Project Management

he COMITS Project Management Office (PMO) provides professional project management for approved projects at the College of Medicine-Tucson. The goal of the COMITS Project Management Office is to turn projects into services. A project should be temporary and should have a defined end-state with defined outcomes. The Project Management Office will guide the project from beginning to end, assisting and coordinating with various phases. 

 The PMO also provides coaching/oversight of projects your department may want to manage using department, internal resources.   The COMITS PMO has best practices and useful templates to get one started on managing small projects internally.  

For COMITS PMO Services, please submit a request at COMHelp

Project List

Current Projects

Project Title: COM Data Warehouse

Description: The COM data warehouse is a custom-developed solution used to integrate student and administrative data into a consistent information resource that can support historical and current reporting as well as planning, forecasting and decision making. Benefits to a data warehouse include storing data according to agreed-upon business definitions as well as ensuring accurate data is provided in adequate response time to information requests. 

Strategy: Operational Excellence

Sponsor: Ed Xia

Project Contact: Bhavana Sherchand bsherchand@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: In Development

Estimated Implementation:  Phased rollout beginning 2020-2021 Academic Year

Project Title: Power BI

Description: Power BI is a vended solution provided by the University of Arizona through licensing agreements. Implementation of Power BI will assist the University of Arizona College of Medicine in identifying and utilizing baseline performance metrics for administration, faculty, staff and students.

Strategy: Operational Excellence

Sponsor(s): COM Admin, Curricular Affairs

Project Contact: Bhavana Sherchand @ bsherchand@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status:  In Progress

Estimated Implementation: Phased rollout beginning 2020-2021 Academic Year

Project Title: 802.1x Wired Security Implementation

Description: 802.1x Wired Network Security is being implemented by University Information Technology Services.  This is for security purposes and will not affect daily activities. Users who are on the Medadmin, CatNet, BlueCat and FCM domains will continue to login as usual. 

Strategy: Operational Excellence

Sponsor: Ed Xia

Project Contact: David Fletcher fletch@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: In Process

Estimated Implementation:  In Progress through Fall 2021

Project Title: JAMF

Description: JAMF is a vended solution for the management of Apple devices.  It will be used by COM-ITS to manage the deployment, applications and security for the student iPad program.

Strategy: Operational Excellence

Sponsor: Ed Xia

Project Contact: Michael Medina mmedina88@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: In Process

Estimated Implementation:  July 31, 2021

Project Title: MedLearn - Exam Module

Description: The exam module is a vended solution within MedLearn.  It delivers high stakes exams with secure exam and proctoring capabilities. Benefits include eliminating the need to maintain disparate products, indicating learning objectives for quizzes and exams, providing learners with nearly instantaneous formative feedback, and easily sharing data to the gradebook and data warehouse for use in student progression analysis and dashboards.

Strategy: Roadmap

Sponsor: Dr. Janet Corral

Project Contact: Sheila Bustamante sbustamante@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: In Process

Estimated Implementation:  Academic Year 2021-2022

Project Title: Faculty Affairs Data Solution

Description: The Faculty Affairs Data Solution is a custom-developed application replacing a MS Access Faculty Database used by COM- Faculty Affairs. The current database contains fields and functionality that can no longer be repaired. The new system will be more robust, secure, accessible and integrate with UAccess.

Strategy: Roadmap

Sponsor(s): Dr. Bruce Coull, Ed Xia

Project Contact: Winifred Blumenkron blumenkw@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: In Development

Estimated Implementation:  Phased rollout beginning July 2021

Project Title:  Asset Management

Description: Our new asset management system will improve our ability to keep track, refresh, and audit the college of medicine assets more efficiently providing the departments a more informative, real time description.  

Strategy: Operational Excellence

Sponsor: Ed Xia

Project Contact: Michael Medina mmedina88@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: Planning

Estimated Implementation:  TBD

Project Title: BlueCat Migration

Description: UITS has informed the university that Catnet 1.5 domain will be retired December 31, 2021. COM-ITS is in the process of planning to transition to CatNet 2.0 domain. Catnet 2.0 will increase the security posture of the college and will assist in making our environment more secure.

Strategy: Operational Excellence

Sponsor: Ed Xia

Project Contact: David Fletcher fletch@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status:

Estimated Implementation:

Completed Projects

Project Title: COM Email Migration Project

Description: COM-ITS Migrated the COM email and calendar system to the main campus' system, UAConnect365. This implementation provides users with a more secure system, additional storage, after Hours UITS 24/7 tech support (626-8324) to help troubleshoot problems or set up new devices and accounts, and access to Office 365 tools. More information about the project can be found at: https://medicineit.arizona.edu/news-alerts/email-migration

Strategy: Roadmap

Sponsor(s): Ed Xia

Project Contact: Winifred Blumenkron blumenkw@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: Completed

Estimated Implementation:  July 2021

Project Title:  MedLearn Upgrade to Elentra Version 1.20

Description: MedLearn is the COM-T customized version of Elentra LMS for medical schools.  The Elentra LMS system is supported via consortium member development and support.  Consortium members provide 3-4 system updates for their members per year.  Elentra version 1.20 includes maintenance releases to versions 1.17.3, 1.18.2 and 1.19.1; improvements to calendar, Communities, course websites; and Exam module improvements for exam takers where there are significant numbers of active learners across large numbers of courses and exams.

