Kristen Kruszewski is systemwide chief pharmacy officer at Cone Health, where she provides strategic and operational leadership for all pharmacy services across the system’s hospitals and consumer-facing operations.
She brings more than 20 years of experience leading pharmacy strategy, with a track record spanning enterprise procurement, centralized distribution, sterile compounding and home infusion service lines.
Before joining Cone Health she held pharmacy leadership roles at Geisinger and within the UNC Health system, building expertise in large-scale, standardized pharmacy operations. Dr. Kruszewski recently led Cone Health’s pharmacy integration work with Risant Health, focusing on procurement optimization and clinical service expansion, and her prior experience at Geisinger, also part of Risant Health, informs her approach to enterprise pharmacy development. Among her priorities is expanding the Cone Health Community Pharmacy network, a retail operation that dispenses medications directly to consumers across multiple locations.
She earned her doctor of pharmacy degree from the Medical University of South Carolina and her master of business administration from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. She is board certified as a sterile compounding pharmacist, underscoring her depth in pharmacy operations and quality. Dr. Kruszewski is recognized for positioning pharmacy as a strategic, value-generating function rather than a cost center within the health system.