VG Director of Quality Awarded OSU Outstanding Alumni
VG's Director of Quality, Sarah Deines, graduated from Oregon State in 2008 and completed a year of residency at Legacy before landing at VG in 2009 as a Clinical Pharmacist. At VG, clinical pharmacists work alongside medical providers in primary care clinics, and can prescribe medication and order labs under a referral from a provider. Sarah worked with the providers and the patients to determine the best method to address chronic conditions, and provided education about different medication, and non-medication, options.
The program grew under her leadership, expanding from one clinical pharmacist to a group of 14 team members that include VG clinical pharmacy staff, Pacific University pharmacy faculty, as well as Pacific University and VG pharmacy residents.
This dedication to quality, and constant drive for improvement and excellence are the things that got Sarah noticed by her alma mater, Oregon State University College of Pharmacy.
Established in 2006 the Outstanding Young Alumni award recognizes alumni, early in his/her career for exceptional achievements in the pharmacy profession, public service and/or volunteer activities, which bring credit to Oregon State University and the College of Pharmacy. Sarah was named the 2018 recipient just a few weeks ago.
This same drive also kept her moving forward.
In October of last year, Sarah moved from Clinical Pharmacy Services Manager to Director of Quality. "I am really interested in exploring what quality means across the organization," said Sarah. "How do we ensure that high quality health care is effectively and consistently delivered across all our clinics?"
Sarah is also responsible for supporting the leadership structure within the organization. This means ensuring staff and leaders have the tools to improve - and maintain - quality and innovation at all levels. "The real challenge is how to encourage each of the clinics to innovate in ways that help them be successful while keeping the strategic goals of the entire organization in mind," said Sarah. "I receive ideas from clinic staff all the time that I think are great ideas, but how do we implement them all? The truth is, we can't, so we have to try and select the ideas that will have the most significant impact on the health and wellness of the patients we serve."
Sarah will receive her award on Saturday, May 12 at the RiverPlace Hotel in Portland. She is the 13th Alumni to receive the award.
"VG is an amazing place to work for," she continues. "what we do is so important. My job is to make sure we are doing the best work we can for our patients every day."
