Katherine S. DeSanctis

Katherine DeSanctis, PharmD, MS is the director of pharmacy for the home hospital service with Mass General Brigham Healthcare at Home. She has oversight of pharmacy initiatives for Home Hospital services, programs, and policies, and serves as a liaison between clinical and operational leadership for Home Hospital and pharmacy leadership across all facilities. Prior to her role with Healthcare at Home, Katherine was the director of pharmacy operations for Massachusetts General Hospital. Katherine’s practice interests include pharmacy automation and technology, medication safety, pharmacist and technician advancement, and leadership development. She is an active leader within the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and active member of the Massachusetts Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

Facility:
Mass General Brigham is an integrated health system comprised of 15 institutions ranging from academic medical centers to specialty hospitals. MGB Healthcare at Home encompasses both MGB Home Care, offering the largest post-acute, medically necessary skilled care team in New England, and MGB Home Hospital, one of the largest and most established programs in the country providing inpatient-level care at home. The MGB Home Hospital is an integrated service line supporting an average daily census of 60 beds and with more than 25,000 acute care facility-based bed days saved since January 2022.

Current Responsibilities:
If I had to redefine my title, I would say I provide oversight for pharmacy practice harmonization for the MGB home hospital service line as well as for ambulatory infusion centers across our system. My primary responsibility in both realms is to ensure pharmacy practice is harmonized safely and effectively, so that the end product is the same. Within Healthcare at Home, the home hospital team is supported by the 5 inpatient pharmacies within admitting institutions, however, the field team is agnostic to admitting institution. Thus, my role is to ensure the medication use process is presented in the same way to the clinician and patient or caregiver, regardless of which pharmacy the medication is coming from. In this world, standardization is key to medication safety, particularly in a setting where the medication use process has a different look and feel from the brick and mortar setting despite the level of acuity. As such, my guiding principle is to standardize the output, recognizing and respecting the unique workflows and factors of each inpatient pharmacy.  I follow a similar guiding principle with harmonization of ambulatory infusions across our health-system, where the final output should be safe and effective medication preparation and delivery in a timely manner, in a way that best fits the pharmacy's operational needs. As MGB shifts to a centralized and patient-centered way to expand access to medical infusions, it has been essential for all of our ambulatory infusion pharmacies to collaborate on and standardize infusion practice.

Recent Significant Projects:
I recently led the implementation of inpatient e-prescribing functionality within our EHR for the home hospital team. This functionality significantly streamlined admission sign and held medication order entry and controlled substance order entry for home hospital patients, improving workflow efficiency and safety in what once was a highly manual process. This was a large-scale change that required significant education of both pharmacists and ordering providers across home hospital.

Advice for Someone New to a Specialty Area:
The 3 pieces of advice I usually give to new pharmacy practice leaders are: 1. Find a good intake system that works for you and recognize that it's ok for that system to change and adapt to your needs over time. 2. Lean on your peer network - it's very likely that someone has already solved the problem you're actively working on. 3. Block off calendar time routinely (i.e. weekly or monthly) to self-reflect and recenter with your "why." Adjust your to-dos accordingly.

Involvement with ASHP:
I have been an active member of ASHP since I was a pharmacy student leading the local student chapter and am happy that ASHP has remained my professional home over the years. To date, my involvement has primarily been focused within the SAG on Workforce Resiliency and Sustainability (formerly the SAG on Frontline Leaders), where I completed my term as SAG chair in 2025. I am now excited to start working with the SPPL Educational Steering Committee. Outside of SPPL, I am currently in my second term appointment for the ASHP Council on Education and Workforce

Reason for ASHP involvement:
I originally became involved in ASHP as a student because I found a supportive environment in navigating health-system opportunities with residencies and beyond. Since then, I continue to appreciate the network of pharmacists committed to advancing practice for the benefit of our patients and communities. I take away valuable information from each ASHP virtual call or in-person meeting. One of my mentors put it nicely - ASHP has provided us with so much support, and we should be giving back to the community that has given a lot to us in return.

Value of ASHP for Peers or Colleagues:
The value of ASHP is the unique space to share information and develop community in what can be the large scale of a health-system. It's evident in how the work of our sections and councils often intertwine. Learning from others, and sharing your own experiences, has helped me grow within my own professional career.

Value of ASHP for the Profession:
In addition to providing opportunities for individualized professional growth through certifications and other learning opportunities, I find that ASHP's vision setting work through calls to action like PPMI or PAI 2030 help pharmacy leaders set their own strategies for advancing practice across the country.