence that acute geriatric unit care using these components is associated with fewer falls, less delirium, less functional decline, shorter stays and lower costs (Fox et al., 2012), and that the model can improve care processes in a community hospital without increasing length of stay or cost (Counsell et al., 2000).
Scope: included are a prepared environment on 5 West, nurse-driven protocols for mobility, toileting, nutrition, sleep and delirium prevention, daily interdisciplinary rounds, a pharmacist medication review for high-risk medications and early discharge planning. Excluded are changes to other units, new construction and changes to bed assignment beyond a priority rule for patients aged 70 and older.
Objectives, to be met within 12 months of go-live: reduce falls on 5 West among patients 70 and older by 25%; reduce the proportion of such patients discharged to a skilled nursing facility from 31% to 26%; achieve daily interdisciplinary rounds on 90% of weekdays; and maintain average length of stay at or below baseline.
Sponsor: the chief nursing officer. Project manager: the doctoral nurse leader. Core team: the 5 West nurse manager, a geriatric clinical nurse specialist, a hospitalist lead, a clinical pharmacist, a physical therapist, a case manager and two staff nurses. Budget: $142,000 for the first year, mainly for a half-time geriatric nurse specialist, pharmacist time, environmental modifications and training. Key risks: loss of nurse engagement under staffing pressure, hospitalist attendance at rounds, and bed management overriding the priority rule.
Assumptions, Constraints and Success Criteria
The charter also records the assumptions on which the plan depends: that 5 West's registered nurse vacancy rate stays below 10% during development, that the hospitalist group assigns a consistent physician to the unit on weekdays, and that the informatics department can build protocols within its existing tools. Constraints include a fixed budget, no new positions beyond the half-time specialist, and the requirement that the unit continue to accept any medical admission when other units are full. If an assumption fails, for example if vacancies rise above the threshold, the project manager will bring a revised timeline to the sponsor rather than pressing ahead with an unstaffed launch.
Success criteria go beyond the outcome objectives. The project will be judged complete when all five deliverables are accepted by the sponsor, when protocol adherence audits reach 80% on three consecutive weekly samples, and when a sustainment plan naming owners for each component has been approved. Defining completion in this way prevents the project from being declared finished at go-live, the point at which many projects lose attention and slip back.
Work Breakdown Structure
The work breakdown structure breaks the project into five deliverables, each decomposed into work packages small enough to assign and track.
| Deliverable | Work packages | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Prepared environment | Handrails and clocks; nonslip flooring in bathrooms; lighting review; chairs for mobility | Nurse manager with facilities |
| 2. Nursing protocols | Mobility, toileting, nutrition, sleep and delirium protocols drafted, reviewed and built into the record | Geriatric clinical nurse specialist |
| 3. Interdisciplinary rounds | Rounds format and script; schedule agreed with hospitalists; documentation template | Hospitalist lead with project manager |
| 4. Medication review and discharge planning | High-risk medication list; pharmacist review workflow; discharge planning at admission | Clinical pharmacist; case manager |
| 5. Training, launch and evaluation | Staff education; go-live support; data collection; 90-day and 12-month reports | Project manager |
Timeline and Critical Path
The project runs 32 weeks to go-live and continues with evaluation for 12 months. Weeks 1 to 4 finalize the charter, confirm the budget and collect baseline data. Weeks 5 to 16 develop protocols and complete environmental changes in parallel. Weeks 12 to 20 build protocols and rounds documentation into the electronic record. Weeks 20 to 28 deliver training to all 5 West staff across shifts. Weeks 28 to 32 conduct a two-week soft launch of rounds, followed by full go-live at week 32. Milestones include charter approval at week 4, protocol approval by the nursing practice council at week 14, record build complete at week 20, training complete at week 28 and go-live at week 32.
The critical path, the longest chain of dependent tasks, runs through protocol approval, electronic record build and training, because staff cannot be trained on protocols that have not been built into the record. Any delay in the practice council's approval or the informatics queue delays go-live, so the project manager secured a reserved slot in the informatics build schedule before the project began.
Governance and Communication
The core team meets weekly during development and every two weeks after go-live. The project manager reports monthly to the sponsor with a one-page status report showing milestones, budget, risks and issues, using red, yellow and green ratings. Staff on 5 West receive updates at huddles and a monthly newsletter, and changes to scope require the sponsor's approval to prevent the project from expanding beyond its resources.
