Pharmacist, Brittney Snitker Achieves Rising Star of 7 River Region Award
Brittney Snitker, a full-time pharmacist at Veterans Memorial Hospital, was recently named a 7 Rivers Alliance Rising Star for 2024! This award is granted to a deserving person under the age of 40, who is making a difference in the 7 Rivers Region. She was recognized at a special banquet in October at the LaCrescent Event Center in LaCresent, MN.
“Brittney serves as our Lead Pharmacist and supervises several departments including Infusion, Specialty Clinics, and Pain Management Clinic, and works in partnership with all VMH Providers across the campus ensuring that our patients receive award-winning care,” states Michael Coyle, hospital CEO. “She and her team have reduced the number of medication errors and become champions of patient safety and patient-centered care. Brittney has been actively growing her leadership knowledge by completing a Leadership Bootcamp at VMH and has recently completed her Master’s degree in Leadership. Congratulations, Brittney!”
Brittney explains what inspired her to work to be a leader in the Veterans Memorial Hospital organization. “There was a big need for a pharmacy in our facility and specialized outpatient services in our community. Pharmacy plays a substantial role in conserving costs in a hospital and more importantly, protecting patient safety. Doing pharmacy right allows our hospital to thrive in our community. Our patients deserve to receive quality healthcare close to home and I want to offer more of these services to them.”
“My proudest professional accomplishment is developing a robust full-service pharmacy department at our small hospital,” adds Brittney. “In 2020, during the COVID pandemic, I was the first full-time pharmacist ever employed by VMH. Pharmacy services were doing enough to get by but without full-time attention in-house, nursing had to carry the burden of mixing meds, making sure med orders were appropriate and safe in the middle of the night, and making sure they had the right medication to give to the right patient at the right time among the countless other things nurses are responsible for. Enhancing pharmacy services, makes the hospital run a lot smoother and a lot safer. Some of the projects I have led or been involved in to achieve better and safer patient care are as follows: adding bar code scanning during med administration, implementing pyxis medication dispensing cabinets, renovating the pharmacy so we could offer a full compounding service and adding chemotherapy infusion services, maximizing our 340B drug savings program, assisting with diabetes education and antimicrobial stewardship, providing pharmacist-led anticoagulation management to our clinic patients, and expanding outpatient services like chronic pain management, podiatry, and chemotherapy and infusion services so we can keep our patients close to home.”
“My favorite quote is from Jim Collins, ‘Good is the enemy of great’. Sometimes I hear that patients are afraid to go to the small hospitals because while care might be good there, it is often thought to not be as great as what can be provided at the larger medical centers. I have a passion for enhancing our service lines, not settling for anything less than excellence, and providing top-notch local healthcare. At VMH, I am surrounded by many intelligent professionals who really care about each individual patient and often have more time than their counterparts at the larger facility to devote and spend time with each patient. Building our services with these talented individuals and making our small hospital great with limited resources has been very rewarding.”
Along with the reception, Brittney was featured in a special story along with other Rising Stars that was printed and online in the La Crosse Tribune, River Valley Media Group, and 7 Rivers Alliance, thanking her for making the 7 Rivers Region a better place.
