Donna Sheets: Shedding light on military medical mistakes
2010 Rising Star award winner Donna Sheets oversaw the design, development and deployment of a Web-based system that military medical personnel use to report possible medication or surgical errors or other patient safety concerns.
Name: Donna J. Sheets
Age: 50
Organization: Jacer, contracted in support of the Military Health System's Defense Health Services Systems
Title: Project Controller, Patient Safety Reporting System
Nominated for: Overseeing the design, development and deployment of a Web-based system that military medical personnel use to report possible medication or surgical errors or other patient safety concerns. To make that happen, Sheets — technically only responsible for overseeing the cost and schedule of the Patient Safety Reporting system — engaged some professional facilitators to help Air Force, Army and Navy officials reach consensus on a single process.
First IT mentor: Professor Shannon Houser, University of Alabama at Birmingham, who taught and guided me in the process of uniting my life experience, career aspirations and personal interests to discover a career in IT project management in the health care sector.
Latest accomplishment on the job: In January 2010, the Patient Safety Reporting project reached a Milestone C decision for limited deployment. Training was completed in March 2010, with “go live” at nine Military Treatment Facilities on April 5, 2010 — a banner day!
Career highlight: The highlight of my career to date was when I was selected for the project controller position for the Patient Safety Reporting project.
Favorite job-related bookmark: Defense Acquisition University.
Favorite app: Microsoft Outlook.
Dream non-IT-related job: An architect following the organic architecture philosophy that incorporates design elements of Frank Lloyd Wright, Anton Alberts and Laurie Baker.
Read the next Rising Star profile or view the full list of winners.