Top of the Class: How Clinical-Grade AI Is Making Medication Management Smarter

As summer fades and the aroma of new school supplies fills the air, machine learning continues to earn high marks in Medication Management 101.

By bringing new levels of safety and efficiency to e-prescribing workflows within the electronic health record (EHR), AI is earning straight A’s with hospitals and health systems.

Here are three real-world examples that show how clinical-grade AI is improving patient safety, streamlining workflows, and boosting clinician satisfaction.

Wise Hospice Options: Exceeding Expectations

By the time patients enter hospice, they have likely endured hospitalizations, complex medication routines, and escalating pain. In addition to prioritizing comfort and compassion, it is critical that new medications don’t make them feel worse.

“Hospice prescribers rely on drug-to-drug and drug-to-allergy interaction alerts as a last line of defense against patient harm,” said Elizabeth Kraske, E-Prescribing Product Specialist at Wise Hospice Options.

Patients need immediate relief, making delays or mistakes caused by manual processes especially frustrating. That’s why Wise Hospice partnered with DrFirst to offer integrated e-prescribing, powered by clinical-grade AI, to hospices nationwide.

Before the AI integration, prescribers spent an average of 15 seconds matching each flagged medication and 20 seconds per drug entering missing prescription instructions, such as dose and frequency (known as “sigs”). Automating this process reduced the time spent on these tasks to 2 to 3 seconds per medication—and when you consider palliative care patients average between 3 and 23 prescriptions each, the time savings really add up.

By codifying 99% of medications, 85% of sigs, and 96% of allergies, the tool exceeded Wise Hospice’s expectations.

“Our clients depend on us for medication management solutions to improve cost efficiencies, reduce barriers to care, improve patient outcomes, and provide an excellent provider experience,” said Grant Fabion, CEO, Wise Hospice. “Our new AI solution from DrFirst is saving time for doctors, nurses, and pharmacists and preventing medication errors that could harm patients.”

Carle Health: The Building Blocks of Transitional Care

At Carle Health, an eight-hospital system in Illinois, clinical-grade AI integrated into its Epic EHR has become key to the transitional care pharmacy program.

At admission, getting medication history to physicians quickly and accurately, especially for high-risk medications, significantly impacts patient safety. DrFirst solutions have made more data available to doctors, nurses, and pharmacists so they can focus less on administrative tasks and more on patient care.

“By relying on the AI technology to convert information into discrete data elements in our Epic EHR, we have significantly reduced the amount of manual entry required by our staff,” Jason Tipton, PharmD, Inpatient Pharmacy Operations Supervisor, told Healthcare IT News.

Discharge procedures have also improved. Pharmacy staff can take on a more in-depth role in medication management by reviewing medication lists to identify adherence barriers and proactively identifying them.

Hackensack Meridian Health: Putting AI to the Test

New Jersey’s Hackensack Meridian Health wanted to give doctors and nurses better access to patient medication history, so they tested their industry standard feed against clinical-grade AI to optimize data through a partnership with DrFirst.

Before the implementation, only 26% of sigs were automatically mapped into medication history fields in the system’s Epic EHR, requiring clinicians to enter the remaining details manually.

With clinical-grade AI, 86% of sigs were automatically mapped across a recent sample of 300,000 medications. The result was valuable time savings for providers.

As CEO Robert C. Garrett put it: “This isn’t about using technology for technology’s sake. It’s about simplifying things for our medical teams so they can focus on what matters most—the patient.”

The Bigger Picture: Industry Impact and ROI

As these examples show, clinical-grade AI isn’t a futuristic concept—it’s being used now to answer some of healthcare leaders’ biggest questions:

How can we reduce administrative burden?
With healthcare administrative costs increasing by 30% in just one year to reach $60 billion annually, any technology that can automate manual processes is worth the investment.

How can we improve patient safety?
When up to 70% of patients have errors on their medication lists upon hospital admission, having AI that can codify 99% of medications and 96% of allergies is convenient and potentially life-saving.

How can we fight clinician burnout and support better outcomes?
AI solutions give healthcare providers more time to care for patients, which boosts satisfaction for providers too. More accurate medication history leads to better prescribing decisions, fewer adverse drug events, and improved patient adherence.

Ready to see how clinical-grade AI can transform your medication management workflows?

Download our comprehensive guide, 3 Ways Clinical-Grade AI Improves Medication Management, to learn more.