Welcoming New Alliance Board Members!
by Joe Pugliese, President and CEO

Since its inception, the key to success for the Alliance has been the remarkable people who volunteer their time and expertise to support and guide our efforts. The Board has been constantly evolving over time. I have to admit in the early days, past the core group of true believers, convincing people to serve was at times a challenging endeavor. New Board candidates today apply for the position. The nominating committee made up of the Vice Chair and two at large Board members have the difficult job of selecting from multiple candidates and presenting their recommendation to the full Board.

We were again blessed with a large field of excellent candidates for the two open Board positions. I am pleased to introduce John Myers RPh, MBA as a returning Board member and Justin Nelson, Director of Operations at Children’s Minnesota, as our new Board members. You will note that Justin has spent some time on the commercial side of healthcare; we welcome his insights.

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who applied to serve on the Board. We will have two Board members retiring next year and we absolutely need and appreciate the support from all of our members with a special thanks to all of those willing to serve.

John Myers, RPh, MBA has over 35 years of pharmacy experience. He began working at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center as a staff pharmacist and later transferred to the Division of Home Care Services. In 2007, he was promoted to Director of Home Care Pharmacy. Under his leadership, Home Care Services has received the PRC National Excellence in Healthcare award, Magnet recognitions, Joint Commission Infusion/Specialty Accreditations and URAC Specialty Pharmacy accreditation. In December 2020, he was promoted to the Director of Pharmacy Operations at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. In his new position, he has oversight of Home Care Infusion Pharmacy, Specialty Pharmacy and the Retail Community Pharmacies. In March 2022, the Specialty Pharmacy was recognized as a 2021 Pioneer in URAC’s Leaders in Performance Measurement (LPM), an award given to a new specialty pharmacy who is promoting trust in the quality of care delivered through performance measurement activities. In December 2022 the Specialty Pharmacy was once again awarded Full URAC Accreditation for Specialty Pharmacy.

John earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Cincinnati, College of Pharmacy, and a Master of Business Administration degree from Xavier University. He served on the Board of Directors of the Hemophilia Alliance from 2014-2020. He also served on The Alliance Pharmacy (TAP) Board of Directors from 2022-2022.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Home Care Pharmacy provides a full range of infusion, enteral and specialty pharmacy services, for patients living in OH, KY, and IN. The Home Care Pharmacy is also the in-house pharmacy provider for Cincinnati Children’s Hemophilia Treatment Center (HTC). For more than 25 years, The Home Care Pharmacy has been dispensing bleeding disorder medications to HTC patients and working closely with HTC staff to provide coordinated care and consistency in service.

Justin Nelson is the current Director of Ambulatory at the Center for Bleeding and Clotting Disorders at Children’s Minnesota in Minneapolis. Returning to the center in 2021, Justin has 4 years’ experience in the bleeding disorders community as well as 340B operations. In addition to his experience in bleeding disorders and 340B, Justin has 15 years of business operations in healthcare with organizations such as MinuteClinic, Prime Therapeutics, Walgreens, HealthPartners and more. Additionally, Justin has published many short articles and post for TranspharmD.com on topics such as LGBTQ rights, mental health, racial disparities, healthcare inequalities.