2025 Health Care Champions Specialty Provider: Journey McCarty

As an ambulatory care pharmacist for Mercy Springfield Communities, her employer since 2020, Journey McCarty says she serves as an extension of the health care provider, helping bridge the gap between diagnosis and daily patient management.

McCarty, who works in Mercy’s Smith Glynn Callaway Clinic, says she interacts directly with providers to support decision-making around cost-effective therapies, alternative treatment options and complex insurance formularies with a focus on improving patient outcomes.

“This collaborative approach ensures that before a patient ever leaves the clinic, they’ve received individualized counseling on how to take their medication, what side effects to expect, how to store it and how to manage it in the context of their life,” McCarty says, adding she partners with patients and providers to optimize medication regimens, reduce clinical inertia and tackle barriers to medication access.

Noting diabetes management is one of the largest needs among chronic diseases, McCarty says the service her team has built has helped patients reduce their A1C levels – also known as glycated hemoglobin – by an average of 2.5% in the last year alone. Mercy’s collaborative practice agreement allows McCarty to see patients in between provider appointments. This degree of frequency allows her to check in with patients’ tolerability of medications, safety and efficacy.

“It is not lost on me the trust that providers give me with their patients,” says McCarty, who received her doctor of pharmacy degree in 2018 from the Harding University College of Pharmacy in Searcy, Arkansas. “I am honored each time a referral comes from a provider as well as a patient allows me to make a medication change to optimize their care. I pursued ambulatory care pharmacy because of the continuity of care and relationship building required.”

As a colleague of McCarty’s for four years, Dr. Jim Elam, a physician at Mercy Clinic Family Medicine, says she brings together clinical excellence, compassionate care, thoughtful instruction and community advocacy in an exceptional way.

“She shares her advanced clinical expertise as a clinical pharmacist at Mercy while providing comprehensive diabetes education and training in the primary care setting – meeting patients where they are both medically and psychosocially,” Elam says. “Her integrated approach includes not only pharmacological guidance, but also crucial psychosocial support that addresses the mental and emotional burdens of managing a lifelong medical condition. She makes a powerful and lasting impact on the lives of her patients.”

On the state level, McCarty is a member of the Missouri Pharmacy Association and the Missouri Society of Health Systems Pharmacists, for which she serves on multiple committees. She’s also active in the community, serving as the event coordinator for Rescue One, a Springfield-based nonprofit that unites foster dogs and cats with permanent owners.