Kevin Hansen

His Story

Dr. Hansen earned his Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) and completed a PGY1/PGY2 Health-System Pharmacy Administration and Leadership residency program at the University of North Carolina Medical Center. He received a Master of Science (MS) degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences with a specialization in health-system pharmacy administration from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. He is board certified through the Board of Pharmacy Specialists in pharmacotherapy and in compounded sterile preparations. He provides leadership and operational oversight of sterile and nonsterile pharmaceutical compounding services for the enterprise. The health-system is comprised of five acute care and six cancer center sites with a total of 10 sterile compounding cleanroom suites. The main responsibilities include ensuring quality and compliance with all compounding activities with a focus on patient safety and best practices. He has taken a lead role in developing multidisciplinary teams, such as the Pharmaceutical Compounding Advisory Council and the Hazardous Drug Committee. He serves as the Residency Program Director for the PGY1/PGY2/MS HSPAL residency program at Cone Health. In addition, Dr. Hansen serves as adjunct faculty for the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. In 2020, he joined the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) as a volunteer on the Compounding Expert Committee. Dr. Hansen currently works at Cone Health (Greensboro, North Carolina) and serves as the system-wide Director of Pharmacy of compounding services and data analytics for Cone Health. He is active in didactic teaching within both the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and the High Point University Fred Wilson School of Pharmacy. Dr. Hansen has precepted over 75 students and residents on rotation during his tenure at Cone Health. 

Facility

Cone Health is a not-for-profit health care network serving the greater Greensboro, North Carolina areas. As one of the largest and most comprehensive health networks, Cone Health has five hospitals, four ambulatory care centers, three outpatient surgery centers, five urgent care centers, and more than 150 physician practices. The flagship hospital, Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, is a 628-bed tertiary care teaching hospital with over 34,000 discharges and 75,000 emergency department visits in Fiscal Year 21. (For more information: https://www.conehealth.com/news/fact-sheet/) 

Recent Significant Projects

Leveraging IV robots for non-hazardous batch compounding of compounded sterile preparations (CSPs) to provide a sustained supply chain of ready-to-administer

medications in the perioperative areas. Further, the IV robots have been leveraged as a key tool in mitigating drug shortages of high volume, sterile injectable premixes (e.g., heparin infusion) during a time of dire shortages of pharmacy technicians.

Current Involvement in ASHP

With the recent release of revised versions of USP compounding standards, he is working with ASHP and a team of compounding experts on revising ASHP sterile compounding guidelines. Further, he serves as an active member on the ASHP Section Advisory Group (SAG) on Compounding Practice within the Section of Inpatient Care Practitioners (SICP).

Why did you become involved in ASHP? 

I initially became involved with ASHP as a pharmacy technician looking to obtain continuous education to support my certified pharmacy technician certification. I furthered my involvement with ASHP as a student pharmacist in seeing the vast opportunities for professional growth within health-systems. I was able to attend ASHP Midyear as a student pharmacist, present posters on my research projects, and had the opportunity to connect with residency programs from across the nation. Through ASHP resources (e.g., ASHP Connect) and national meetings (e.g., Midyear), I have greatly benefited from being an ASHP member and will continue to expand my involvement to give back to the profession.

Advice for Someone New to Specialty Area 

Connect and engage with key stake holders within your organization that can help you achieve your professional goals for patient safety. This can include infection prevention, industrial hygiene, hazardous waste coordinators, accreditation, life safety, facility management, and HVAC personnel. Further, network with peers in similar roles across the nation. You will quickly discover that many of the day-to-day challenges faced within your organization are shared amongst others and can work synergistically to share best practices in how to manage.

How would you explain the value of ASHP to a friend or colleague?

ASHP is on the forefront of professional development, advocacy, and has an expansive network of leaders that are openly available to coach and mentor. Further, ASHP has highly valuable tools, such as ASHP Connect, that can become part of your daily workflow within any pharmacy practice setting to be able to ask any/all questions related to pharmacy practice and have elaborate responses and even sharing of policies and procedures. ASHP has made me feel more connected to the pursuit of improving the health of all patients, not just those served at your current practice setting.

What is the value of ASHP for the profession?

An interesting story… the USP standard setting process starts with a defined public health need. In the early 90’s, ASHP began creating guidance for sterile compounding which ended up becoming official guidelines in the early 2000’s. Several years after the guidelines were released, a national survey was conducted to determine compliance with the guidelines. The results showed significant gaps and ultimately a public health need was defined. This was the impetus for the creation of USP <797>, which is now a widely recognized standard in several countries for pharmaceutical compounding sterile preparations. It is through ASHP’s expansive network of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, and advocacy for patient safety and quality care that continues to have a profound impact on the profession and the patients we serve.