HIMSS26 wrapped up last week, with over 25,000 healthcare professionals converging in Las Vegas to explore the innovations shaping the future of care. DrFirst came with big news and real-world proof that our approach to optimizing medication management is making a meaningful difference for patients and providers.
At the show, we heard a common frustration across conversations with providers, pharmacists, and health system leaders: The prescribing process too often resembles a game of ping-pong. A script goes out, but it can’t be filled due to incorrect or incomplete information. That begins a volley of phone calls and faxes to rework prescription details, causing delay and frustration for the care team, the pharmacy, and most importantly, the patient who’s waiting to start therapy. Our message at HIMSS was simple: It doesn’t have to be that way.
DrFirst helps get prescriptions right the first time, with no rework. That includes actionable decision support at each step of the prescribing workflow, clean scripts that are ready to fill, less prior authorization friction, and faster time to therapy. The 750,000 providers, 2,000 hospitals and health systems, and 270 EHR partners in our network—collectively reaching 110 million patients last year—rely on us to reduce rework, burden, and abandonment so patients start and stay on their medications for the best outcomes.
In Las Vegas, we had the chance to demo the redesigned version of RxInform, our prescription engagement platform that sends a HIPAA-compliant text message to patients on behalf of their provider minutes after a script is sent to the pharmacy.
The new experience replaces static content with a guided, dynamic interface that responds to each patient’s individual choices. Engaging patients about their medications is important because non-adherence is one of healthcare’s most persistent and costly challenges. Up to 25% of patients never start the therapy their provider prescribes, and about half don’t take medications as directed. RxInform addresses this gap by texting patients on behalf of their provider with medication education, financial savings, specialty medication support, and personalized pickup reminders.
The platform now earns an 88% engagement rate and is helping providers meet Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) quality metrics tied to medication adherence and hospital readmission rates. Because messages arrive from the prescriber, they extend the clinical relationship beyond the point of care, strengthening trust between patients and their providers.
We also announced a new partnership with NextGen Healthcare. Physician practices using NextGen® Enterprise EHR will now have access to RxInform directly within their existing e-prescribing workflow, with no extra steps and no added friction.
This partnership is designed to close the gap between the moment a prescription is written and when a patient receives it from the pharmacy. For practices focused on value-based care and quality outcomes, that gap has real clinical and financial consequences. Now they have a proven tool to address it, built right into their EHR.
HIMSS featured more than 600 educational sessions, drawing clinicians, informaticists, and health system leaders eager to bring evidence-based insights back to their organizations.
One session was delivered by Ben Long, M.D., Director of Hospital Medicine at Magnolia Regional Health Center. Dr. Long presented findings from a peer-reviewed study examining patients with a primary diagnosis of congestive heart failure who were prescribed medications during a hospital stay. The research compared prescription fill rates and readmission outcomes between patients who engaged with automated SMS messages sent via RxInform and those who did not.
The findings were significant: Patients who interacted with the SMS nudges showed 19% higher odds of filling their prescriptions and 6% lower odds of being readmitted to the hospital compared to those who did not engage with the messages. The strongest impact was on readmitted patients: Those who engaged with text reminders showed a 52% increase in odds of filling prescriptions.
The session drew on real implementation data and offered practical guidance for other health systems thinking about how to deploy text-based adherence programs effectively. It was a powerful reminder that DrFirst solutions are delivering measurable results.
When prescriptions bounce back and adherence is left to chance, everyone loses. DrFirst breaks that cycle so prescriptions arrive at the pharmacy ready to fill and providers have automated solutions for staying engaged with patients.
Want to learn more about RxInform and what it could mean for your organization?