Emory Healthcare is using three medication management services offered within Fuzion by DrFirst, a platform that provides clinicians with medication history, to streamline workflows for its clinicians and improve medication adherence for its patients.

WHY IT MATTERS

Patients at Emory Healthcare could have less chance of adverse drug events and know what they will pay for prescriptions at the pharmacy before they leave the doctor's office or hospital with AI-driven insights.

DrFirst's intelligent medication management platform can enhance e-prescribing workflows with optimized clinical data usability. It can complete prior authorizations electronically and respond to claim rejections, according to the company's website. 

With real-time prescription drug benefit and pricing data, doctors can speak to their patients about drug costs and switch to more affordable therapeutic equivalents, which the company said can minimize prescription abandonment rates and thus improve health outcomes.

"For many patients, especially those with chronic conditions, taking their medications as prescribed is vital to positive health outcomes and staying out of the hospital," G. Cameron Deemer, CEO of DrFirst, said in the announcement. 

Accurate and more complete medication data also enhances patient safety, according to DrFirst. Presenting 12 months of patient medication history can also streamline provider medication reconciliation processes, the company said. Drug-drug, drug-allergy, dosing and duplicate therapy alerts also provide data to clinicians at the point of care.

"Technology can help by making clinical data more usable, removing friction from workflows, which assists clinicians and patients to achieve better medication outcomes."

Emory Healthcare will also be implementing HIPAA-compliant automated patient messaging to electronic prescription alerts. Patients will be able to review their prescriptions, receive relevant patient education information and more, the health systems said.

THE LARGER TREND

Using AI to improve medication adherence has been shown to be effective at other health systems, achieving clinical and financial returns.

Earlier this year, Healthcare IT News reported how UPMC Health System tackled medication nonadherence – with a homegrown patient-management platform, built by its innovation arm, UPMC Enterprises – that identifies and prioritizes patients who might be at risk. Its AI-driven virtual assistant reaches out to patients via SMS or with robocall messages to engage them prior to the first fill, between fills and offers refill support. 

"We’ve seen impacts in clinical outcomes, medication adherence, patient satisfaction and staff efficiency," Kathryn Heffernan, director of product management at UPMC Enterprises, told Healthcare IT News in March, including a doubling of on-time refill rates and significant reductions in seven-day and 30-day readmission rates.

ON THE RECORD 

"The collaboration with DrFirst will put patients first in enhancing medication prescribing and management, from an encounter with the clinician to picking up the prescription at the pharmacy," said Dr. Alistair Erskine, chief information and digital officer for Emory Healthcare, in a statement. "These clinical solutions will assist our providers with their decisions in providing a higher level of care for our patients."

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.