CRE Project Planning & Execution 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: When developing a respiratory education program for a hospital, which stakeholder should be engaged FIRST during the needs assessment phase?
- Hospital administrator for budget approval
- Frontline respiratory therapists and nurses (Correct answer)
- Medical director of pulmonology
- Patients and their families
Correct answer: Frontline respiratory therapists and nurses
Frontline staff provide the most direct insight into practice gaps and educational needs that the program must address.
Question 2: A CRE is tasked with implementing a COPD self-management education initiative across three outpatient clinics. Which planning tool best helps visualize task dependencies and timeline?
- SWOT analysis
- Gantt chart (Correct answer)
- Logic model
- PDSA cycle
Correct answer: Gantt chart
A Gantt chart displays tasks, durations, and dependencies along a timeline, making it ideal for multi-site implementation planning.
Question 3: Which component of a logic model directly describes the activities the program will carry out?
- Inputs
- Outputs (Correct answer)
- Outcomes
- Impact
Correct answer: Outputs
Outputs in a logic model represent the direct products of program activities, such as the number of education sessions delivered.
Question 4: During project execution, a CRE notices that patient enrollment in an asthma education class is consistently below the target. The BEST immediate action is to:
- Terminate the program and redesign from scratch
- Conduct a rapid root-cause analysis to identify enrollment barriers (Correct answer)
- Increase the frequency of classes to fill seats faster
- Report the shortfall at the next annual review
Correct answer: Conduct a rapid root-cause analysis to identify enrollment barriers
Identifying the root cause of enrollment barriers allows targeted corrective actions without prematurely abandoning the program.
Question 5: A project charter for a respiratory education program should primarily serve to:
- Outline detailed session curricula and learning objectives
- Formally authorize the project and define its scope and leadership (Correct answer)
- Track participant attendance and pre/post test scores
- Allocate specific budget line items to education supplies
Correct answer: Formally authorize the project and define its scope and leadership
A project charter formally authorizes a project, establishes its purpose, scope, and designates the project lead.
Question 6: Which type of budget variance is MOST concerning during midpoint review of an education program?
- Being 5% under budget on printing supplies
- Spending 40% of the total budget with only 20% of activities completed (Correct answer)
- Minor overspend on venue rental due to a rate change
- Underspending on facilitator honoraria because one session was cancelled
Correct answer: Spending 40% of the total budget with only 20% of activities completed
Spending 40% of budget while completing only 20% of activities signals a significant cost overrun that threatens program completion.
Question 7: When transitioning a pilot respiratory education program to full-scale implementation, the CRE should FIRST:
- Hire additional staff to match the expanded volume
- Document and standardize the processes proven effective in the pilot (Correct answer)
- Expand the program to all sites simultaneously for efficiency
- Request a new budget before evaluating pilot outcomes
Correct answer: Document and standardize the processes proven effective in the pilot
Standardizing effective pilot processes ensures fidelity and reproducibility when scaling to broader implementation.
CRE Project Planning & Execution 2
When developing a respiratory education program for a hospital, which stakeholder should be engaged FIRST during the needs assessment phase?