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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Elevating Pharmacy Leadership, Access, and Clinical Impact at Luminis Health
00:14:24
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- [00:00]
A
Hi, everyone, this is Paige Twiner with Beckers on the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. I'm joined here by Dr. Sahil Sheth at Luminous Health. I'm so, so excited for this conversation. Without further ado, Sahil, can you just kind of briefly introduce yourself and tell us about your organization a bit?
- [00:19]
B
Great. Thank you so much for having me on. My name is Sahil Sheth, and I'm the senior Director of Pharmacy Services at Luminous Health, as Well as the PGY1 pharmacy residency director at Anne Arundel Medical Center. My background's in critical care, so I am a clinician at heart and I've been with luminous health since 2019. And a little bit about our organization. Luminous Health is an integrated health system that was formed in 2019. We have three hospitals. Anne Arundel Medical center in Annapolis, Doctors Community Medical center in Lanham, along with J. Kent McMu Medical center, which provides both inpatient and outpatient behavioral health services. So really, as a system, we serve a diverse population in Maryland, spanning from the Eastern Shore through Anne Arundel county and into Prince George's county, so. And probably everywhere in between. So our focus is really on enhancing the health of the patients and the communities we serve because really, at the end of the day, we believe it's about living healthier together. And as you can imagine, pharmacy plays a very key role across that space.
- [01:25]
A
And if I heard correctly, you joined Luminous in 2019 when it was formed. And I'm sure you've seen many, many changes, you know, in the past five, six years at Luminous. When we last spoke, you mentioned that the two hospital system recently restructured its pharmacy leadership structure. Can you kind of expand on that?
- [01:47]
B
Yeah, sure. So when we think about pharmacy services in general, we operate three inpatient pharmacies across our hospitals, supporting everything from acute care to OB in pediatric patient populations. We have two infusion centers. Our anticoagulation clinic has grown into a broader ambulatory care pharmacy service. Our behavioral health pharmacy has been incredibly impactful as well. And we have an employee pharmacy and bedside dispense program. So with that, one of the key things we wanted to do in 2025 was really right size our leadership. And that's what we've done over the last year. We've added a senior director of pharmacy position. We've had some leadership changes in our operations. Given we've had two incredible pharmacy directors who've retired over the last couple of years, who've been almost 80 years, combined with the organization, we've had to really have the right team in Place to help with that succession planning and continuing to grow our team.
- [02:50]
A
80 years combined is very, very impressive. That's before Luminous Health was formed, but.
- [02:56]
B
Through the two methods. Yep. We had one director at 40 years at an ornamental medical center and another 40 years at Doctors Community Medical Center. So some big shoes we've had to fill.
- [03:08]
A
Yeah, yeah. And you also said the first 340B leader is also part of this restructuring, Correct?
- [03:17]
B
Correct, yep. So we, you know, when we think about some of the priorities, one of the major priorities is going to be pursuing 340B program participation, which I'm sure we'll get into a little bit later. But yeah, that was one of the big focuses as well.
- [03:30]
A
Yeah. Is that one of your top priorities for 2026?
- [03:34]
B
Yeah. You know, as we look into 2026, our priorities really, you know, fall into three big buckets. I'd say sustainability is one, clinical readiness is another, and then overall workforce support. So one major priority from the sustainability bucket would be through the 340B participation for one of our eligible entities. We're currently preparing to apply for 340B status, which we view as an important opportunity to further support our mission as well as the communities we serve. It would allow us to generate some savings that could be reinvested into services that are not often fully reimbursed, especially under traditional payment models, and that would include expanded pharmacy led clinical services. So from our perspective, it's really about enhancing access. We're talking affordability, sustainability while responsibly growing our footprint needed to meet the needs of our patient populations, especially those that are underserved and underrepresented. Now, at the same time, we recognize the evolving regulatory and policy environment around 340B that does add a level of, I'd say, uncertainty, which can make long term planning a little challenging. But you know, we're really confident in our team's ability to navigate that landscape not only thoughtfully but also compliantly as things continue to change. And we have some great partners around.
- [04:59]
A
Right. And just some, just some kind of background or context for listeners of the podcast since we're talking in early January and podcast will probably be published a bit later of one of the cases with 340B program is an appeals court just affirmed a main judge's decision to halt the 340B rebate program. So it'll likely go to the Supreme Court. So really just kind of waiting in this, for lack of a better term, waiting room for to hear updates on the 340B rebate as well, as I'm sure in Maryland there's, you know, its own local and state laws concerning 340B, so definitely an important space to keep track of and stay on top of.
- [05:40]
B
Absolutely.
- [05:42]
A
Heading back to kind of reflecting on 2025, what did you feel was the most important initiative you led?
