Director of Pharmacy

Director of Pharmacy

Mercy Memorial Medical Center
Ardmore, OK

The Rottman Group has been retained to find a Director of Pharmacy for the Mercy Memorial Medical Center in Ardmore, Oklahoma. This is a great opportunity for a progressive pharmacy executive with strong leadership competencies to lead the transformation of pharmacy services in this successful, 250-bed hospital.

The Organization:

Mercy Memorial Medical Center is part of the Sisters of Mercy Health System (Mercy), based in St. Louis. Mercy has undergone a dramatic evolution in their entire supply chain/distribution, purchasing, and contracting operations in the last several years, resulting in a wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary, Resource Optimization & Innovation (ROi). ROi has been created with a technological and entrepreneurial spirit, and the development has been highlighted in articles in several industry publications and accolades. Mercy is well known for being one of the most qualitative health systems in the United States. Mercy’s reputation is characterized by its very ministry driven, “value people” culture that at the same time balances being very financially sound and successful.

The Role:

This Director of Pharmacy will lead the department though a series of upcoming developments at Mercy Memorial:

The first of these will be the transition from the Pyxis dispensing system currently being used throughout the hospital to an Omnicell system. (This is a system-wide initiative for Mercy.)
The second is the implementation of the Bridge MedPoint System. Nurses will use a handheld scanner to make sure a medication's bar code matches a patient's wristband and medical chart. If it doesn't, an alarm will alert the caregiver to the potential mistake in patient care. The system also allows pharmacists to set daily dosage limits, communicate drug-specific clinical alerts and provide constantly updated views of the patient's medication history. Click here for more information on Mercy’s implementation of this technology.
Third is the shift to a more clinical pharmacy department, with pharmacists disseminated to the floors. They will work more interactively with physicians and nurses, and be a more active part of the patient care team.

Currently Mercy Memorial uses Meditech as their pharmacy system. Within the Mercy system, a $250M information technology transformation is underway that will continue to take place over the next several years.

There is a staff of seven pharmacists, 12 pharmacy technicians, and one manager who will report to the Director of Pharmacy (20 total FTEs). There is a clinical pharmacy educator who is shared with Mercy Memorial’s sister facility, Mercy Medical Center in Oklahoma City.

There has been very little turnover within the pharmacy department with an average staff member tenure of approximately 15 years. This gives the department a great deal of stability, but at the same time, has created a department that is accustomed to a more traditional mode of operation. This Director of Pharmacy needs to be someone who can, through effective organization and communication, lead this group through an evolution to a very progressive operation.

Mercy Memorial has an ADC of 135 with approximately 9,200 admissions/year, performing approximately 7,500 surgeries/year. They do not currently have neuro or open-heart surgery programs. They are the sole hospital provider in this community of 30,000 with a regional patient area population of 110,000. The facility has been very profitable and will be very supportive of the capital needs of the pharmacy department. During their most recent Joint Commission Survey in October 2003, the facility received a 94 overall, with no deficiencies in the pharmacy department.

The Director of Pharmacy will report to the Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Johnson. Jeff is an Oklahoma native who came to Ardmore three years ago. He received his MHA from Xavier University and previously worked administratively in an 850-bed teaching hospital in Cleveland. He is very open, supportive, and systems driven. The CEO, Bobby Thompson is very well known and respected in the Oklahoma healthcare community, and is a wonderful and proven leader. As is congruent with the Mercy system, one would find at Mercy Memorial a very quality, ministry driven environment that is fiscally prudent. This person will also find an organization and system that promotes and embraces new ideas and vision. The successful candidate for this position needs to both internalize and reflect this culture in their natural leadership.

Compensation:

This position offers a very competitive base salary in addition to a comprehensive benefit program.

The Area

In 1887, a Santa Fe railroad crew stopped in the Chickasaw Indian Territory halfway between Dallas and Oklahoma City to set up camp. They plowed a quarter-mile furrow to designate the main street among the buffalo bones and herds of wild horses and deer. Twice the city was nearly destroyed, and twice it was rebuilt. In 1895, a fire that started in a livery stable burned 82 homes and businesses in six hours. Then, in 1915, a worker pounding on a railroad tanker full of gasoline set off an explosion in the railroad yard that leveled the depot and many downtown buildings. The spirit and character that twice rebuilt the city remains today. Agriculture, oil and industry fueled the growth of Ardmore into the city it is and is still becoming. Today, Ardmore's location, combined with the natural beauty and recreational opportunities of the area, has made it a destination for travelers from across the region.

