Tennessee pharmacist Tara N. Kelley, executive director of specialty pharmacy services at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, died March 7, 2025. She was 45 years old.
As leader of the specialty pharmacy team, she oversaw the group’s clinical, distributive, quality improvement, accreditation, and research activities, and she helped shape the service’s community pharmacy residency program.
The specialty pharmacy service earned an ASHP Best Practices Award in 2019 and was also a three-time recipient of a Managed Markets Insight & Technology Specialty Pharmacy Patient Choice Award.
Throughout her time at the specialty pharmacy service, Kelley promoted an integrated, outcomes-based model of coordinated care and a personalized approach to medication management that optimizes each patient’s experience.
“Tara’s professional life revolved around her role as the leader of the Vanderbilt specialty pharmacy group,” said Mark Sullivan, chief pharmacy officer for Vanderbilt. Sullivan described Kelley as a nationally recognized expert in all aspects of specialty pharmacy, a skilled leader, and a friend to the many people whose lives she touched.
Kelley was a highly engaged member of the ASHP Section of Specialty Pharmacy Practitioners. She served for five years on the section’s Executive Committee and was also a member of the group’s Committee on Nominations and the Educational Steering Committee.
“Tara enthusiastically shared her time and expertise to help make ASHP’s specialty pharmacy section the vibrant community it is today,” said ASHP CEO Paul W. Abramowitz. “We at ASHP join the broader pharmacy community who are mourning the loss of an exceptional leader whose energy, compassion, and kindness brought out the best in everyone around her.”
Gabrielle Pierce, director of member relations and ASHP staff liaison to the Section of Specialty Pharmacy Practitioners, called Kelley a personal role model and a friend to many.
“Tara was kind, strong and compassionate — one of the most positive, fun, uplifting people I’ve ever met,” Pierce said. “She brought people together and was a deeply respected leader in the tightly knit world of specialty pharmacy.”
Tara Nichole Kelley was born Aug. 5, 1979, in Nashville, Tennessee, to Anthony Wayne Weatherford and Tamara Sue Kelley.
After earning a bachelor’s degree from Middle Tennessee State University in 2003 and a PharmD from the University of Tennessee in 2007, Kelley worked for three years as a pharmacist for Kroger. She completed a pharmacy residency program at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in 2011 and remained on staff as pharmacist-in-charge at the medical center’s main pharmacy.
In 2014, Kelley joined the staff of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center specialty pharmacy. She was named director of specialty pharmacy services in 2018 and promoted to executive director in 2019. She earned a Master of Management in Health Care from Vanderbilt University in 2018.
Kelley was the lead author of the practice model, operations, and workforce section of the 2022 ASHP Survey of Health-System Specialty Pharmacy Practice; a coauthor of several other peer-reviewed reports about specialty pharmacy; and a manuscript reviewer for AJHP.
She was well known for her love of animals, especially her two dogs, Waylon and Nelson.
Kelley was predeceased by her mother, Tamara Sue Kelley Perry. Survivors include her father, Anthony Wayne Weatherford; paternal grandmother, Barbara Weatherford; brothers Morgan Weatherford, Wyatt Weatherford, and Thomas Ryan Perry; and stepfather, Ewell Thomas Perry.