Strategy: Roadmap

Sponsor: Curricular Affairs, Student Affairs

Project Contact: Sheila Bustamante sbustamante@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: Complete

Estimated Implementation: June 2021

Project Title:  Work Based Assessments (WBA)

Description: WBAs are a multi-source feedback tool designed to assess students’ observable application of medical knowledge and decision-making skills in patient care settings. COM-T's implementation depends on resident and/or faculty evaluation of students' based on specified Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs).  Qualtrics surveys and custom-built PowerBI dashboards are utilized to provide feedback directly to the student, clerkship directors and Curricular Affairs within 24 hours of evaluation.  Evaluation data is also used to create the clerkship composite evaluation and transfers to the MSPE letter.  The COM-ITS Business Intelligence and Project Management teams were invited to present "Digital Work-Based Assessments and Dashboards" at the annual AAMC Information Technology in Academic Medicine (GIR) conference in June.

Strategy: RoadMap

Sponsor: Dr. Janet Corral

Project Contact: Bhavana Sherchand bsherchand@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail); Sheila Bustamante sbustamante@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: Complete

Estimated Implementation: March 2021

Project Title:  COMExpress - Mail Distribution Service

Description: COMExpress (https://medicineit.arizona.edu/services/comexpress-mail-distribution-service) is a custom-built service to help distribute messages to the COM-T community. The majority of the mailing lists specific to COM-T students, faculty, staff, DCCs and the groups they are involved in are automatically synchronized with the university's most current workforce data on a daily basis.  Some groups are manually updated by the managing units. 

Strategy: Business Contribution

Sponsor: Ed Xia

Project Contact: Winifred Blumenkron blumenkw@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: Complete

Estimated Implementation: October 2020

Project Title:  COMHelp Implementation

Description: COMHelp is a custom-built ticketing and IT communication system for COM-T and UAHS. Each service request (regardless if for computer/application support, networking, equipment purchase,etc.) is assigned to a COM-ITS representative with the best expertise and closest location to the customer. Our teamwork culture ensures that every service request is acknowledged professionally an resolved in a timely manner. 

Strategy: Customer Experience

Sponsor: Ed Xia

Project Contact: Sheila Bustamante sbustamante@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: Complete

Estimated Implementation: July 2020

Project Title:  Medicine IT Website Re-write

Description: The Medicine IT website https://medicineit.arizona.edu is custom-developed communication and technical resource channel.  The layout of the website is based on the COM-ITS service catalog and contains the following resources for COM-T students, faculty and staff:  Application Development, Business Intelligence, Computer Services, Hardware & Software Purchase, Infrastructure Services, Information Security, etc.

Strategy: Roadmap

Sponsor: Ed Xia

Project Contact: Winifred Blumenkron blumenkw@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: Complete

Estimated Implementation: July 2020

Project Title:  Zoom Teaching Studios

Description: In response to the growing needs of a better teaching environment using Zoom, COM IT built two high-tech Zoom teaching studios to provide faculty members a safe and productive teaching modality, while also offering students powerful, interactive learning experience. For more information about our ZOOM teaching studios, please visit: https://medicineit.arizona.edu/resources/zoom-teaching-studios

Strategy: Operational Excellence

Sponsor: Ed Xia; xiaz@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Project Contact: Winifred Blumenkron; blumenkw@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: Complete

Estimated Implementation: July 2020 - November 2020

Project Title:  Risk Management Implemenation

Description: Managing information security risk is the central function of any information security program. The College of Medicine uses industry standard best practices to assist us in measuring and mitigating risks to our information resources.

For more information about our work around security and compliance, please visit: https://medicineit.arizona.edu/security

Strategy: Operational Security

Sponsor: Ed Xia; xiaz@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Project Contact: Mario Uribe; mariouribe@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: Complete

Estimated Implementation: March 2020 - November 2020

Project Title:  COVID Antibody Testing Support

Description: The University of Arizona conducted a COVID-19 Antibody Test Initiative. The initiative’s pilot took place in 6 sites around Pima County, followed by a state roll out. College of Medicine-IT was designated to provide IT support during the initiative's pilot. Additional information can be found at: https://uahs.arizona.edu/news/uarizona-partners-state-provide-covid-19-antibody-tests

Strategy: Operational Excellence

Sponsor: Dr. Michael Dake

Project Contact: Ed Xia xiaz@arizona.edu(link sends e-mail)

Status: Complete

Estimated Implementation:  April 2020