Nestled at the foot of the Arbuckle mountains and surrounded by seven lakes totaling 100,000 acres, Ardmore is one of Oklahoma's most unique communities. Its strategic location on I-35, just 90 miles from either Dallas or Oklahoma City, gives Ardmore a unique market proximity. Retail shopping can be found in the downtown business district, several malls, and a number of strip shopping centers along the major streets. In recent years, several antique stores and malls have taken up residence in Ardmore's downtown - many taking old buildings and renovating them to their original grandeur. Downtown revitalization projects have produced recent renovations such as a streetscape beautification program, brick sidewalks, period streetlights and benches.

Hiking, biking, fishing, camping, picnics, athletics, and other outdoor activities are plentiful in Ardmore. The City's dozen parks and four lakes cover hundreds of acres. Central Park exemplifies the spirit of Ardmore. Built entirely through private donations, a privately-funded endowment provides for continual maintenance of the showpiece park. The 500-acre Regional Park boasts a lake, 18-hole golf course, softball complex, baseball fields, playground, hiking, jogging trails and a fishing pier. Other outdoor attractions include Lake Murray State Park, the largest state park in Oklahoma, and Arbuckle Wilderness, a 6 1/2 mile drive-through safari, filled with exotic animals from all over the world including lions, tigers, cougars, rhinos, giraffe, zebra, eland, four horned sheep, ostrich, buffalo and more.

Ardmore has a proud community tradition of annual events. Among them are Balloons over Ardmore, where hot air balloonists from miles around bring their balloons and fly over the town. This event is held the third week in July. The Festival of Lights is a November auction to raise funds for Christmas lighting on Ardmore's public buildings. Mardi Gras in January is a bit of New Orleans coming home to Ardmore on the last Friday in January with Dixieland music, Cajun foods, costume contests, balloons and jugglers for the kids. The Ardmoredillo Chili Cookoff is where amateur cooks stir up their best recipes the first Saturday in April, along with a variety of other events including the Bedlam races, 5K Run and a 1 mile Fun Run.

The Charles B. Goddard Center for the Visual and Performing Arts, established in 1970, houses five affiliated groups: The Southern Oklahoma Arts and Humanities Council; The Ardmore Little Theatre; The Community Chorale; The Ardmore Art Guild; and the Ardmore International Council. The galleries of the Goddard Center feature Western and contemporary paintings from a permanent collection, plus traveling exhibits that draw support from foundation grants and local businesses. The Ardmore Little Theatre established 40 years ago as one of Oklahoma's first community theaters, presents three plays and one musical production each year. Guest producers have come from New York's Broadway to work with local talent and pay tribute to the quality of the community's theatric heritage.

Listed in the National Historic Registry, Ardmore’s popular Dornick Hills Golf & Country Club is one of the oldest and most prestigious clubs in Oklahoma. It boasts the first Oklahoman golf club affiliation with the United States Golf Association, as well as being the site of numerous tournaments including the Ardmore Open, a PGA tour event, from 1952 to 1954. It is also home to the clubs signature event "The Oilmen's" since 1963, and the premier college event of the region "The Maxwell" for over 10 years.

Football is big in Oklahoma. And in Ardmore, civic pride is big as well. During the late evening of a crisp, Ardmore autumn, you can hear the roar of 4,500 screaming Ardmore Tiger Football fans, cheering their team to victory in the new Noble Stadium. A donation in excess of one million dollars from the Noble Foundation was matched by other community members and businesses, and augmented with an overwhelming 70% bond vote to build the new stadium. Noble Stadium features an 8-lane Latex running track encircling the football field. The stadium is utilized by Ardmore students from 7th to 12th grade, and hosts a number of regional sports events and meets.

The extraordinary quality of life Ardmore offers has been widely recognized. The National Municipal League has twice-named Ardmore an All-American City by the National Municipal League, and it has also been cited by Hugh Bayless in his book, The Best Towns in America.

To learn more about Ardmore, please visit the following websites: