Dustin M. Riccio, MD, MBA

When Dr. Dustin Riccio envisions the future of his health system, he knows one group that must have a seat at the table: clinical pharmacists.

“At St. Joseph’s Health, we are utilizing pharmacists really well. We have a very strong pharmacy leader. What I am trying to do is marry their brilliance with the clinical components so that we can do even more with our pharmacy team.”  

I absolutely loved working with pharmacists in real time as my side-by-side partners in medicine. They had a meaningful impact on me personally, as well as the patients that I took care of.”

Dr. Riccio’s perception of pharmacists has evolved tremendously over his 25 years in healthcare. During medical school in Syracuse, New York, he worked as an EKG tech and phlebotomist. He knew the pharmacy team there to be “brilliant,” but his interactions with them were limited. “They were kind of behind the scenes; they were behind the glass wall.”

His eyes were fully opened to the power of pharmacy during his residency program’s toxicology rotation and into his early years practicing emergency medicine.

“It was really at that point when I recognized how deep [pharmacists] went into the clinical caretaking of each patient — not just those that came to the hospital, but all the community members on the outside as well. … Now, I always tell people that pharmacists are one of the smartest groups of people in the hospital.”

As an attending physician at Unity Hospital in Rochester, New York, Dr. Riccio knew he wanted clinical pharmacists to become more involved in the bustling emergency department.

“The clinical pharmacist would come down to do medication reconciliations, but they quickly became the go-to person for everything within the emergency department. You saw their intelligence with their depth of understanding of what the drug interactions were, the choices that we should be making [as a healthcare team]. I absolutely loved working with pharmacists in real time as my side-by-side partners in medicine. They had a meaningful impact on me personally, as well as the patients that I took care of.” 

Shaped by this experience, Dr. Riccio has been advocating for pharmacists ever since in his roles as a physician and a health-system leader. In January 2024, he became president and CEO of St. Joseph’s Health, a network of hospitals and outpatient facilities in northern New Jersey with more than 1,800 medical staff. Moving forward, he is intent on achieving a hand-in-hand clinical partnership between physicians and pharmacists at every level of the organization. 

At the boots-on-the-ground level, I want to further integrate pharmacists within the clinical component of care.”

“At the boots-on-the-ground level, I want to further integrate pharmacists within the clinical component of care. From there, I want to create a management layer that recognizes pharmacists’ unique contributions as thought leaders and brings their perspective to other specialty areas, such as oncology. Lastly, at the executive level, I would like to get additional clinicians, inclusive of pharmacists, within the C-suite space.”

Thought leaders and thought partners in medicine: For Dr. Riccio, that’s what it means to be your pharmacist.