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We're excited to recognize Alem Mulat, PharmD, BCPS, for his nomination for the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Member Spotlight! Within UVA Community Health, Mulat serves as Manager, Pharmacy Clinical Services; Director, Pharmacy Residency Programs; and Chair, Antimicrobial Stewardship Program. 

“This motivates me to continue learning, mentoring future pharmacists, and working with colleagues to advance patient care across our health system," says Mulat. "I also hope this recognition highlights the important role pharmacists play in improving patient outcomes and leading meaningful change within healthcare systems.”

Reducing Expenses While Improving Quality

Mulat’s extensive work impacts so many aspects of our patient care and safety initiatives, but his leadership of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program in particular led to his Member Spotlight nomination. Mulat worked collaboratively with other team members to standardize stewardship practices across all three UVA Community Health hospitals, with improvements to treatment guidelines and clinical education resulting in a 25% decrease in antibiotic expenditures while safety, consistency, and quality of care metrics improved. 

“Being recognized by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy is truly an honor. While I am grateful for the recognition, I see it as a reflection of the incredible team I have the privilege to work with every day,” he says. “Building a successful antimicrobial stewardship program is never the work of one individual — it requires pharmacists, physicians, nurses, microbiology, infection prevention, information technology, and hospital leadership all working together toward a common goal.”

He says as the program matured, it recruited infectious diseases physician support and built a strong multidisciplinary stewardship team. "The results have been very rewarding. Seeing our work recognized not only by ACCP but also by the Joint Commission as a best practice and highlighted as one of Culpeper Medical Center's Safest Metrics reinforces the impact that collaborative, evidence-based stewardship can have on patient care. Those recognitions belong to the entire team!”

ASPIRE in Action

In identifying challenges and addressing them through an approach that blends responsible resource management and prioritization of patient wellbeing, the program is a prime example of our ASPIRE value of stewardship. “This program reflects stewardship in every sense of the word," Mulat explains. "Antimicrobial stewardship is about ensuring every patient receives the right antibiotic, at the right dose, for the right duration — while preserving the effectiveness of these medications for future patients.”  

Mulat’s Antibiotics Stewardship Certificate from the Society of Infectious Disease Pharmacists lends itself to his work with this program, and he adds, “Infectious diseases and antimicrobial stewardship have always been areas I am passionate about because they combine direct patient care, education, quality improvement, and system-wide impact.”

The also program illustrates several other ASPIRE values. The collaborative, interdisciplinary work was innovative in its standardization of treatment pathways and creation of clinical decision support tools, and it promoted accountability by using data to measure performance and identify opportunities for improvement. “Above all, we kept patients at the center of every decision we made," explains Mulat. "I believe the program's success came from building relationships, listening to frontline clinicians, and working together to create practical solutions that improved patient care.”

Mulat himself also embodies our ASPIRE values. "Alem has been an integral part of advocating and elevating the impact of pharmacy services across the UVA Community Health sites," hails UVA Community Health Pharmacy Director Jonathan Meli, PharmD, MS. "Beyond that, he truly embodies the ASPIRE values through his daily interactions and continually strives to accomplish the UVA Health mission to transform the health of the patients we serve!” 

Continuing Collaborations and Clinical Contributions 

Mulat's work with the Microbial Stewardship Program has led to noteworthy improvements across our clinical practice, but UVA Community Health Chief Operating Officer Donna Staton says Mulat’s positive influence extends far beyond the Pharmacy Department alone. “Alem’s humble leadership style has had a profound impact on clinical pharmacy services across Community Health,” she shares. “In addition to leading Antimicrobial Stewardship efforts, partnering with nursing has been instrumental in advancing medication discharge education and improving medication reconciliation compliance. These contributions have had a noticeable impact on both quality outcomes and the patient experience.”

Mulat exemplifies this sentiment when discussing what he most enjoys about his work: “One of the most rewarding aspects of my role is collaborating with multidisciplinary teams to solve complex problems and improve patient care. Whether it's developing new clinical programs, mentoring residents, or supporting frontline clinicians — my goal is to help create safer, more consistent, and evidence-based care for every patient!”