Chad Hatfield, Pharm.D., on embedding pharmacists across specialties in the UC Davis Health System

UC Davis Health has placed pharmacists in virtually every clinical service line across their care settings, and more than 150 of its pharmacists hold board certification, according to Chad Hatfield, Pharm.D., M.H.A., BCPS, vice president and chief pharmacy officer at UC Davis Health. Hatfield oversees 13 pharmacies, the health system's acute and ambulatory clinical services, 39 pharmacy residents and approximately 500 support staff.

In this video, Hatfield discusses how UC Davis Health aligns its specialty-trained pharmacists with service lines across the continuum of care.

On the ambulatory side, "There's really no specialty that we don't have pharmacists," Hatfield said, adding that most specialties have more than one. Every UC Davis Health primary care site has pharmacists, and pharmacists are embedded in specialty clinics, including endocrinology, immunology and pulmonary medicine. Larger clinics are staffed with multiple pharmacists when patient volume warrants it.

Acute care is where many of the health system's pharmacy specialties first developed, Hatfield said. Critical care, emergency medicine and pediatrics are each staffed by multiple pharmacists, and staffing levels are set using a patient ratio that accounts for how sick the patients on a given service are.

Hatfield said the rationale for this model is specialization. When a pharmacist is tied to a single service line, that pharmacist builds expertise in that area rather than working as a generalist and can focus on what those patients need. In acute care, that focus supports the transition of patients out of the hospital and into ambulatory care. In ambulatory care, it supports ongoing care that keeps patients at home and in their communities.

"It's the tie between the two that really keeps their patients out of the hospital as much as possible," Hatfield said.

Hatfield is set to speak at the 2026 Health System Executive Summit, where he will moderate the session, ‘340B Landscape and Current Challenges to Health Systems and Specialty Pharmacy.’ The summit will take place on Oct. 16 in San Francisco.