SIG Coordinator-elects Slated Candidates
Care of Underserved Patients
Tom Bateman, PharmD, BCACP, Titusville, NJ
Tom Bateman is a Board-Certified Ambulatory Care Pharmacist. He earned his Doctor of Pharmacy Degree at Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. He completed his Post Graduate Year One (PGY1) Community Practice Residency with Duquesne University & Giant Eagle Pharmacy and then completed his PGY2 Ambulatory Care Residency with Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy (EMSOP) & Henry J. Austin Health Center (HJAHC). Dr. Bateman currently serves as the Lead Clinical Pharmacist of HJAHC and he is a Clinical Assistant Professor with Rutgers EMSOP. Dr. Bateman also serves as the Residency Program Director for HJAHC's PGY2 Ambulatory Care Residency Program. Dr. Bateman's passion is working with underserved urban communities, and he has published multiple papers, mainly about chronic disease management in the outpatient setting.
Dr. Bateman has been an active member of the Care of Underserved Patients (CUP) Special Interest Group (SIG) since 2019. Dr. Bateman served as the Chair-elect of the CUP SIG's Education Committee in 2022 and subsequently as the Chair in 2023. Dr. Bateman co-created two webinars and a law CE program through the CUP SIG Education Committee. Dr. Bateman has been recognized with appreciation for significant contributions to the SIG by the APhA– APPM CUP SIG at the Annual Meetings in 2022 and 2023.
Due to his clinical and academic work, along with his experience in the CUP SIG, Dr. Bateman believes he is an excellent Coordinator-elect candidate who will carry out the mission of the CUP SIG.
Amy Reese Hohmann, PharmD, MBe, La Quinta, CA
Dr. Amy Reese Hohmann works as an inpatient pharmacist at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, California. She has worked in many different types of pharmacy jobs such as chain community pharmacy, Medication Therapy Management at an independent pharmacy, a small community hospital, and now she works for a level one trauma center. She is involved in many pharmacy organizations at both the state and national level. She is also involved in the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH). She lectures and writes about bioethics and how it applies to pharmacy practice. She advocates for the profession of pharmacy and pharmacist-driven patient care in all she does.
Preceptor SIG
Nira Kadakia, PharmD, BCACP, Findlay, OH
Nira Kadakia, PharmD, BCACP (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor at the University of Findlay College of Pharmacy and an ambulatory care clinical pharmacist with Mercy Health St. Charles Hospital. A 2017 graduate of The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy, she completed a post-graduate year 1 community-based pharmacy residency with the University of Cincinnati College of Pharmacy and the City of Cincinnati Health Department. Following residency, she completed a two-year academic and ambulatory care fellowship at Purdue University. She began at her current position after her fellowship.
Dr. Kadakia has contributed to the profession by serving in various roles within APhA and state pharmacy organizations. Within APhA, she has served in the Standing Committees of the New Practitioner Network and the Preceptor SIG. Through these service experiences, she has gained an understanding of professional organization dynamics, developing content for members, and building professional networks. As a preceptor in both community and ambulatory care practice settings, she has insight into preceptor needs and challenges they face. She looks forward to the opportunity to use her experiences, skills, and knowledge to further the mission of the Preceptor SIG and support pharmacist preceptors’ growth and engagement within APhA.
Beyond her professional endeavors, Dr. Kadakia enjoys traveling, reading, and spending time with friends and family. Her lifelong goal is to have every page of a passport stamped with different locations.
Jarred Prudencio, PharmD, BCACP, BC-ADM, Hilo, Hawaii
Jarred Prudencio received his Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Hawaii at Hilo, the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy (UH Hilo DKICP) in 2015. He then completed a post-graduate year-1 pharmacy practice residency at UC Davis Health System. His residency had an emphasis on ambulatory care and included a teaching certificate focused on both didactic and experiential teaching. He started as a faculty member at the UH Hilo DKICP in August 2016 as an Assistant Professor, where he implemented a new comprehensive medication management service in a family medicine residency clinic. In 2020, Dr. Prudencio took on the role of Director of Experiential Education at UH Hilo DKICP, while maintaining his clinical practice. He received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in 2021. He maintains dual board certification as an ambulatory care pharmacy specialist and in advanced diabetes management. In the didactic setting, he teaches pharmacotherapy relating to chronic disease states such as heart failure, HIV, diabetes, and thromboembolic disorders. Dr. Prudencio is an active member of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP), and the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP). He serves as faculty advisor for the student organizations of the UH Hilo DKICP APhA-ASP chapter and for HOSA Future Health Professionals. His research and scholarship efforts focus on expansion of ambulatory care pharmacy services and on innovations in pharmacy education, including leveraging social media for educational purposes.
