Director, Acute Pharmacy Services

UofL Health•Louisville, KY

1d•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 delivering safe, high-quality, and 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 Director collaborates with pharmacy, administrative, physician, and nursing leaders and pharmacy teams to advance enterprise-wide goals, standardize best practices, optimize resources, and promote innovation. The role balances system-wide alignment with the distinct operational needs of individual hospitals and service lines. Key priorities include improving operational and financial performance, developing pharmacy leaders, and establishing sustainable systems that support safe, efficient, high-quality medication use. The position emphasizes culture, patient safety, quality outcomes, workforce engagement, financial stewardship, and long-term sustainability. It oversees, mentors, and develops the Acute Care Pharmacy leadership team, including succession planning and talent development. The Director champions clinical excellence, operational performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, continuous improvement, and innovation to support patient care and UofL Health’s mission. UofL Health is a regional academic health system with five hospitals, four medical centers, nearly 200 physician practice locations, more than 700 providers, the Frazier Rehab Institute, and Brown Cancer Center. It has more than 12,000 team members and focuses on delivering patient-centered care.

Requirements

PharmD required.
Master’s degree in healthcare administration, business, or a related field required; 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 prescribing, communication, preparation, dispensing, administration, and monitoring processes to minimize medication errors.
Knowledge of The Joint Commission rules and regulations related to pharmacy services.
Effective communication skills, including the ability to form collaborative relationships and communicate professionally with patients and healthcare team members.
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 effectively in a team and maintain satisfactory working relationships with pharmacy leadership, staff, other departments, committees, and administration.
Ability to develop and maintain effective relationships in professional and civic communities.
Awareness of contemporary trends in the area of expertise and profession through professional literature.
Ability to recognize how personal attitudes and beliefs affect responses to others.
Ability to create a culture and systems for recognizing and rewarding staff.
Effective verbal and written communication and the ability to collaborate with patients and clinical professionals regarding medication-use improvement.
Reasoning ability to break down problems or tasks and identify causes and consequences.
Extensive computer skills, including Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, and capacity to learn other relevant systems and databases.

Nice To Haves

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

Responsibilities

Create short- and long-term pharmacy strategies focused on safe care, 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 accounting for hospital- and service-line-specific requirements.
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 support data-driven decisions and continuous improvement.
Provide strategic oversight of pharmaceutical expenses, pharmacy labor productivity, inventory optimization, formulary initiatives, contract optimization, and supply chain strategies.
Partner with pharmacy, nursing, physician, central supply management, and operational leaders to implement enterprise medication-use initiatives and achieve organizational objectives.
Maintain current knowledge of industry standards, best practices, trends, and advancements and serve as a subject matter expert in thought leadership, business development, and related efforts.
Identify, communicate, and support the critical success factors needed to achieve organizational goals.
Develop and empower teams through effective hiring, onboarding, development, coaching, and performance management.
Use financial concepts and tools to analyze situations and make decisions that support departmental objectives.
Lead, mentor, coach, and oversee acute care pharmacy leaders, including succession planning, leadership development, and workforce engagement.
Support pharmacy residency programs, student experiential education, academic partnerships, leadership development, scholarship, and research consistent with UofL Health’s academic mission.
Perform the professional, clinical, and technical competencies of the assigned unit or department and undertake other duties as assigned.
Demonstrate commitment to service, organizational values, professionalism, confidentiality, safety standards, teamwork, and exceptional customer service.