Lizabeth Manini, director of administrative services in the Department of Health Outcomes & Biomedical Informatics (HOBI) and chief operating officer of the OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium, received a 2017-2018 Superior Accomplishment Award in the Administrative/ Professional category from the College of Medicine in February. Manini, who was nominated by department chair Betsy Shenkman, Ph.D., was recognized for her “vital and critical leadership role for both of these significant responsibilities.” Shenkman also serves as director for the University of Florida’s Institute for Child Health Policy, associate director of cancer population sciences at the UF Health Cancer Center, co-director of UF’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and principal investigator for the OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium, funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).
As the department’s administrative services director, Manini worked with faculty and staff to submit 215 proposals during the 2016/2017 academic year and an equal amount during the previous two years.
“The coordination, interpersonal skills, and budget acumen to accomplish this work is significant and Ms. Manini has done this exceptionally well,” Shenkman wrote in her nomination. HOBI has 23 faculty members and approximately 160 professional and administrative staff. Department faculty play a key leadership role in the UF CTSI and also lead the OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium. The department has an annual extramural funding portfolio of $34 million with total awards in excess of $90 million.
Shenkman also credited Manini in her role as chief operating officer of the OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium for her interpersonal skills in fostering a collaborative environment and managing conflict constructively, and her technical skills in terms of planning, budgeting, regulatory knowledge, department and project monitoring, and evaluating outcomes.
“These are enormous assets that were essential for accomplishing the goals of the OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium,” Shenkman said. OneFlorida is a statewide consortium of three universities (the University of Florida, the University of Miami, and Florida State University) and nine health systems/sites, including Florida Hospital, Orlando Health, UF Health, UHealth, Health Choice Network, Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, Miami Children’s, WellFlorida, and Bond Community Health Center. The nine health systems/sites combined provide care for 15 million Floridians through a network of 4,000 physicians, 1,300 practices, and 22 hospitals. OneFlorida was developed in 2013 to support the conduct of pragmatic clinical trials and implementation science studies to accelerate translation of scientific discoveries into community settings, and to provide mentored research experiences for medical and graduate students in real-world, clinical settings.
“In the midst of this tremendous growth and success in obtaining highly sought after funding from PCORI, the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and other funding sources, Ms. Manini also was highly successful in managing all of the expected job duties, such as human resource issues, managing space, time and effort management, and other expectations,” Shenkman wrote.
Manini received a $200 cash award and was automatically nominated for the university-level Superior Accomplishment and Community Service Awards.