Public Health
Prashant Sakharkar, PharmD, MPH, Miami, FL
Dr. Sakharkar is a Director of the Graduate Program in Social and Administrative Sciences and an Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical and Administrative Sciences at the Larkin University College of Pharmacy in Miami, Florida. Dr. Sakharkar earned Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) and Master of Public Health (MPH) from the University of Florida. Dr. Sakharkar also completed two years of Postdoctoral Fellowship in Health Outcomes Research at the College of Pharmacy, Western University of Health Sciences. Dr. Sakharkar joined Roosevelt University College of Pharmacy as an Assistant Professor where he was later promoted to an Associate Professor with tenure.
Dr. Sakharkar served on the editorial advisory board of JAPhA and on the American Society of Health System Pharmacist (ASHP) Pharmacy Practice Research Review Committee for past several years. Dr. Sakharkar is an active member of American Pharmacists Association (APhA), International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) and American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. Dr. Sakharkar is actively involved in several public health SIGs at the AACP and APhA.
Trisha Chandler PharmD, MSEM, Sachse, TX
Trisha Chandler is currently serving as a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) Commissioned Corps. Her assignment is the Deputy Regional Commander for the Reserve Commissioned Corps. Dr. Chandler has almost two decades of practice experience in a variety of healthcare settings. She started her career managing a community pharmacy for seven years; precepting pharmacy students, providing immunizations, and setting up community vaccination clinics. In 2013 she commissioned into the USPHS and worked with Indian Health Service for eight years. She practiced in ambulatory care, inpatient clinical pharmacy, and provided oncology services while also serving as the satellite clinic pharmacy manager initiating and sustaining pharmacy services on Native American reservations. Dr. Chandler received certifications and training in smoking cessation, cardiovascular risk reduction, and psychiatric medicine and used her qualifications to initiate an MTM program. She previously served as APhA-APPM Public Heath SIG Liasion. Dr. Chandler has supported in academia as adjunct faculty for her alma mater MWU-College of Pharmacy. She has deployed with the USPHS on a variety of missions providing direct patient care, emergency management of medications, and opioid rapid response training. Dr. Chandler recently completed her Master of Science in Emergency Management to incorporate and utilize pharmacists in Public Health as one of the most accessible providers in the integrative healthcare team available during and post a declared Public Health Emergency (PHE).
Transitions of Care
Laressa Bethishou, PharmD, APh, BCPS, Irvine, CA
Laressa Bethishou, PharmD, APh, BCPS is an Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice at Chapman University School of Pharmacy, and serves as a transitions of care pharmacist at Hoag Hospital in Irvine, CA. She earned her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Southern California and completed a PGY1 Pharmacy Practice Residency at Stanford Health Care. She is passionate about the value of pharmacist interventions in improving care transitions, and her research, teaching, and precepting focus on improving patient care outcomes for those at high risk for readmission. Dr. Bethishou has been an active member of the APhA Transitions of Care Special Interest Group since 2016, serving on the practice, communication, and education committees. She has chaired the practice committee for 3 years, and the communication and education committees for one year each. In her capacity as chair, she has led efforts in creating numerous guidance documents, including the Transitions of Care Toolkit, a Hand-Off Communication Tool, a Transitions of Care Disease State Checklist, and a Guide to Integrating Pharmacy Extenders in Transitions of Care Services. She has been invited as a speaker at APhA Annual as well as on an APPM webinar on Implementing Transitions of Care Services in the Inpatient Setting.
