Project Management Framework
Business Drivers/Background Example

Example #1:
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 required the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to adopt national standards for conducting health care transactions electronically. By ensuring consistency throughout the industry, these national standards will make it easier for health plans and for doctors, hospitals and other health care providers to process claims electronically. HIPAA also requires "Covered Entities" (i.e. Health Plans, Providers and Claims Clearinghouses) to comply with approved standards for Privacy and Security (note: security standards are still in draft form). The Privacy and Security standards articulate comprehensive requirements for covered entities with respect to safeguarding and controlling individually identifiable health information, also known as protected health information (PHI).

The original deadline for compliance with the electronic transactions rule was Oct. 16, 2002 for all covered entities except small health plans, which by law had an additional year. Last year, in the Administrative Simplification Compliance Act, Congress authorized a one-year extension - to Oct. 16, 2003 - for those covered entities required to comply in 2002. To obtain the extension, a covered entity must submit a compliance plan on or before Oct. 15, 2002.

The compliance deadline for the Privacy Rule is April 14, 2003. By then, covered entities must have implemented Federal regulations for: consents and authorizations; business associate agreements; minimum necessary rule implementation; individual and administrative rights; de-identification of PHI; privacy training; state law preemption determination and other specific privacy related requirements.

Example #2:
The Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) has a need to centralize their accounts receivable management activities for the Fruit and Vegetable Inspection Program. Although WSDA has considered other accounts receivable system alternatives, they will centralize their Fruit and Vegetable Inspection Program’s accounts receivable activities using the Office of Financial Management's (OFM) Solomon Accounts Receivable (AR) System.

Currently the WSDA has a billing system known as the FA2 system, which keeps track of all the inspections performed by the Fruit and Vegetable Inspection staff. The FA2 System does not have any accounting features. Sierra Systems is the development team working on the FA2 Inspection tracking system (billing system).

Work on the FA2 System is complete and is ready for system testing. Sierra Systems will work with WSDA and OFM to provide interfacing billing data from the FA2 System into the OFM AR System. The WSDA Fruit and Vegetable Inspection Program's accounts receivable activities will be managed in the OFM AR System.

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