Jacob Jolly

His Story

Jacob Jolly, Pharm.D., CSP has significant experience in specialty, retail, and hospital pharmacy. Dr. Jolly completed his pre-pharmacy coursework at Louisiana State University and received his doctorate of pharmacy from Mercer University. In his current role as Director, Strategy and Market Access at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Dr. Jolly creates and fosters meaningful partnerships with a variety of stakeholders on behalf of Vanderbilt Specialty Pharmacy. Jacob lives in Nashville, TN with his wife, Julie, and two sons, Luke and Miles.

Facility

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is a 5-hospital health system and academic medical center headquartered in Nashville, TN. The Specialty Pharmacy Program at VUMC features a clinically-driven, fully-integrated model. Each specialty clinic serviced by the program has dedicated clinical teams, most of which are embedded in the clinic to maximize personalized, clinical, care coordination. Vanderbilt Specialty Pharmacy has been recognized nationally for it's high quality, patient-centric, delivery of service.

Recent Significant Projects

The Outcomes and Research Program at Vanderbilt Specialty Pharmacy, with which Dr. Jolly works closely, has become known for it's approach to innovating clinical practice and research. In March 2019, Vanderbilt hosted the first Health System Outcomes Research Summit, which was well attended by a variety of stakeholders and feedback from the attendees was excellent. Vanderbilt is happy to announce they will be hosting another Summit in May 2020. In addition, Dr. Jolly has secured access to a number of limited distribution drugs by demonstrating the benefit of Vanderbilt's integrated model.

Initial Involvement in ASHP

I am a member of the Section of Specialty Pharmacy Practitioners Advisory Group on Business Development.

Why did you become involved in ASHP? 

I see ASHP as a way for health system specialty pharmacies to connect and share best practices. I believe that if health systems can develop their specialty programs, it will improve patient care on a large scale.

Advice for Someone New to Specialty Area

Listen to people and be empathetic. This advice can be applied to clinical practice as well as business practice. Clinically, it's of paramount importance to understand the goals of the individual patients we serve so that we deliver care that aligns with what they need. In business, there are many different groups that must come together for us to achieve our collective mission of serving patients. The ability to understand the needs of each different stakeholder allows for much more natural and successful collaboration.

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

ASHP is an excellent venue to learn about health-system pharmacy, make connections, and promote best practices.

What is the value of ASHP for the profession?

ASHP can serve not only as a platform for education, development, and sharing of best practices, but perhaps most importantly as an advocacy mechanism.