- [05:52]
B
Yeah, you know, one of the most important initiatives this past year, I would say was really about stabilizing and really strengthening our pharmacy operations, but also at the same time continuing to expand our clinical impact across the continuum of care. So on the ambulatory care side, we've grown our clinical footprint, particularly through expanded CDTM agreements. You know, one of the examples would be with endocrinology. When we think about the rapid changes we've seen in diabetes care over the last few years, our pharmacists have taken a much more active role in medication optimization, patient education as well as access. And then through this pharmacy and pharmacist led management, we've just seen dramatic reductions in A1C levels for our patients. And then just as importantly, this model has helped us really address some of the the specialist access challenges. So it does allow us to support our patients in a more timely way while still ensuring that high quality evidence based diabetes care. And really following this success of this endocrinology pilot, we then expanded the program to multiple primary care locations to manage chronic conditions. And that would include hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity, smoking cessation and heart failure. So it's been a really important initiative. And then I'd say another focus for us has been the continued growth of our employee pharmacy and our discharge to home medication program. So as part of a broader hospital capacity management strategy, we opened a discharge lounge that saves more than almost 300 hours of inpatient bedtime per month, which is really huge. And so through collaboration with hospital operations, our pharmacy team now delivers medications directly to these patients in the discharge lounge. So patients no longer have to remain at the bedside to receive their medications. And we've actually rebranded the traditional quote unquote meds to beds program to discharge dispense program, really reflecting, I'd say, a completely different and definitely more streamlined discharge experience for our patients. And over the last two years, that program has doubled our prescription volume. It's improved patient satisfaction, it's improved affordability, patient safety, all while also helping to decrease readmission risk and improving patient throughput. So this has helped create some greater operational stability. It's also positioned our pharmacy team as a strategic partner in both supporting our clinical care and efficiency within the system. And what I'd say my last point would be and what I'm probably the most proud of is really this pharmacy leadership team and our frontline pharmacists and technicians who lead this work every day. Right. It's their ownership, it's their day to day, it's their determination, their commitment to these patients that make these successes sustainable. I really think that's the key.
- [08:53]
A
And I love the rebranding of meds to beds of you know, meds to the discharge lounge instead and you know, getting the patient right before they go home. And especially with just length of stay issues throughput challenges, especially right now with extremely volatile flu season ever. So more important that you know we, we get patients adequately through the hospital and it cared for afterward.
- [09:22]
B
Absolutely. We'd be in a much more deficit based space right now today if it wasn't for a discharge amount, albeit still the dealing with high capacity issues.
- [09:33]
A
Want to touch on one more question? I know we're nearing time, but looking in the next 12 months, what do you feel like are kind of the best opportunities for growth?
- [09:42]
B
Sure. So you know at Luminous Health pharmacy has traditionally played a critical kind of this cost containment and I'd say stewardship center. And that responsibility absolutely remains important but at the same time I think or continuing to evolve beyond that role. So expanding how pharmacy can support clinical quality and operational efficiency across the system will be interesting. I think one big opportunity remains in ambulatory care. I think our journey in that space is really just beginning particularly in chronic disease state management and specialty care. And then given our pharmacists have already had some meaningful impact on outcomes. I'd say as care models evolve this is an area we can continue to bring, bring some value and support our healthier communities. I'd say another major opportunity is automation and advanced analytics, particularly how we leverage emerging AI capabilities in some meaningful ways. We're working closely with our IS partners around epic including kind of this newer generative AI features like Sidekick which is already built on the the value tools like Slicer Dicer have delivered to our teams over the last few years. So the next iteration I would say is really about increasing productivity and reducing time for our, for our pharmacists that they spend on manual analysis. So whether it be drug shortages, mues analyzing cost saving opportunities and I really just think that's the tip of the iceberg. I'll say one other active evaluation that we're doing is in the IV robotics space to help address drug shortages and supply chain constraints. I think beyond the Obvious ops benefits. I think automation in this space would really create some opportunities for our pharmacy technicians to spend less time in the IV room and more time in patient centered kind of high value roles, which can help both support delivery as well as staff engagement. So if I was to kind of sum this up, the great opportunity for growth would be bringing all of these elements together in a thoughtful way. So pharmacy expertise, protocol integration and albeit leveraging technology in these spaces and what I'd say most importantly would be what makes this occur is the incredible people that we get to work with every day. Our pharmacy teams are just so resilient. Our executive leadership team is so encouraging and our clinical partners are great. And really it's all these groups, it's their commitment to our patients on a daily basis. That's the work, that's what makes this work possible as well as meaningful fronts.
- [12:28]
A
One kind of theme or through line I was hearing when you're listing those 3 kind of growth opportunities for the next 12 months of, you know, embedding more pharmacy care into chronic disease state management as well as automation and IV robotics is kind of the theme I'm hearing or kind of, you know, between the lines is really elevating the pharmacy staff to do what you know, they do best, just care for patients and not kind of manual administrative tasks, which I think is just so, more, so much more critical now with not only a years long pharmacy tech shortage, but upcoming potential pharmacist shortage just with fewer and fewer applicants to PharmD programs across the US so I bet you're closely watching.
- [13:19]
B
Definitely. You know, workforce shortages, burnout, drug shortages, supply chain instability, expanding expectations of pharmacy, all of this becomes really important in leveraging technology and our staff the best we can. And it really becomes important about how having talent density, not just only about hepcam.
- [13:40]
A
Well, before I end our recording for this podcast, is there anything else you'd like to add and share with other, you know, executives across the US.
- [13:52]
B
Well, in terms if it's advice for pharmacy leaders today, it's just, I think we're all, a lot of us are on the same page. I think it's focusing on our people first, investing in our teams and staying grounded on patient needs and being thoughtful about change. So the challenges are real and. But there is a tremendous opportunity for pharmacy to lead over the next five to 10 years. So I'm really excited for that.
- [14:16]
A
Well, thank you so much Sahil for joining us today.
- [14:20]
B
Thank you for having me.