Pharmacy Angle meets with Valerie Hoffman, Senior Marketing Manager at Long Grove Pharmaceuticals, to discuss her career move from hospital pharmacist to working at a pharmaceutical company.

Pharmacy Angle meets with Ken Gagnon, AVP Pharmacy Services HealthTrust Performance Group to discuss his career in pharmacy, encouraging the study of pharmacy and his experience with control, diversion and drug shortage solutions in the hospital setting.

Pharmacy Angle had the pleasure of visiting with Christina Cao who serves as a member of the Health Connect Partners Educational Advisory Board. At the time of the interview, Christina was the Area Pharmacy Manager for Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital but has since taken a position as Senior Corporate Director of Pharmacy with CPS.

This is a MUST WATCH video as Christina shares her personal journey from being born in Vietnam to coming to the United States, to her families personal struggles, to why she wanted to work in healthcare. 

In the wake of the Change Healthcare cyber attack that caused major disruption across the industry, Ken Perez, Healthcare IT, marketing and policy consultant and former Vice President of Healthcare Policy and Government Affairs for Omnicell, Inc. had the opportunity recently visit wit ScriptPro CEO, Mike Coughlin to learn what was affected, what work arounds were put in place, and what lessons were learned. 

Pharmacy Angle sat down with James Hall who is the Director of Pharmacy for a joint venture between Texas Health Resources and Advent Health in Fort Worth, Texas. James has been the Director at this facility for the past 24 years and has over four decades of total industry experience. 

Like many in this industry, James chose a career in pharmacy due to the impact and influence a family member had on his, in his case...his sister. Also like others, James faces many challenges in today's changing landscape but credits his staff for being nimble and resourceful in an order to make things work. From ensuring metrics are where they need to be for care and revenue purposes, to mentoring young professionals, to discussing pharmacists receiving provider status, lot's of great information to digest in this installment of Executive Insights. 

Pharmacy Angle had the privilege of sitting down and visiting with Jamie Leonard, the Director of Pharmacy with Benefis Health System located in Great Falls, Montana. With over 30 years of experience and a passion for geriatrics, Jamie has seen how leadership of a unit has changed with so much more to manage today than what she was taught in school. 

With staffing challenges still facing the industry, Jamie shares a little behind what she calls "growing your own" and what her health system has done in terms of partnering with a local academic institution in her community to help grow the pipeline for technicians. So much more to learn too from this conversation! 

Daniel Roth, the Administrative Director of Pharmacy at Cox Health located in Southwest Missouri, visited with Pharmacy Angle to talk about his background, changes he has seen within the industry, and predictions he has for the industry. With a extensive experience in informatics and automation, listen to hear what Daniel has to say which could help everyone run their pharmacies more efficiently. 

Dr. Alfred L'altrelli, Senior Director of Pharmacy at the flagship hospital, Presbyterian Shadyside of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has spent his years since graduation doing a variety of functions within the pharmacy space, but has focused in on building teams, residency programs, building clinical services, and looking at operational efficiencies. 

During the course of our visit with Al, he discussed how he believes the workforce is the biggest change and challenge facing professionals today, and what those entering the industry are looking for now as compared to when he graduated and what's contributed to that shift in focus. He believes that recruitment of professionals to pharmacy needs to start at a younger age and should help change stereotypes of what they may think the profession is.  Additionally, we discuss other challenges such as tight margins, technology and the enhanced services it can provide to patients, and new roles pharmacist will likely start doing in the near future such as molecular and efficacy in radiopharmaceuticals.

Lisa Baird, Vice President of Pharmacy Operations for Earnest Health in Post Falls, Idaho sat down with Pharmacy Angle to discuss a variety of topics starting with what led her to career in pharmacy. Lisa goes on to provide her thoughts on share her thoughts on what she sees the future has in store for hospital pharmacists including the prescribing roles and the constantly evolving technology, including AI. 

Like her colleagues and peers around the country, Lisa is also experience challenges in both drug and staffing shortages, balancing of financial and economic responsibilities, and much more which she further elaborates in this insightful conversation.