Pharmacy

Citing concerns about patient safety risks, the state's medical licensing board asks the Utah Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy to suspend its automated prescription pilot with health AI developer Doctronic. 

Also, the University of Queensland is testing aphasia therapy via telehealth.

Inventory carrying costs alone have been reduced by more than $10 million, says a pharmacy IT exec, who touts the ROI of combined analytics technologies.

Greg O'Neill, director of patient education at ChristianaCare, says artificial intelligence can help make messaging about meds more patient-friendly, with clear instructions to ensure care plan adherence.

Archbold Medical Center has also achieved a reduction in restocking resources: After making changes informed by drug velocity and cost data, there was a 20% drop in technician labor associated with moving inventory to the cabinet.

And that's just with some medications. "When you can see exactly what you have and where it is, you stop purchasing just in case and you start using existing stock more effectively," explains the health system's VP of pharmacy ops.

Also, participating vendors have passed conformance with Australia's electronic national residential medication chart.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers offer robust patient services programs – with nurse navigators, mobile apps, in-home testing and more – to improve medication adherence. But too many programs still use outdated analytics platforms to parse data.

Hospital and health system CIOs should map current prescription workflows in detail and prioritize interoperability with clear governance frameworks, advises Joseph Kleiman, president of Rx tech company Buzz Health.

One system uses spoken information to auto-queue structured prescription orders directly into the EHR for clinician review and approval. The other enables pharmacists to quickly identify medication orders that warrant closer review.