Amanda Hays

Amanda’s Story

Dr. Hays earned both her Bachelor of Science and Doctorate of Pharmacy at St. Louis College of Pharmacy. She went to SSM-St. Mary’s Health Center in St. Louis, Missouri for her PGY1 — and earned her BCPS in 2003. In 2011, she became a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality, (CPHQ). She completed the ASHP Leadership Academy in 2012 and earned her Masters of Health Administration at Simmon’s University in 2014.

Dr. Hays has been involved in the Section Advisory Group on Management of the Pharmacy Enterprise. She is also a CV reviewer, Poster reviewer, a will be a presenter of a Management Pearl at the Midyear Clinical Meeting in 2015. She is a past delegate for Alaska and a past member of the SAG on Small and Rural Hospitals.

Facility

BJC HealthCare is a 13 hospital health system that includes an urban adult academic, urban pediatric academic, several community suburban hospitals, and rural and critical access facilities. In 2014, the hospitals had approximately 150,000 inpatient discharges.

Significant Projects

The majority of Dr. Hays’ work is focused in two buckets: patient centered outcomes and pharmacy and therapeutics. Under the patient center outcomes area, she has been working with her physician leadership colleagues to organize clinical service lines for patient centered outcomes. More specifically, Dr. Hays has been involved in the development of a system-wide Infectious Disease council focused on topics such as antimicrobial stewardship and sepsis. Some of the projects developed from this council have included defining metric(s) to monitor, developing interactive data platforms to assist with driving practice change, and gaining leadership support for programmatic development.

On the pharmacy side, her teams have recently completed a rapid improvement event to standardize pharmacy recall processes. She also has developed a process under the system P&T to develop rapid formulary decision making with physician stakeholders across various specialties. They have also applied rapid cycle principles to disease states such as COPD and asthma, and therapeutic specific topics such as how to utilize intravenous iron and IVIG.

Advice for Someone New to Your Specialty Area

“Defining pharmaceutical outcomes is a challenge for all pharmacy leaders. As we seek ways to move beyond measuring our typical day-to-day pharmacy processes, tying outcomes to the value equation is key. I encourage all pharmacy leaders to understand what is a hot topic for their organization's leadership and align their efforts to understand what role pharmacy can play to support these goals.”

Involvement in ASHP

“I became involved as a potential residency candidate as I explored opportunities. I've stayed involved because it continues to meet my needs as the pharmacy landscape is ever evolving!”

ASHP’s Value to Members

“ASHP has been a resource that I have relied upon throughout my career from my days as a student to my current role in a large health system. For me, one of the greatest opportunities was the ability to participate in the ASHP Pharmacy Leadership Academy. I feel that it provided me with the tools to be confident and competent in my current role.”

“ASHP continuously advocates for advancement of our profession and provides tools and resources to aid those who are resource limited.”