Erica Diamantides

Erica's Story

Erica Diamantides, Pharm.D., M.H.A., BCPS received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Northeastern University in Boston, MA in 2014 and went on to complete a 2-year Health System Pharmacy Administration Residency at UW Medicine earning a Master's in Health Admininistration degree from University of Washington in Seattle, WA in 2016. After residency, Erica started as the Specialty Pharmacy Manager for UW Medicine. Erica is a Clinical Instructor with the University of Washington School of Pharmacy.

Dr. Diamantides is a member of the ASHP Section Advisory Group on Leadership Development, is a mentor through the ASHP Mentor Match, and is a CV reviewer.

Facility

UW Medicine is a health system located in the Seattle area of Washington state. UW Medicine’s mission is to improve the health of the public. Our health system has eight entities dedicated to patient care, medical education and research: Airlift Northwest, Harborview Medical Center, Northwest Hospital & Medical Center, UW Medical Center, UW Neighborhood Clinics, UW Physicians, UW School of Medicine and Valley Medical Center. UW Medicine provides outpatient care for more than 1.5 million patients each year at its primary and specialty care clinics.  

Significant Projects

In her role Dr. Diamantides continued the work of the UW Medicine Specialty Pharmacy team to achieve accreditation for Specialty Pharmacy through URAC. In addition, Dr. Diamantides has grown the Specialty Pharmacy program into new disease states, recently adding a Cystic Fibrosis pharmacist, and service areas with new technician roles to support the prior authorization of outpatient infusions.

Advice for Someone New to Your Specialty Area

"For someone getting into Specialty Pharmacy my advice would be to jump in feet first. Specialty Pharmacy is an area of practice where the dynamic and landscape is changing at a sometimes terrifying pace but that is what makes working in this area so exciting. Do everything you can to learn your institution's current state and processes by shadowing and asking lots of question and define what the strategic plan is and should be. In addition to jumping in, I highly recommend networking with colleagues to more quickly get up to speed, ASHP is a great venue for this."

Involvement in ASHP

"I became involved in ASHP, first through attendance at the Midyear Clinical Meeting in 2013 to learn about residency programs. At that event I realized the impact that ASHP can make on a national level in policy making as well as the benefits to ASHP's members. After attending that conference I made it a priority to learn how to get involved and contribute back to ASHP."

ASHP’s Value to Members

"When explaining the value of ASHP to friends and colleagues my first focus is the value of networking through the organization and the multitude of tools available to streamline the process of developing your professional network. For me, many of my most valuable relationships with other professionals in pharmacy is through either an encounter at an ASHP meeting, postings on a forum, or through contributions in workgroups. The other benefit I find most valuable is the endless resources available to members through ASHP. I frequently find resources that are directly applicable to work our teams are doing in our institutions."

"The value ASHP provides for the profession is representation of health-system pharmacists with a unified message on nationally discussed topics that impact our profession."