May 26, 2026 · 26 min · 12 segments
Health system pharmacy is under more pressure — and expected to deliver more value — than ever before. In this episode, host Jim Jorgenson is joined by Dr. Kate Schaafsma, Vice President and Chief…
Kate SchaafsmaGuest
Jeff OliverGuest
Jim JorgensenHost
As you both have stepped into these chief pharmacy officer roles, what's come maybe easier than you expected?
I think what's easier for, or what's easier than expected for me is really my organization paved the path very well for bringing on their inaugural chief pharmacy officer.
As I onboarded, everybody was extremely enthusiastic about having me on board and very welcoming to all the tables for both me and my leaders to join conversations, provide expertise around medication safety, cost savings initiatives, value generation ac- activities, and that is not something I expected.
I thought I might have to open a few doors, and I was pleasantly surprised to experience that.
For me, I think it's just been the open arms with which things have been received.
As we went into this and created the CPO role, I don't think there was a lot of intentionality that led up to it.
It was something that kind of came about through just a variety of different converging circumstances, an identified need within the health system as we were poised for some additional growth, bringing in some new acquisition health systems, as well as some other things that were happening here in our main market of Florida.
And so there wasn't necessarily a lot of communication within the organization prior to this role being created and my stepping into it, but folks, as I've interacted and gone around the health system, have been very welcoming and interested to learn more about what pharmacy services can do to help provide, uh, care to our patients.
We had different verticals, uh, pharmacy services within Orlando Health, and each one had, within their kind of vertical lane, done a good job of advocating for pharmacy, and we just, I think, got to a really, a good inflection point that required us to bring all those things to- together.
I think at Rush, I believe based on hindsight, I believe our physician and our quality groups, um, in addition to our operational leaders, were really championing bringing on a system pharmacy approach and a system pharmacy leader.
I really could probably say that for all of even strategy and some of the other groups I work with have al- also been championing, so I almost wonder if it was a lot of different groups identifying the gap, and once they were seeing some outside organizations seeing a- the adoption of the chief pharmacy officer, perhaps they also saw the value of bringing in my role in order to bring the, those different channels, like Jeff commented on, bringing those different channels forward so that we could find some systemization and synchronization across the organization.
Yeah, that's great 'cause typically it's pharmacy pushing to try to get that role, and to have others help you pave the way is really exciting.
As you both have stepped into these chief pharmacy officer roles, what's come maybe easier than you expected?
I think what's easier for, or what's easier than expected for me is really my organization paved the path very well for bringing on their inaugural chief pharmacy officer.
As I onboarded, everybody was extremely enthusiastic about having me on board and very welcoming to all the tables for both me and my leaders to join conversations, provide expertise around medication safety, cost savings initiatives, value generation ac- activities, and that is not something I expected.
I thought I might have to open a few doors, and I was pleasantly surprised to experience that.
For me, I think it's just been the open arms with which things have been received.
As we went into this and created the CPO role, I don't think there was a lot of intentionality that led up to it.
It was something that kind of came about through just a variety of different converging circumstances, an identified need within the health system as we were poised for some additional growth, bringing in some new acquisition health systems, as well as some other things that were happening here in our main market of Florida.
And so there wasn't necessarily a lot of communication within the organization prior to this role being created and my stepping into it, but folks, as I've interacted and gone around the health system, have been very welcoming and interested to learn more about what pharmacy services can do to help provide, uh, care to our patients.
We had different verticals, uh, pharmacy services within Orlando Health, and each one had, within their kind of vertical lane, done a good job of advocating for pharmacy, and we just, I think, got to a really, a good inflection point that required us to bring all those things to- together.
I think at Rush, I believe based on hindsight, I believe our physician and our quality groups, um, in addition to our operational leaders, were really championing bringing on a system pharmacy approach and a system pharmacy leader.
I really could probably say that for all of even strategy and some of the other groups I work with have al- also been championing, so I almost wonder if it was a lot of different groups identifying the gap, and once they were seeing some outside organizations seeing a- the adoption of the chief pharmacy officer, perhaps they also saw the value of bringing in my role in order to bring the, those different channels, like Jeff commented on, bringing those different channels forward so that we could find some systemization and synchronization across the organization.
Yeah, that's great 'cause typically it's pharmacy pushing to try to get that role, and to have others help you pave the way is really exciting.
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