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Brian provides direction and support for advisory work related to ambulatory and 340B pharmacy. He helps health care organizations identify opportunities for implementing or expanding outpatient retail ambulatory, central fill and/or home delivery and specialty pharmacy operations. With over 25 years of experience in the health care industry, Brian's expertise spans multiple retail and ambulatory pharmacy market segments.
Prior to joining Vizient, Brian was with Intermountain Healthcare, where he created the vision and strategy for their central fill, home delivery and specialty pharmacy fulfillment initiatives. He is a member of the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs and the National Community Pharmacists Association.
Brian earned a bachelor&rsquo;s degree in pharmacy from the Saint Louis College of Pharmacy and a master&rsquo;s degree in business administration and healthcare administration from Regis University.

Associate Vice President, Pharmacy Consulting

Brian Hardy, RPh, MBA

Dan leads the Vizient pharmacy program, which assists customer hospitals in transforming their pharmacy program into a central point of integrated care with solutions that help manage cost and improve quality outcomes for patients. Under his direction, the program supports more than half the nation&rsquo;s health systems and a robust portfolio of 12,000 contracted pharmaceutical products, providing access, choice and value across acute, specialty, non-acute, home infusion and long-term care facilities.
Dan has been an active voice on behalf of Vizient customers. He regularly updates government leaders and elected and federal officials, including the Food and Drug Administration, on issues and trends related to drug price increases, shortages and the need for more transparency across the pharmaceutical supply chain.
Dan also oversees Vizient&rsquo;s highly successful, 30-year Novaplus private label pharmacy program. Under his leadership, the program has expanded to include an Enhanced Supply program that helps ensure the availability of essential medications in the supply chain.
Under Dan&rsquo;s leadership, the Vizient pharmacy team has published important analysis of the hidden costs of drug shortages and pricing practices for existing drugs after receiving regulatory approval. His team also published a list of essential medicines, the absence of which could threaten hospitals&rsquo; ability to provide care.
With a doctor of pharmacy from St. Louis College of Pharmacy, Dan joined Vizient through the MedAssets integration, where he previously served as general manager of pharmacy. He has a diverse background in the pharmaceutical industry that includes experience in benefits management, retail, hospital, specialty and mail order.
Dan is a frequent industry speaker and has been interviewed and quoted in numerous publications such as NBC, CNN, Bloomberg News, Politico, Modern Healthcare, Becker&rsquo;s Hospital Review, Drug Topics, Managed Healthcare and The Center for Biosimilars. He has been recognized in the industry as a NextGeneration Pharmacist award finalist and as the 2022 Change Maker of the Year for the work he has led on ending drug shortages.

Group Senior Vice President, Pharmacy Solutions

Dan Kistner, PharmD

As senior performance improvement program director, pharmacy, Jim is primarily responsible for developing and leading performance improvement collaborative programs focusing on medication safety and utilization.
Lichauer has more than 25 years of experience as a clinical pharmacy specialist and clinical pharmacy administrator in both private sector health systems and the Veterans Health Administration. His professional experience includes medication utilization, formulary management, regulatory compliance, medication safety, quality management, clinical program development and leadership.

Senior Performance Improvement Program Director, Pharmacy

Jim Lichauer, PharmD, BCPS, FASHP

Steven leads the Vizient Center for Pharmacy Practice Excellence (CPPE) in providing Vizient members and the health care community with clinical and industry-related insights into pharmaceuticals that support the Vizient mission to manage costs, improve quality of care and grow market performance. Steven and the CPPE team include trained pharmacists representing expertise in a wide range of clinical and operational pharmacy disciplines, including biosimilars, oncology, pediatrics, hazardous medications, drug supply, pharmacy operations, specialty pharmacy and regulatory compliance. From the expanding biosimilar markets to new gene therapies and other pipeline developments, Steven and this team apply their knowledge to maintaining a pulse on clinical, market and legislative developments, and forecast trends and potential impact to the Vizient community.
Steven is an industry leader and sought-after expert in the advancement and adoption of biosimilars. As a leading authority, he has been featured in multiple publications and broadcasts and is also the author of Biosimilars and Biologics: Implementation and Monitoring in a Healthcare Setting.
Steven is also a frequent contributor and presenter in support of Vizient's advocacy and public policy initiatives, highlighting the strategic and high-value role of pharmacy in the health care setting. He has provided insights on topics including essential medications, drug shortages, white-bagging, the Unapproved Drug Initiative and 340B strategies. In addition, he represents Vizient at legislative listening sessions, FDA briefings and other policy-making and stakeholder engagement opportunities.
Prior to joining Vizient, Steven practiced for almost 10 years within the Baylor Health Care System in various settings, including ICU clinical pharmacy and ambulatory care.
Steven holds a doctorate in pharmacy from Creighton University and a bachelor of science degree in pharmacy from the University of Texas at Austin, and is a board-certified pharmacotherapy specialist.

Steven Lucio

Mittal leads oversight for the industry-leading <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/sitecore/service/notfound.aspx?item=%7b69699137-3D88-EB61-8E5D-B918F071FD0B%7d%40en" target="_blank">Novaplus&reg; Enhanced Supply program</a>, which gives Vizient members access to more than 100 million additional units of essential medications warehoused in the U.S. She leads a team that develops key strategic sourcing programs that focus on transparency, redundancy and commitment to support a resilient supply chain for essential medications, and to date, over a million doses of these critical medications have been accessed by health systems during a supply challenge.
Under Mittal&rsquo;s direction, the Vizient pharmaceutical portfolio incorporates generic injectables, branded pharmaceuticals, plasma products, pharmacy distribution and the private-label Novaplus program. She also leads strategy and oversight of the Vizient Pharmacy Aggregation Groups, including the Vizient Oncology Network. Mittal also plays a pivotal role in advocacy related to drug shortages, 340B contract pharmacies and the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="/sitecore/service/notfound.aspx?item=%7b2DBB47B0-84DF-D799-720D-46BFE55177F1%7d%40en" target="_blank">unapproved drug initiative</a>. She helped launch and is an advisory board member of the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.enddrugshortages.com/" target="_blank">End Drug Shortages Alliance</a> and chairs the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://supplychainassociation.org/about-us/about-us-hsca-committees/" target="_blank">Healthcare Supply Chain Association Pharmacy Committee</a>.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mittal led a team that ensured hospital pharmacies had access to essential medications and COVID-19 supportive care treatments to treat their patients. This included collaboration with supplier partners and 503B entities yielding creative solutions that drove production of additional inventory.
With many years of leadership experience for Vizient&rsquo;s expanding pharmacy program and contracting team, she&rsquo;s held other positions within Vizient&rsquo;s clinical solutions and sourcing teams, managing numerous programs, and contracting activities including the plasma program, contrast media and radiopharmacy distribution, and leading strategies for non-acute sector driving enhanced value for Vizient membership.
Prior to joining Vizient, Mittal served in various healthcare roles, which helped shape her unique perspective and comprehensive understanding of how her current work positively influences the healthcare industry.
Mittal holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a Business Foundations certification from McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas. Mittal was recognized among <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jhconline.com/mittal-sutaria.html" target="_blank">Women Leaders in Supply Chain in the Journal of Healthcare Contracting in 2020</a>.

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