As the Marketing Director of Alternate Sites for BD-Canada, Sarah Ashton is responsible for supporting the business through Home Care and Long-Term Care. By partnering with healthcare organizations on dynamic projects, Sarah is able to deliver optimal financial and clinical results for the company. During her lengthy career at BD-Canada, Sarah operated in a myriad of positions such as strategic marketing, sales management, contract management, and GPO/strategic customer relations.
After graduating from business school, Sarah began her career with BD-Canada in the marketing department. As some time passed, she recognized the significance of customer intimacy strategic development, motivating a career transition into sales and leadership to attain valuable experience working alongside healthcare members directly. Furthermore, Sarah gained practical experience in comparable fields by managing the Contracts department and Group Purchasing Organization relationships. This process empowered her to provide valuable insights into different functional areas of the company.
Later in her career, Sarah moved to Western Canada to become a provincial leader in British Columbia, following two large-scale mergers that led to business growth. This transformational experience guided her back to marketing, specifically a role-leading position in the non-acute channels. Additionally, the opportunity enabled her to expand her experience by presenting new perspectives in the home care and long-term care sectors.
Throughout the past five years, Sarah Ashton has helped establish a coalition focused on improving the patient experience and outcomes in peripheral intravenous vascular therapy (IVT). By partnering with the Lower Mainland Health Authorities of British Columbia and the BC Office of Patient-Centered Measurement, she was able to analyze the patient’s experience through co-developed surveys fielded across the province. This endeavor has yielded the largest collection of patient experience data in IVT (n > 26,000). The collaborative project has built awareness of improving patient experience and results in IVT.
Sarah Ashton focused on the development of patient communication tools to support education and foster clinical/patient dialogue. The team demonstrated substantial improvement in the clinical outcomes based on clinical expert measurements. Recent engagements have driven conversations concerning the need for national and international standards to help build awareness and improve overall care. By considering how many individuals would experience negative results, Sarah and her team view their impact on weekly patient therapy as a major accomplishment in the field.
Sarah mentions that being a member of the College and participating in various member chapters throughout her career as she moved across Canada has been a remarkable opportunity to develop connections. She is thankful for how supportive the community has been in addition to the events being great opportunities to learn about local healthcare communities and network with other leaders.
As Sarah Ashton reflects on her experience with the CHE designation, she shares, “The opportunity to learn, engage, and network through the CCHL community over the years has been fantastic. I am excited to proudly add the CHE designation to my name, showing an ongoing commitment to my continuous learning journey in healthcare leadership”. In recognition of her efforts, Sarah Ashton was selected by the BC Lower Mainland Chapter as the recipient of the 2022 Chapter Award for Distinguished Service.
