Project Management Practices and Implementation of Health Projects in Public Hospitals in Nyeri County, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish project management practices affecting effective implementation of health projects in public hospitals in Nyeri County, Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional survey design. The target population of this study was the 150-man hospital management teams, 75 project implementers and 25 representatives from government agencies and non-governmental organizations totalling to 250 persons who were involved in the health projects in one way or the other. Slovins formula was used to come up with a sample of 154 respondents who were recruited using stratified random sampling. Data was collected by use of questionnaires. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis were used to analyze data with the help of SPSS. The study found that there was a strong positive correlation (r=0.796) between project management practices and implementation of health projects in public hospitals. The findings showed that government policies (p=0.006), project planning (p=0.035) and funding (p=0.00) are significant. Project funding was the most important of the four variables under investigation. The study concluded that project management practices contribute positively to implementation of health projects in public hospitals. The study recommended that hospital management teams should be given more autonomy to plan and implement their projects free of control from the government and politicians.