Acuity Implementation Update: Modernizing Medical Education
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The University of Illinois College of Medicine is pleased to share plans to implement the Acuity Insights One45 platform, an important milestone in our process of aligning and modernizing the College’s technology for medical student education and a step that we expect to meaningfully impact teaching and learning. Our team is actively preparing for implementation, with a detailed rollout plan forthcoming.
Priorities
First priorities will target Phases 2 and 3 (M3 and M4 years) for specific Acuity Insights One45 Components.
These priorities were identified as part of our ongoing commitment to continuous quality improvement and in alignment with the expectations of the LCME Accreditation Monitoring an Quality Improvement Committee.
- Clinical Performance Assessment of Students: Standardizing the assessment process on one platform to improve student visibility into performance, while also enabling the monitoring and improvement of our programs across the College, its campuses, and its clinical sites.
- Student Evaluation of Faculty: Providing a centralized, standardized platform for gathering student feedback on faculty across all clinical rotations to support faculty development, and to ensure student voices inform the educational experience.
- Grades Tool: Streamlining clerkship grading by directly calculating grades based on multimodal assessment to ensure grades are determined using consistent, transparent criteria and are delivered promptly to students.
Target Go-Live Date
Our goal is to send the first evaluation and assessment forms from Acuity Insights One45 in April 2026.
Dedicated Implementation Roles
The College has established a dedicated team to support the implementation. Key roles are outlined below:
- Steering Committee: Provides strategic oversight for implementation. This group directs and supports decision-making, ensures alignment across teams, and provides regional campus representation. They review major deliverables, address challenges as they arise, and represent other UI COM governance structures to promote understanding and coordination.
- Executive Sponsors:
- Heather Heiman, Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education
- Todd Van Neck, Associate Dean for Administration
- Nicholas Kane, Assistant Dean for Finance and Business Planning
- Members:
- Jessica Hanks, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Peoria
- Amanda Osta, Associate Dean for Medical Education, Chicago
- Maureen Richards, Associate Dean for Medical Education, Rockford
- Amy Bretz, Project Manager, COM Project Management Office
- Charity Caldwell, Director of IT Operations and Services
- Magdalena Mac, Associate Director of Assessment and Evaluation
- Cheryl McKearin, Director of Instructional Technology and Design
- Larry Moran, Director of Records and Registration
- Katherine Simeon, Director of Assessment and Evaluation
- Tom Wyatt, Director of Marketing and Communications
- Executive Sponsors:
- Implementation Leadership Team
- Cheryl McKearin, Solution Lead will provide oversight and functional leadership
- Charity Caldwell, Technical Lead will provide IT oversight and technical leadership
- Amy Bretz, Project Manager will provide overall project management leadership and manage implementation tools and resources
- Super Administrators: Alongside the Implementation Leadership Team, Super Administrators will lead Acuity Insights One45 configuration, campus-wide training, system access, and promotion of consistent use across campuses. As key contacts, Maggie Mac, Larry Moran, and Katherine Simeon will provide subject matter expertise, support decision-making, and represent campus, faculty, and staff perspectives to ensure the rollout aligns with UI COM’s operational needs.
- Technical Support Team: The Technical Support Team will provide a secure and compliant rollout that aligns with COMIR standards. This team will manage data integrations, system environments, and infrastructure, while actively supporting performance monitoring, solution testing, and launch activities. Jesse Bateman and Hung Ta will contribute legacy system understanding, data migration expertise, and coordination with other aspects of IT.
- Project Management: UI COM will lead its own project management to coordinate tasks, drive decisions, and maintain transparency across implementation teams. Radha Shah will provide project management support and coordination.
- Program and Change Management: Under the TOP-ED program, Huron Consulting Group will continue to provide program-level management and Organizational Change Management (OCM) support for the Acuity Insights One45 implementation.
Implementation Website
We are developing a web page dedicated to the Acuity Insights One45 implementation, which will reside under the Office of Educational Affairs website.
Next Steps
We are actively engaging with Acuity Insights leadership to determine implementation steps and how to best incorporate the community during this transition. We understand that change can be overwhelming, and our goal is to support the College of Medicine community through:
- Training and hands-on support – We will offer multiple training opportunities to ensure you feel comfortable and confident using the new system.
- Two-way communication – Community feedback is crucial. We will provide channels for you to share concerns, ask questions, and influence how the system is rolled out.
- Gradual implementation with real-time adjustments — We recognize that no system is perfect on day one. We will take an iterative approach, adjusting based on your input.
Questions
We appreciate the collaboration and dedication of everyone involved in this important project. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to advance the Acuity Insights One45 implementation and deliver enhanced services to the UI COM community.
Please contact Cheryl McKearin, Charity Caldwell, or Amy Bretz with any questions or concerns.
For more information, visit the TOP-ED website.