Marissa Cavaretta, PharmD, BCPS, BCACP, Philadelphia, PA
Dr. Cavaretta is a Clinical Associate Professor and the Director of the Office of Experiential Education at Temple University School of Pharmacy in Philadelphia, PA and a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist in internal medicine at Temple University Hospital, where she maintains a clinical practice. She is also the Director of the PGY2 Internal Medicine Pharmacy Residency at the School of Pharmacy, where she has been providing pharmacists with advanced training in internal medicine since 2016. She graduated from Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Albany, NY with a Doctor of Pharmacy degree in 2010. After graduation she completed a PGY1 residency in Pharmacy Practice and PGY2 residency in Ambulatory Care with emphasis on geriatrics at SUNY Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, NY. She joined the faculty at Temple University School of Pharmacy in 2013 and has been providing clinical pharmacy services to internal medicine patients at Temple University Hospital since. Her clinical service focuses on transitions of care, and she has successfully created multidisciplinary services in this area including a first of its kind transitions of care pharmacy consult service at Temple University Hospital. This novel service has expanded pharmacist outreach to high-risk patients throughout the hospital and is the first referral-based inpatient pharmacy service at the hospital. Research hypotheses have been generated from the service and have led to studies to assess the effectiveness of an inpatient pharmacist-directed immunization program to increase vaccination rates and the utilization of a discharge verification queue to optimize antibiotic use.
Diabetes Management
Taryn Mondiello, PharmD, BCACP, AE-C, MHA*, Saint Louis, MO
Dr. Mondiello earned her PharmD from St. John’s University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Queens, NY in 2015. Following graduation, she completed her PGY1 pharmacy residency at Coatesville VA Medical Center in Coatesville, PA, followed by her PGY2 ambulatory care pharmacy residency at VA Hudson Valley Health Care System (VA HVHCS) in Wappingers Falls, NY.
Dr. Mondiello’s previous roles include patient-aligned care team clinical pharmacy specialist at VA HVHCS, transitions of care (TOC) clinical coordinator at The Brooklyn Hospital Center, and TOC clinical pharmacy specialist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital (BJH) at Washington University Medical Center in St. Louis, MO. She currently works as a clinical pharmacy specialist in the Chronic Disease Management Clinic at BJH that she helped to create in 2023. In this role, she initiates, modifies, discontinues, and monitor medications utilizing collaborative practice agreements for patients enrolled in Washington University in St. Louis specialty care clinics. She precepts pharmacy residents and APPE students and serves on BJH’s Clinical Pharmacy Research Board. She is an active member of APhA and ASHP and is President of the St. Louis Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
Dr. Mondiello has served on the APhA-APPM Education Standing Committee and Communications Standing Committee and is a member of APhA Care of Underserved Patients Special Interest Group (SIG) Professional Affairs Committee. This year, she is Co-Chair of the APhA DM SIG Communications Committee. If elected DM SIG Coordinator-Elect, she plans to use her extensive experience to ultimately improve the diabetes care that pharmacists provide to patients.
Immunizing Pharmacists
Sheena Patel, PharmD, Mechanicsburg, PA
Dr. Sheena Patel is an accomplished and dedicated professional with a deep-rooted commitment to advancing healthcare, particularly in the field of immunization advocacy. As an active member of the American Pharmacist Association (APhA), Dr. Patel has held key positions that reflect their unwavering dedication to the field.
Serving as the Advocacy Chair for the APhA's Academy of Pharmacy Practice and Management (APPM) Immunization Special Interest Group from May 2019 to May 2021, Dr. Patel passionately advocated for patients and pharmacists involved in immunization efforts. Her work involved letter-writing campaigns, social media initiatives, “SIG PAC Challenge,” and education of elected officials. Dr. Patel's contributions extended to facilitating the submission of new business items for the 2021 House of Delegates and receiving recognition through the "Invisible Superheroes: Immunization Edition" award.
Her passion for immunization advocacy and education is further evidenced through her roles as Communications Co-Chair for the Immunization SIG and as a Delegate and Alternate Delegate for the House of Delegates. Dr. Patel has initiated and developed monthly case studies, co-authored APhA's Immunization Travel Health Pocket Guide, and received multiple Certificates of Appreciation for creating awareness and promoting immunizations. She actively monitors and moderates online communities to ensure the dissemination of accurate information related to immunizations.
Dr. Patel is also deeply committed to the education and evaluation of immunization projects through the Operation Immunization Report Review Committee. With a strong background in immunization advocacy and healthcare communication, Dr. Sheena Patel is well-equipped in becoming the next APhA-APPM Immunization SIG Coordinator-Elect.
