Ashley Knapp, RN, BSN, MBA

Ashley Knapp began her career as an emergency room nurse, drawn to healthcare because she wanted a career where she could directly help people during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.

“Beginning my career as an emergency room nurse gave me a deep appreciation for the trust patients place in their healthcare providers and showed me how compassion, clinical expertise and advocacy can profoundly affect a patient’s experience -- especially when it matters most.”

Her perspective on care expanded in 2011 when she helped launch and manage a neurology infusion center. Unlike the episodic nature of emergency medicine, infusion allowed Ashley to see patients repeatedly and understand how much the environment surrounding treatment could affect their experience.

She began to see an opportunity to combine clinical excellence with comfort, efficiency, access and personalization.

Over time, Ashley also saw the challenges surrounding infusion: treatment delays, fragmented communication, limited site-of-care choices and operational complexity for referring providers.

Those experiences helped inspire Local Infusion. As Co-Founder and Chief Development Officer, Ashley has worked to build a model that brings clinical care together with hospitality, technology and provider partnership.

For Ashley, organizational growth matters because of what it represents at the individual level. Each new center can mean another patient receiving treatment closer to home, beginning therapy sooner or entering an environment intentionally designed to make care feel more personal. She describes patient-centered infusion as an experience built around the person receiving treatment.

“Patient-centered infusion care means designing every part of the experience around the person receiving treatment—not simply administering the medication.”

Ashley’s move from clinician to entrepreneur also required her to establish credibility at the intersection of clinical operations, business development and finance. She learned to pair her healthcare experience with data, financial knowledge, relationships and measurable outcomes.

That journey has shaped what she tells other women considering leadership or ownership. Clinical and operational expertise should not be underestimated as business assets. Neither should the qualities women may bring to leadership. For Ashley, leadership has also meant learning to balance the demands of ambition with the qualities that matter to her as a leader.

“You can lead with empathy while still being ambitious, strategic and decisive.”

Her message is not to wait for a moment when every skill is mastered before stepping forward. Learn the financial side, build a team whose strengths complement your own and trust the expertise you already bring to the table.

Ashley sees community-based infusion becoming increasingly connected, transparent and technology-enabled while preserving the relationships among patients, providers and care teams.

She also sees stronger collaboration across healthcare—and continued advocacy for patient choice and appropriate sites of care—as essential to creating a better infusion experience.

Raising the standard for infusion by designing care around the patient.