CONSANA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Clinical Services
Dr. Karmen Stephens is the Vice President of Clinical Services at Consana. Her primary responsibilities include strategic program development and implementation, including oversight of Consana clinical operations and service innovation. Karmen wears many other hats too, so it isn't uncommon to find her writing proposals, participating in sales calls, or consulting with technology partners.
She is no stranger to hard work, having started on her path at the age of 19 as a clerk in a busy chain pharmacy. "I immediately fell in love with pharmacy and never looked back. I worked my way up from clerk, to technician, to head technician, and so on, eventually putting myself through pharmacy school," says Stephens. After graduating from Texas Tech Health Sciences Center School of Pharmacy in 2010, she went right to work for that same busy chain but ultimately ended up in Long Term Care, looking for a way to improve patient care. "I wanted so badly to use my education to make a difference for my patients and my profession, but dispensing pharmacists are often so pressed for time and pressured to focus on volume." As a staff pharmacist, she saw firsthand the impact of legacy prescribing and an unmitigated breakdown in medication management, especially when a patient experiences a transition. As a Director of Pharmacy, Karmen watched talented pharmacists become burnt out because they were greatly underutilized. A chance meeting with two technology companies changed all of that (ask her about it, she loves to tell the story!) and lead to the creation of Consana. "By leveraging our suite of technology solutions, our pharmacists have the tools they need to truly optimize workflows, allowing them to focus exclusively on person-centric medication management. It's a game-changer," she says.
Karmen's passion has helped shape the direction and culture of Consana - fostering our mission to positively impact the lives and outcomes of our patients, provide a supportive workplace where our pharmacists can grow professionally, and ultimately bring value to our partners by lowering healthcare costs.
Originally from the Midwest, Karmen has called Dallas Texas home for almost 10 years. When she isn't working on taking medication management to the next level, she is likely at home with her husband helping him cook something delicious, walking her dog Lucy Loo, or traveling somewhere fun.
As President, Stewart Stephens is responsible for leading Consana's strategy and growth. Stewart has over 20 years of professional software development experience and proven success in architecting innovative enterprise systems. With a strong passion for improving health care and an entrepreneurial spirit, Stewart co-founded Consana with the vision to enhance not only the quality of care being provided to patients but speed the delivery and increase the accuracy of medication administration to patients throughout the continuum of care.
Stewart previously served as CIO & CTO of the first company to successfully develop and deploy a remote dispensing technology to the long-term care industry capable of supporting and monitoring multiple facilities in the United States.
Stewart also served as the Technical Lead for Achieve Healthcare Technologies overseeing the clinical aspects of their Matrix electronic health record product and was responsible for providing mentoring and leadership to the technical staff and ensuring that projects conform to the high development and architectural standards required for the first cloud-based electronic health record in long-term care.
Prior to founding XchangeLabs, Stewart spent over 10 years developing and architecting software and systems designed to improve the quality of care provided by pharmacy and long-term care organizations. Stewart is now focused on bringing his extensive experience in developing enterprise-grade, secure and multi-lingual software for companies like Wells Fargo, CBS, MTV, Nokia, Herman Miller, Achieve Healthcare Technologies, and Hilton to the healthcare industry.
Stewart has patented multiple systems related to improving the quality of patient care in the long-term care industry.