If you’ve ever dealt with a project, whether it be personal or professional, you know there are certain tools or pieces of information you need to gather before diving straight into the project. Those starting a new project at UofL Health that will require assistance from IT will need to get acquainted with Jennifer Bingham, manager of Enterprise IT Governance and Project Intake in the Project Management Office (PMO) under our UofL Health – IT department.
Jennifer has been with UofL Health for 15 years. She started out as a team lead for health information management (HIM) with UofL Health – UofL Hospital in 2006 before moving into an information technology role as an IT analyst. As she moved to the CHI national IT team and worked her way through the ranks, Jennifer eventually joined the UofL Health PMO office in 2018.
As manager of Project Intake, Jennifer is responsible for projects that have IT needs. Some projects could be moving into a new office space, getting new software or having a program or piece of software that would need to integrate with Cerner, Epic or STAR.
“I act as a liaison, finding the IT requirements that the project needs based on the application and translate it from the person’s request to IT speak,” Jennifer said. “The IT team members then tell me the requirements and decide who will be assigned the project. I’ll translate all of that information back from IT speak to the requestor and the process will take its course.”
For those who need IT assistance for a project, the project management form is the first place to start. You can find the form under the Forms section of the Information Technology page on our employee intranet housed on UofLHealthNow.org. Please be sure to use the IT Project Request Form.
Jennifer also manages project collisions – meaning she ensures projects needing IT assistance are not stepping on top of each other or will impede another project’s process. If need be, she also will step in as a project manager and lead testing for some IT projects.
One of her favorite projects she’s managed is the Cerner Anesthesia implementation. Jennifer scoped the project, managing it from start to finish for UofL Hospital and assisting with the implementation for UofL Health – Jewish Hospital. UofL Hospital went live in June 2020 and Jewish Hospital went live about the same time in June 2021.
“This was a big deal for patient safety,” Jennifer said. “It’s nice to see the immediate impact of projects like this. With the Cerner Anesthesia implementation, a patient can be rolled out of the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) and their nurse can see all the orders. It makes patient care go smoother and the process goes faster.”
A more challenging project for Jennifer was the second phase of the UChart implementation. In short, UChart was designed to get the legacy KentuckyOne Health facilities on the UofL Hospital instance of Cerner and STAR. The project was such a massive undertaking that it required two go-lives. Jennifer’s main role was to lead testing and go-live planning for the rollout at UofL Health – Peace Hospital, UofL Health – Mary & Elizabeth Hospital and UofL Health – Medical Center South.
What made the UChart project so challenging was the amount of assistance needed from all aspects of the organization. Before UChart, Jennifer hadn’t encountered a project that needed so many hands on deck. In total, the project required 80 contractors for go live support and over 100 clinical staff to help backload patient records and provide support at go live.
“Even though the implementation was challenging for our IT team, with UChart, our UofL Health team members now have better access to the tools and resources they need, which means better patient care,” Jennifer said.
When Jennifer manages a project, she sees our mission lived out from the infant stages to the finished product. She truly believes in what our organization does when it comes to patient care and how we care for an entire population of people with diverse backgrounds and health care needs.
Not only does Jennifer believe in our mission, but she also believes in the people behind the scenes powering our organization.
“Our IT team is one of my favorite things about our organization,” Jennifer said. “We started out with 40 people at UofL Hospital and have since grown to this big group. They’re so smart, capable and work really hard, which makes me want to be just as good and work just as hard.”
While it may be surprising to hear, Jennifer didn’t always have her heart set on information technology or project management. After graduating from Trimble County high school, Jennifer attended Georgetown College in Georgetown, Ky., to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in English.
“I’m a huge grammar nerd, and I really love to read and write,” Jennifer said. “I wasn’t sure of what I wanted to do after graduating. I ended up in HIM at UofL Hospital after a couple of jobs that didn’t really fit. I got to participate in the first electronic medical record UofL Hospital implemented and thought the backend technical work was super cool.”
For fans of Jane Austen, you might want to ask Jennifer’s take on some of Austen’s works, especially Sense and Sensibility. She would also love to talk about all things fiction, or about the latest season of the hit Netflix series, Manifest.
Getting on Jennifer’s good side is easy – be mindful of your grammar, or just bring her tacos for lunch with a chocolate dessert.
If you’re ever stressed, remember Jennifer’s mantra of “deep breaths.” Jennifer explained how situations can be extremely stressful for the project management team, and that the best thing to do sometimes is to take a deep breath.
The next time you need our IT department’s assistance with a project, or just need someone to chat about fiction or present participles, be sure to keep Jennifer in mind.
