Dr. Simonson oversees pharmacy strategy and operations for Ochsner Health’s 47 hospitals and extensive outpatient network, with more than 40 years at the system. Over the past year, she scaled AI-enabled prior authorization and medication access tools across specialty, infusion and retail pharmacy services, accelerating time to therapy for tens of thousands of patients while reducing administrative burden for clinicians. These efforts nearly doubled pharmacy throughput per full-time employee and restored thousands of hours of clinician capacity. Dr. Simonson has built on earlier innovations including Ochsner’s centralized refill center, which streamlined prescription processing, and the deployment of pharmacists into inpatient and ambulatory settings to offset nursing shortages. Her leadership has strengthened workforce resilience, improved staff morale and enhanced the reliability of medication delivery across the system. Through digital transformation, workforce optimization and enterprise integration, she has positioned pharmacy as a driver of access, efficiency and patient-centered care at Ochsner.
