Project Manager, Division of General Medicine
Nominator, Dr. Jennifer Meddings - "Jessica has excelled as an invaluable team member across several teams at Michigan Medicine, in her ever-expanding project management skills, her unwavering enthusiasm and tremendous work ethic for keeping projects moving forward despite needing to also have a lot of flexibility given challenges that have arisen in our projects and team members's lives during this pandemic. It is a true honor to serve alongside Jessica in our quest for improving patient safety."
Work Performance
Simply put, Jessica excels at every project she leads and joins. In her time with us as a project manager since 2016, she has rapidly become an expert in all aspects of research - including pre and post-award grant tasks, seeking ideas for funding project ideas, and quickly preparing stellar administrative shells. Jessica quickly became our expert in the ever-evolving AHRQ and NIH grant application document rules and is a critical member of the team in designing, applying for, implementing, and evaluating research projects through the challenges of federal grants, contracts, and frugal pilot projects.
Leadership
Customer Service
Jessica is extremely dedicated to optimizing the experience of study subjects, as well as the investigators and other staff on teams she leads or is a part of. She is always ready to help when there is a need - if a team member is out unexpectedly, helping with volunteer activities, and trying different things to improve the well-being of our team members. Jessica is always reliable for submitting reports and addressing requests on-time (usually early!). She also has always been helpful to provide very kind and constructive feedback to junior team members that keeps them moving in the right direction, as well as keeping them enthusiastic about receiving feedback in the future to help them get to the next level.
Process Improvement
Jessica helped lead and refine the development of a training manual for facilitating collaborations between clinical researchers such as Internists and engineers, that we have shared with several investigators within and outside Michigan Medicine, as published here. She also quickly developed a strategy for communicating regularly with the hospital ward at Michigan Medicine where we were working closely with the nursing and physician staff to design and test a patient safety display at the bedside, which required very careful communication and frequent meetings with several hospital committees, and leaders within multiple teams within Michart and data security.