Ashley Merritt

Ashley’s Story

Dr. Merritt attended St. Louis College of Pharmacy and graduated with her Pharm.D. in 2014. She grew up on a small cattle ranch an hour south of St. Louis and came home to expand ambulatory clinical pharmacy services in her rural area. Dr. Merritt is a member of the Medication Therapy Management in the Community Section Advisory Group.

Facility

Dr. Merritt is currently working as the clinical services coordinator for an independent pharmacy with three locations in rural southeast Missouri. She also served as the pharmacy manager for the smallest location. They serve retail, long-term care, and hospice patients at their pharmacies. She is working to improve and expand their clinical opportunities including: MTM services, immunizations, hospice chart reviews, interdisciplinary meetings with the hospice care team, and long-term care consulting services.

Significant Projects

Some projects that Dr. Merritt is working on include collaborating to partner with a local FQHC for the implementation of clinical pharmacy services and staff education. She is also creating a sustainable MTM program for her pharmacies for all interested patients that provides medication reconciliation, medication synchronization and adherence monitoring, billable MTM opportunities, and focuses on high risk patient management such as transitions in care for complicated patients with multiple uncontrolled commorbidities. She also is developing clinical resources and a systematic pharmacy review approach for hospice pharmacy services.

Advice for Someone New to Your Specialty Area

“Never say never. Ambulatory care is a rapidly expanding and exciting practice area and if you say that you will never do something, it will surely come to pass within the year. Opportunities will arise that you never expected; be realistic, but don’t be afraid to try something new!”

Involvement in ASHP

“I attended ASHP Midyear as a student and greatly enjoyed the educational & mentorship opportunities that became available to me.”

ASHP’s Value to Members

“ASHP's value lies in the vast number of educational and networking opportunities the organization provides. Working in a remote location makes the exchange of ideas with other health care professionals challenging, but through ASHP I can stay connected to other pharmacists in similar practice settings and stay abreast of new information that impacts my patients.”

“ASHP provides a voice for all health-system pharmacists and advocates for us politically and among other professions.”