Medical Home/ACO
Hindu Rao, PharmD, BCACP, APh, Irvine, CA
Hindu Rao, PharmD, APh, BCACP is a clinical assistant professor of pharmacy practice at Chapman University School of Pharmacy (CUSP) and an ambulatory care pharmacist at Providence Medical Foundation (PMF). She specializes in chronic disease management, specifically diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia management. She also has her board certification in ambulatory care (BCACP). She received her Doctor of Pharmacy at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), where she became a member of the Rho Chi Pharmacy Honor Society. She completed her postgraduate pharmacy residency training at Cedars Sinai Medical Network and CUSP, with a focus in ambulatory care practice. During her residency, she also obtained a teaching certificate through CUSP. Currently, she teaches first-year pharmacy students at CUSP and is a preceptor for third-year pharmacy students in her ambulatory care clinic at PMF. She is passionate about educating the next generation of pharmacy leaders. Her other interests include developing and advocating for pharmacist-led services within medical homes and accountable care organizations. She also aims to expand the use of health technology in pharmacist-led patient care services.
Pain, Palliative Care and Addiction
Nancy Hooper, D.Ph., Goodlettsville, TN
Nancy is a healthcare professional with over 25 years of practical pharmacy experience. As a pharmacist in long-term recovery and previous participant in the Tennessee Pharmacy Recovery Network, she is driven both personally and professionally to serve and advocate for people suffering with or in recovery from substance use disorder.
While working at axial Healthcare, Nancy managed a team of pharmacists focused on appropriate opioid prescribing for chronic non-cancer pain management. Her team collaborated with prescribers in TN, WV, AL, PA, and AZ to find safer pain management alternatives for patients at risk for developing an opioid use disorder. During this time, she was able to obtain her Certification as a Pain Educator, CPE.
Nancy has two years’ experience working with Dr. Michael Baron at the Tennessee Medical Foundation where she was privileged to support Tennessee physicians, veterinarians, and chiropractors in getting appropriate treatment and aftercare services for substance use disorder. She currently serves as Program Director for Tennessee Pharmacy Recovery Network which she shared has been the most rewarding work of her life.
Nancy is no stranger to chronic pain due to a back injury and has also been to multiple inpatient residential treatment centers for substance use disorder before finally getting sober on January 28, 2013. Nancy is also a part-time District Support Pharmacist for CVS and is intimately familiar with the stress and burnout that can sometimes come with community pharmacy roles. Due to this personal experience, she is passionate about pain management, recovery, and well-being.
Medication Management
Austin Morgan, PharmD, BCACP, CDCES, Lawrence, KS
Austin's journey in pharmacy started as a 16-year-old clerk at an independent pharmacy in his hometown in central Kansas. He attended the University of Kansas School of Pharmacy, graduating with a PharmD in 2017. He worked in different pharmacy settings throughout school, including long-term care and chain-community. Post-graduation, he completed a PGY-1 Community-Based residency with the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and King Soopers. After school and residency, his goal was to practice in an outpatient setting where he could build relationships with patients, get to know them, and help them live healthier, happier lives.
Upon completing residency training, he transitioned back to the Kansas City metro as a staff pharmacist with a local grocery store chain, practicing in a dispensing role while delivering clinical services through the pharmacy, including MTM and vaccinations. He joined his current company, Tria Health, 5 years ago in late 2018.
As Lead Clinical Pharmacist overseeing Development and Training, he spends most of his work week providing telephonic chronic condition management services to patients as an added benefit in employer benefit packages. By diving deep into patients' medication use patterns, he helps patients better understand their treatments, both medication and non-pharmacologic, and works with them and their providers to optimize therapy to produce better medication-related outcomes and resolve drug therapy problems. Austin also directs Tria Health's PGY1 Community-Based Pharmacy Residency, is primary preceptor for APPE rotation students from regional pharmacy schools and assists with staff development and quality improvement projects at Tria Health.
Heather Roth, BPharm, Grand Rapids, MI
Heather Roth is a community pharmacist with over 20 years of experience, receiving her pharmacy degree from Ferris State University. Through a variety of practice sites (national chain, FQHC, and regional grocery chain), she has been an active leader as pharmacists' roles change from traditional dispensing to clinical services including MTM, immunizations, and point-of-care testing. She is a member of Michigan Pharmacists Association, National Wellness Institute, and American Public Health Association, in addition to APhA. In her current practice, she provides MTM services to and coordinates wellness initiatives for associates and family members of a large self-funded employer group. She serves as the lead preceptor for the MTM learning experience and site coordinator for the SpartanNash/Ferris State University PGY-1 Community-Based Pharmacy Residency Program. She is currently working toward her master’s in public health degree with a concentration in Population Health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.