Director, Acute Pharmacy Services

UofL Health•Louisville, KY

21h•Onsite

About The Position

The Director, Acute Care Pharmacy provides strategic, operational, and clinical leadership for inpatient pharmacy services across UofL Health. The role is accountable for safe, high-quality, efficient pharmacy services across the health system’s hospitals, medical centers, and inpatient pharmacy departments. Reporting to the Vice President of Pharmacy Services, the Director establishes strategic direction, drives operational excellence, and ensures regulatory compliance across acute care pharmacy services. The position collaborates with pharmacy, administrative, physician, nursing, and pharmacy-team leaders to advance system-wide goals, standardize best practices, optimize resources, and promote innovation while accounting for the operational needs of individual facilities and service lines. The Director advances standardization, operational and financial performance, leadership development, and sustainable systems for safe, efficient, high-quality medication use. The role oversees, mentors, and develops the Acute Care Pharmacy leadership team, supports succession planning and workforce engagement, and champions clinical excellence, patient safety, quality outcomes, and interdisciplinary collaboration. The position also supports pharmacy residency programs, student experiential education, academic partnerships, leadership development, scholarship, and research in keeping with UofL Health’s academic mission. The successful candidate translates strategic priorities into measurable operational results and advances continuous improvement, innovation, and the organization’s commitment to exceptional care.

Requirements

PharmD required.
Master’s degree in healthcare administration, business, or a related field required; it must be obtained within 36 months of accepting the offer.
Licensed pharmacist through a State Board of Pharmacy.
At least 5 years of progressive acute care pharmacy leadership experience.
At least 5 years of acute care hospital work experience.
Basic Life Support certification, or ability to obtain it within 90 days of hire.
Thorough understanding of medication-use processes, including prescribing, communicating, preparing, dispensing, administering, and monitoring medication therapy to minimize medication errors.
Knowledge of The Joint Commission rules and regulations related to pharmacy services.
Effective verbal and written communication and ability to collaborate with patients and healthcare professionals across clinical disciplines.
Ability to lead complex organizational change across multiple hospitals and stakeholders.
Financial acumen, including budget management, labor productivity oversight, drug expense management, and capital planning.
Ability to analyze operational, quality, financial, and workforce metrics and implement performance improvement strategies.
Ability to develop pharmacy leaders, build high-performing teams, and promote accountability and engagement.
Ability to work in a team environment and maintain effective working relationships with pharmacy leadership, pharmacy staff, other departments, committees, administration, and professional and civic communities.
Ability to communicate medication-use improvement recommendations effectively to patients, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and allied health professionals.
Ability to break down problems or tasks and identify potential causes and consequences.
Extensive computer skills, including Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, and ability to learn relevant systems and databases.
Commitment to organizational values, professionalism, confidentiality, safety, collaboration, and customer service.

Nice To Haves

Experience leading multiple hospitals, service lines, or system-level pharmacy initiatives.
Board certification by the Board of Pharmacy Specialties®.
Completion of an ASHP-accredited pharmacy residency.

Responsibilities

Create short- and long-term pharmacy strategies focused on safe care, improved patient experience, operational efficiency, and high-quality patient care.
Develop, maintain, communicate, and execute a vision and plan for continual improvement and exceptional acute care pharmacy services.
Lead system-wide standardization of acute care pharmacy operations, workflows, policies, staffing models, and key performance indicators while accommodating facility and service-line needs.
Develop and maintain standardized pharmacy labor and automation models based on patient volume and patient experience, leveraging available resources.
Establish and monitor system-level operational performance metrics, productivity benchmarks, and workforce indicators to inform decisions and continuous improvement.
Provide strategic oversight of pharmaceutical expense management, pharmacy labor productivity, inventory optimization, formulary initiatives, contract optimization, and supply chain strategies.
Partner with pharmacy, nursing, physician, central supply management, and operational leaders on enterprise medication-use initiatives and organizational objectives.
Maintain current knowledge of industry standards, best practices, trends, and advancements, and contribute subject-matter expertise to thought leadership and business development as needed.
Identify and communicate critical success factors that support organizational goals.
Hire, onboard, develop, coach, and manage the performance of teams.
Use financial concepts and tools to analyze situations and make decisions that support departmental objectives.
Lead, mentor, coach, and oversee acute care pharmacy leaders; support succession planning, leadership development, and workforce engagement.
Support pharmacy residency programs, student experiential education, academic partnerships, leadership development initiatives, scholarship, and research.
Perform the professional, clinical, or technical competencies of the assigned unit or department.
Maintain confidentiality, follow safety standards, collaborate with team members, and demonstrate professionalism and effective customer service.