HJNO Jan/Feb 2025

CHANGING THE CARE: IBD 32 JAN / FEB 2025 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS   As the program has grown, we’ve identified other needs that the pharmacist could help fill and improve the program overall. The ad- vanced therapies we utilize in IBD treatment, while effective for controlling disease activity, can compromise the immune system and in- crease susceptibility to infections. Therefore, vaccinations are a crucial preventative measure for our patient population. With the support of the entire team, we we’ve been able to suc- cessfully implement clinic-administered vacci- nations in 2023. Patients are able to get the rec- ommended vaccinations during their office visit with the physician, which has improved patient engagement and satisfaction. This has helped improve vaccine accessibility and immunization rates among our patient population, which we hypothesize will lead to fewer emergency de- partment visits and admissions for our immu- nosuppressed patients. With the expansion of pharmacy services, we added a second dedi- cated pharmacist, LeBon, to our team in 2024. All these achievements have been pos- sible because of a hardworking, collab- orative team with a shared goal in mind. Kenny Cole, MD As you can see, Shah’s approach in her own Crohn’s and colitis center of excellence ex- emplifies the 5 T’s that we have discussed in prior articles: embracing the concept of a multi-disciplinary team that is supported by great coaching, deploying the right talent to align the right skill set to the task at hand or problem to be solved, utilizing technology in innovative ways to care for more people that crosses traditional geographic boundaries of brick-and-mortar care, all while figuring out the most efficient and effective use of time to earn the trust of the patients we are so fortu- nate to serve. We all know that healthcare can be dysfunctional and even uncaring at times. Only when exceptional physicians embrace the coaching mindset captured in the above quote by Ronnie Lott, will healthcare change, evolve, and improve to reach the full poten- tial of what we can offer to people in need. n REFERENCES 1 Porter, M.E.; Lee, T.H. “Integrated Practice Unites: A Playbook for Health Care Leaders.” NEJM Cat- alyst Innovations in Care Delivery 2, no.1 (Jan. 1, 2021). DOI: 10.1056/CAT.20.0237 2 Dharni, K.; Singh, A.; Sharma, S.; et al. “Trends of inflammatory bowel disease from the Global Burden of Disease Study (1990-2019).” Indian Journal of Gastroenterology 43, no. 1 (February 2024): 188-198. DOI: 10.1007/s12664-023-01430-z Shamita B. Shah, MD Shamita B. Shah, MD, is a board-certified gastroenterologist at Ochsner Health in New Orleans. After receiving a medical degree at LSU Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, she completed internal medicine training and a chief residency year at LSU. She then went on to complete gastroenterology training at Ochsner Health. Following this, she completed an advanced training program in inflammatory bowel disease at the University of Chicago. She returned to Ochsner in 2015 as the medical director of the inflammatory bowel disease program after spending seven years directing the IBD program at Stanford University. Since 2015, she has built a premiere IBD program in the Gulf South at Ochsner. She has published several peer-reviewed articles in premier journals and continues to engage in research with a special interest in PSC and IBD, racial and ethnic differences within IBD, and population health tools to improve IBD outcomes within large healthcare organizations. Estela Lajthia, PharmD Estela Lajthia, PharmD, CDCES, is a clinical pharmacist embedded in the IBD clinic within the gastroenterology department at Ochsner Health in New Orleans. She graduated with a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Shenandoah University in Virginia in 2015. After graduation, she completed two years of post-graduate residency training in ambulatory care at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy. Before joining Ochsner Health, Lajthia served as clinical faculty of pharmacy practice at Howard University College of Pharmacy in Washington, D.C., from 2017 to 2021. In 2021, she joined the GI department at Ochsner Health as the first pharmacist to be embedded into a specialty clinic. Since joining the IBD team, she has helped implement new pharmacy services like clinic-administered vaccinations, expand the IBD pharmacy team, and train multiple pharmacists embedded in other specialty clinics. Matthew Malachowski, PharmD Matthew Malachowski, PharmD, MHA, BCPS, is the system assistant vice president for population health and ambulatory care at Ochsner Health. Malachowski serves as the co-chair for the vaccine subcommittee and the ambulatory subcommittee of the Ochsner Health Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee. He serves on the performance and operations committee of the Ochsner Health Network. Malachowski has oversight of the Ochsner Refill Center and collaborates with information services and the primary care department to innovate solutions to tomorrow’s patient care problems. He has responsibility for the ambulatory clinical pharmacists imbedded in the outpatient physician clinics and enjoys developing advanced care teams. Malachowski completed a master’s in healthcare administration at the University of Alabama in Birmingham in 2020, residency at UAB Hospital in 2007, and graduated from pharmacy school at the University of Rhode Island in 2006.