After serving as Ascension’s national senior director and medication safety officer since September 2023, Chris Bell, PharmD, said he is no longer with the St. Louis-based health system.
In a Sept. 2 LinkedIn post, Dr. Bell said, “I wrapped my tenure with Ascension this week before starting a new adventure. I’m grateful for the tremendous people I met and served alongside. The work, learnings and relationships built have been amongst the most fulfilling experiences in my career. Thank you to everyone who made my time there such a privilege. I am excited for my next role and look forward to sharing more about that next chapter soon.”
Before joining Ascension three years ago, Dr. Bell was at Kansas City-based University of Kansas Health System for nearly 14 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. There, he served in several leadership roles including pharmacy operations manager, pharmacy director of inpatient operations and senior director of pharmacy system support, improvement and biomedical engineering.
The news of his departure comes about three weeks after a serious medication safety event occurred at one of Ascension’s hospitals in Nashville, Tenn. On Aug. 14, four patients undergoing elective joint replacement surgery at Ascension St. Thomas Midtown received the wrong medication, resulting in three patients experiencing “significant lower-extremity neurologic impairment, including paralysis and loss of sensation from roughly the mid-abdomen down,” as of Aug. 21, according to a survey report from the Tennessee Health Facilities Commission.
Becker’s has reached out to Ascension and will update this article should more information become available.
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