Steven W. Chen

I'm driven by the avoidable suffering and costs due to suboptimal use of medications in this country, an "epidemic" that knows no socioeconomic boundaries and results in hundreds of thousands of lives lost and hundreds of billions of dollars in added expenses each year.

As Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs at the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy, I lead a team of outstanding staff and clinicians that develop or facilitate sustainable, high-impact clinical roles for pharmacists. These roles, either in-person or virtual, have proven to reduce the cost of healthcare, improve quality of care, improve patient safety, increase access to healthcare services, and are highly satisfying to patients and other members of the healthcare team.

I have collaborated with a number of faculty to acquire over $18 million in grant-funded research focusing on the integration of Comprehensive Medication Management (CMM) into medical homes. I was Co-Investigator and the clinical manager of a $12 million grant from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation that partnered with the largest private Medicaid provider in the nation, evaluating the impact of clinical pharmacists providing CMM on healthcare quality, cost, and patient and physician satisfaction. I served as Co-Chair for the HRSA Patient Safety and Clinical Pharmacy Services Collaborative (PSPC), which promoted the spread of clinical pharmacy service integration in medical homes across the nation from 2007 to 2012. I founded the California Right Meds Collaborative (CRMC, www.calrightmeds.org), which engages health plans, pharmacists, health systems, and pharmacy schools in the development and spread of sustainable CMM services out of community pharmacies. I am the USC PI for a 5-year $3 million CDC 1817 Wellness grant, under the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, which funds the CRMC work for Los Angeles County. I am a Founding Member of the CDC National Hypertension Control Roundtable, and had the privilege of working with the late Dr. Ronald Victor on the foundation for this NIH-funded pharmacist-in-the-barbershop program where pharmacists successfully managed high blood pressure treatment in Black barbershops. I have been a front-line primary care CMM pharmacist for 25 years of my career providing care to Veterans, commercially insured populations, and the homeless on Los Angeles' Skid Row.