Managing Partner Courtney Lada, of Quick Leonard Kieffer, led the recent recruitment of Elie Bahou, PharmD, to Providence St. Joseph Health as the systems next Chief Pharmacy Officer. Providence St. Joseph is a not-for-profit health and social services system designed to deliver on a promise to make communities healthier through best practices, increasing access to health care, and providing quality, compassionate care. The system offers a wide-ranging complement of services covering seven states through its 50 hospitals, 829 clinics, and 14 supportive housing facilities, all served by 23,000 physicians and 106,000 caregivers. In his role, Dr. Bahou is responsible for comprehensive strategic and operational pharmacy services leadership. He is charged with leading the transformation of pharmacy services across all divisions within the health system, bridging leadership in delivering pharmaceutical strategies system-wide, and ensuring the delivery of safe, effective, high-value, and accountable pharmaceutical services across the continuum to ensure high-performance affordability, patient experience, and health outcomes for those served.
Before joining Providence, Dr. Bahou served as the Vice President of Managed Care, Payer Contracting, and Strategic Business Development for Cardinal Health in Anaheim Hills, California. Cardinal Health is a Fortune 500 healthcare services company that specializes in the distribution of pharmaceuticals and medical products, serving more than 100,000 locations and providing medical products to over 75% of the hospitals in the United States. The company also manufactures medical and surgical products, and operates the nation’s largest network of radiopharmacies. For Cardinal, Dr. Bahou oversaw the strategic positioning of over 5,700 independent and chain retail pharmacies, and oversaw the managed care contracts and PBM relationships with all of Cardinal’s pharmacy locations. He was directly involved in marketing, managed care, and business development, and managed a team of 56, with 6,000 total employees under his purview. Within just one year of his tenure, Dr. Bahou grew the pharmacy customer base from 3,900 pharmacies to 5,200 pharmacies, and grew the number of preferred part D contracted lives from 900,000 to over five million.
Previously, Dr. Bahou served as the Senior Vice President of Pharmacy Network Relations and Contracting for UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx division. He began his career with Rite Aid Corporation, where he progressed through a variety of roles including pharmacy manager, trainer, and recruiter; director of pharmacy services; director of sales, clinical services, and national accounts; and senior director of managed care and contracting.
Dr. Bahou was born in Lebanon, relocating to the United States at the age of 13. He holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from State University of New York-Stony Brook, a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from St. John’s University in Queens, an MBA in healthcare management from the University of Phoenix, and a PharmD from the University of Kansas. Outside of work, Dr. Bahou enjoys spending time with his three grown children, traveling, and engaging in outdoor activities.
