Dr. Karen McConnell is a clinical pharmacy specialist in cardiology at Kaiser Permanente Colorado. In her current role, she provides clinical consults to cardiologists and other healthcare providers, as well as managing the amiodarone monitoring service. Previously, she was a clinical pharmacy specialist for the Clinical Pharmacy Cardiac Risk Service for 10 years. In this position, she treated patients with cardiovascular disease by focusing on the long-term management of lipids and blood pressure and ensuring that evidence-based secondary prevention treatment strategies are initiated to help patients achieve their therapeutic goals and reduce their risk of recurrent events. She is a clinical associate professor at the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Dr. McConnell graduated from the University of Missouri–Kansas City in 1999 with a Pharm.D. degree. She also completed two postdoctoral residency programs: a pharmacy practice residency at Cox Medical Center in Springfield, Missouri, and a specialty residency at Kaiser Permanente Colorado. She became a board-certified pharmacotherapy specialist in 2001, earned recertification in 2008, and received added qualifications in cardiology (AQ Cardiology) in 2007. Dr. McConnell has given twelve presentations at state and national professional meetings. Dr. McConnell is first author on thirteen full-length peer-reviewed publications, co-author on an additional publication and has published seven abstracts. She has been the primary investigator on seven research studies at Kaiser Permanente. Although her research has concentrated on cardiovascular care, her most recent research studies involved comparing continuing professional development with traditional continuing pharmacy education. In 2007, she received the Teacher of the Year award for the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Colorado Region. In 2010, she received the Paper of the Year award from the Cardiology Practice and Research Network.

Dr. McConnell has served as a faculty member for the Ambulatory Care Pharmacy Preparatory Review and Recertification since 2011.