Stacy Carson

Her Story

Dr. Carson received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Palm Beach Atlantic University. Following graduation, she completed a Pharmacy Practice and Drug Information residency at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, KS. She then went on to complete a Safe Medication Management Fellowship at the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) in Horsham, PA. She is also Board Certified in Pharmacotherapy. Her current role is the Medication Safety Coordinator at AdventHealth Orlando. She leads the system Smart Pump Oversight Committee, serves as the expert resource for medication safety initiatives and medication error investigations for the campus. She works closely with the pharmacy operations, clinical, and informatics teams to improve the medication use process and precepts students and residents in both elective and longitudinal rotations. Dr. Carson is also the course coordinator and primary lecturer for a University of Florida online elective course within their Master's in Patient Safety in Medication Use program; the course focuses on how technology and medication safety affect each other in healthcare.

Overview of Facility/Health System

AdventHealth Orlando, a 1,368-bed acute-care medical center, treats over 50,000 inpatients and 200,000 outpatients annually. AdventHealth Orlando is a member of AdventHealth. It serves as a community hospital for Greater Orlando and as a major tertiary referral hospital for Central Florida and much of the Southeast, the Caribbean and South America. AdventHealth operates 50 hospitals in nine states making it one of the largest faith-based health care systems in the United States.

Significant Projects

I helped overhaul and combine the nursing level of care and IV-line recommendation guidance documents and added in IV push standards into one SOP document for my local system of 8 hospitals. It took about a year to refresh the drug information and obtain the vetting and approval from all the nursing and pharmacy leaders across hospitals.

I am the RPD for the new PGY2 Medication Use Safety & Policy program at my hospital and have been working through the set up and design of our program (our first resident starts in July!).

Initial Involvement in ASHP

I currently sit on the Operations and Automation SOPIT Advisory Group. I am leading a team to update the Statement on BCMA Technology. Prior to that I was a member of the Medication Safety SAG for 5 years and helped lead an update to the Statement on the Role of the Medication Safety Leader and helped update the ASHP Medication Use Safety Resources webpage.

Advice for Someone New to Your Specialty Area

Medication Safety covers a lot of different areas and you will not be an expert in them all at the beginning. Make sure you ask questions and get the history on the process before making recommendations. Utilize your resources and network of colleagues (ASHP, ISMP, MSOS, etc.)! Make sure you find nursing and provider partners for projects that involve those disciplines; it helps to ensure what you are saying makes sense to them.

Why did you become involved in ASHP?

I initially joined ASHP in pharmacy school after deciding to pursue a residency. During my fellowship, I had the opportunity to participate on the Medication Safety SAG calls and that is where my real interest in participating with ASHP activities started.

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

ASHP is a great place to network and connect with people in pharmacy and within your specialty. I have found the ASHP Connect list serve to be a great place to see how other institutions handle problems. We all don’t have to reinvent the wheel for the same problems.