Conclusion
A charter that defines purpose, scope, objectives, roles, budget and risks, a work breakdown structure that divides the work into assignable packages, and a timeline that identifies the critical path turn the recommendation to implement acute care for elders components into a manageable project. Anticipating the dependency on informatics and practice council approval, and governing scope firmly, gives the project a realistic chance of going live on time and delivering its objectives.
References
Counsell, S. R., Holder, C. M., Liebenauer, L. L., Palmer, R. M., Fortinsky, R. H., Kresevic, D. M., Quinn, L. M., Allen, K. R., Covinsky, K. E., & Landefeld, C. S. (2000). Effects of a multicomponent intervention on functional outcomes and process of care in hospitalized older patients: A randomized controlled trial of Acute Care for Elders (ACE) in a community hospital. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 48(12), 1572-1581. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-5415.2000.tb03866.x
Fox, M. T., Persaud, M., Maimets, I., O'Brien, K., Brooks, D., Tregunno, D., & Schraa, E. (2012). Effectiveness of acute geriatric unit care using acute care for elders components: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 60(12), 2237-2245. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.12028
Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (7th ed.). Project Management Institute.
Reading the DNP 835 Module 4 assignment instructions
The Module 4 prompt for DNP 835 is released in the Aspen course; this example follows the catalog description of strategic leadership and business management. Expect a project management paper at this point to ask for a charter, a work breakdown structure and a timeline for a project, often the one you are building across the course. Your instructor may require a specific charter template, a Gantt chart or a RACI matrix. Some prompts ask for the charter as an appendix and a narrative paper around it. Confirm the length, the source count and whether tables count toward the page limit. If a template is supplied, follow its field names exactly, because graders often mark against the template line by line.
How the DNP 835 Module 4 example is put together
At roughly 1,020 words, the paper has six sections. The project charter section gives the purpose, scope, objectives, sponsor, team, budget and risks. Assumptions, constraints and success criteria state what must be true for the project to work and how success will be judged. The work breakdown structure appears in a table with five deliverables and their work packages. Timeline and critical path set 32 weeks of work with milestones and identify which tasks cannot slip. Governance and communication describe the steering group, reporting rhythm and escalation. The conclusion restates how the tools reduce risk, including an early action on the critical path that starts before the project officially begins.
Where the marks sit in the DNP 835 Module 4 rubric
The rubric for this paper will reward completeness and precision in the charter and the logic of the work plan. This example earns completeness points by including every standard charter element, and the margin notes show how measurable objectives and explicit exclusions make the scope defensible. The work breakdown structure earns clarity points because each deliverable breaks into tasks someone can own. Identifying the critical path and acting on it shows management judgment. Governance meets the leadership criterion. Organization follows the order of project planning. Format credit depends on correctly formatted APA tables and on citing the evidence for the project's purpose. Table titles, notes and consistent column headings are small details that still carry points.
DNP 835 Module 4 help from the desk
Students often write charters with vague objectives, such as improving care for older adults, that cannot be measured. Use numbers and dates. Another common mistake is leaving scope open, which invites scope creep; list what the project will not do. Papers also produce a work breakdown structure that lists activities in time order instead of deliverables broken into parts. Organize by deliverable. Some students draw a timeline without identifying the critical path, missing the point of the exercise. Name the tasks that set the end date. Finally, remember the sponsor and governance. A project without an executive sponsor and a decision path rarely survives its first obstacle.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Aspen University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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DNP 835 Module 4 questions, answered
What does DNP 835 Module 4 usually ask for?
Aspen's DNP 835 description includes project management for health care projects, so a charter, work breakdown structure and timeline are typical products. Check your classroom for the required elements.
What is a work breakdown structure?
A hierarchical breakdown of a project's deliverables into work packages small enough to assign, estimate and track.
What is a critical path?
The longest sequence of dependent tasks in a project, which determines the earliest completion date; any delay on the critical path delays the whole project.
Where can I find a free DNP 835 Module 4 sample paper?
This page holds the complete project charter, work breakdown structure and timeline for an acute care for elders project, with the title page, tables, references and margin notes, all free to read. Charters for other projects are drafted on request.
What goes in a DNP 835 Module 4 project charter?
A charter normally states the purpose, scope and exclusions, measurable objectives, sponsor, team, budget, timeline, risks and success criteria. This example includes each one, with the evidence behind the project's purpose cited in the charter itself.