Andrew Lucarotti

His Story

 Dr. Lucarotti received his pharmacy degree in 2011 from the University of Michigan. He further went on to grow his leadership skills through the ASHP Pharmacy Leadership Academy in 2013 and completed his Master of Business Administration in 2017 from New England College. Before entering a formal leadership position, Dr. Lucarotti started his pharmacy career as a clinical pharmacist at Michigan Medicine. Over the years he transitioned into different roles, Team Lead of the University Hospital Distribution Satellite, Manager of Medicine Services and Central Pharmacy Cleanroom, and eventually Director of Pharmacy.

Dr. Lucarotti works at Michigan Medicine as the Director of Pharmacy for University Hospital and the Cardiovascular Center. He also serves as the Health-System Pharmacy Administration and Leadership (HSPAL) residency Co-Coordinator for the PGY1/PGY2 program and is an available preceptor for both the HSPAL and Practice Pharmacy residents. He holds an Adjunct Clinical Instructor role through the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy where he teaches P2 students a course on electronic health records and human resources. In addition, he takes both IPPE and APPE’s on rotation.

Facility

 Michigan Medicine is an Academic Medical Center in Ann Arbor, MI. It has just over 1,100 licensed beds and the various Michigan Medicine outpatient clinics see over 2.6 million patients in clinic visits each year. The health system employs roughly 24,400 team members.

Recent Significant Projects

 Dr. Lucarotti has helped implement a new IV workflow system in the Central Pharmacy Cleanroom at Michigan Medicine. Through this initiative, most IV products are now being prepared using scanning and gravimetric technology. This is an important initiative to help ensure patient safety and promote standardization across the different pharmacy locations.

Further, Dr. Lucarotti has been an advocate for increased communication to team members. One recent quality initiative project he continues to work on is through bringing more awareness to mistakes or events that could lead to a safety event. Bringing awareness helps everyone grow from the experience and not have it limited to the team members involved. He has found that team members are also more comfortable to bring up events when they are openly discussed to learn and grow as a team.

Initial Involvement in ASHP

 Dr. Lucarotti has served as an ASHP member since 2018, but this is his first year in a leadership role with the organization. He currently serves on the Section of Pharmacy Practice Leaders Section Advisory Group – Frontline Leaders. One of the current projects he is helping facilitate is a podcast on different technician training programs around the country. 

Why did you become involved in ASHP? 

 He set out to become involved in ASHP to help him with networking across the country and learn from other practice environments. He started to attend ASHP’s Conference for Pharmacy Leaders to help with these goals. 

Advice for Someone New to Specialty Area 

 Continue to stay in touch with the front-line team to understand what is happening. Don’t be afraid to try new ideas and learn from them to continually improve workflows. Support one another and recognize everyone’s achievements. Always be nice to others and respect differences of opinions. Keeping a positive attitude goes a long way and a smile can be contagious!

How would you explain the value of ASHP to a friend or colleague?

 ASHP is a strong voice for the profession of pharmacy. There are many people involved in the organization that help others learn and grow through networking, social media, conferences, etc. It is a voluntary organization, so everyone that is involved is committed to the efforts to help advance pharmacy practice. It has been inspiring to see all the great projects and initiatives pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are working on throughout the country!

What is the value of ASHP for the profession?

 ASHP is an important organization not only for networking and resources, but a great opportunity to have a common voice for the profession. ASHP helps advocate for policies that will grow the profession and it isn’t possible without the membership. Supporting your local and national organizations is important to help make sure we have a strong voice to advocate for positive change.