Becker's asked chief pharmacy officers from hospitals and health systems across the U.S. to share the next steps in their technological journey.
The four executives featured in this article are all speaking at the Becker's Healthcare Chief Pharmacy Officer Summit, from Nov. 13-14, at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.
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As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who will speak at our conference. The following are answers from our speakers at the event.
Question: What is next on your digital transformation journey?
Kelley A. Curtis, PharmD. Vice President and Chief Pharmacy Officer of St. Luke’s Health System (Boise, Idaho): At St. Luke’s Health System, we are focused on advancing our digital transformation to optimize pharmacy operations and improve patient outcomes. One of the most exciting aspects of this journey is our pioneering use of Epic Willow Inventory at our clinics — making us one of the first Epic customers to implement this system. With this technology, we can track, monitor, and optimize inventory levels in real-time across the entire system. This means more visibility, fewer expired medications, better stock management across our network, and ultimately, enhanced care for our patients.
In addition to Epic Willow, we are planning on implementing Tecsys at our Consolidated Service Center (CSC), alongside Central Split functionality in partnership with MacroHelix. This integration allows us to ensure appropriate 340B allocations and standardize NDCs, streamlining our 340B program and making it more efficient. With these tools, we’re better positioned to forecast demand, prevent shortages, and ensure that our entire health system runs seamlessly from an inventory perspective.
We’re also enhancing our pricing transparency through Quicksort, which allows us to track real-time pricing and contract changes. This visibility into WAC, GPO, and 340B pricing will significantly reduce chargebacks and provide actionable insights for better financial management.
Another exciting tool we're exploring is Plenful. As part of a proof of concept, we’re starting with the 340B audit optimization feature, which allows us to send unformatted data — such as department lists with numerous fields and tabs and data from our 340B Third Party Administrators — to the system without needing to reformat it. Plenful’s ability to efficiently ingest and process this data is a game-changer, and we hope to scale its use across other areas in the future.
Ultimately, our goal is to leverage these digital tools to create a seamless, efficient, and transparent inventory and pricing ecosystem. We’re also looking ahead to driving much of this innovation internally through AI and machine learning once our infrastructure is ready, ensuring we stay at the forefront of digital innovation in healthcare.
Elie M. Bahou, PharmD. Senior Vice President and Chief Pharmacy Officer of Providence (Renton, Wash.):
Increased use of AI
- In the short term, we are exploring the opportunity to allow pharmacists (with no formal data experience) to tap into our internal databases and produce reports and dashboards that showcase clinical, operational, and financial performance based on their own pre-defined criteria. This will reduce the time it takes to produce reports and open a new avenue for our clinicians to see and use data without additional support.
Infusion
- The digital transformation for infusion is to simplify the infusion scheduling process for our caregivers, by utilizing predictive modeling to create scheduling templates, and reducing the need for clinician intervention or additional support.
Specialty
- Purchasing and inventory management automation.
- During transitions of care from hospital to home or SNF to reduce length of stay and improve safety.
- Leveraging text messaging/SMS communication and apps to streamline communication between ambulatory pharmacy services and patients
Kim Spencer, PharmD. Chief Pharmacy Officer of SSM Health (St. Louis): Our rapidly transforming digital and AI-era shows promise across the board in healthcare. In pharmacy, there is incredible potential if we can first fortify our foundations. And so, this is where we find ourselves focusing now as a pharmacy enterprise: we are strengthening our foundational technologies and their governance – from our backbone systems, to infrastructure, to analytics.
Adetoro Oriaifo, PharmD. Chief Pharmacy Officer of Total Health Care, Inc. (Baltimore): Total Health Care Pharmacy is embarking on a digital transformation journey that focuses on process re-engineering through the integration of pharmacy dispensing robots and the utilization of data analytics. This approach aims to enhance patient outcomes, streamline operations, and position the pharmacy as a leader in innovative care.
Pharmacy dispensing robots will revolutionize medication management by automating the entire dispensing process. This technology reduces the likelihood of human error, increases accuracy, and speeds up the dispensing process, allowing pharmacists to focus more on patient care. The enhanced efficiency reduces wait times, improves patient satisfaction, and strengthens loyalty — a critical advantage in a competitive market.
On the organizational front, the robots streamline workflows, reduce staff burdens, and pharmacists can now do more patient-centered activities enabling them to practice at the top of their licenses. This fosters a more engaging work environment and helps support high compliance with regulatory standards.
Complementing this, data analytics will play a pivotal role by leveraging information from patient records, prescription trends, and operational metrics to provide actionable insights. These insights enable personalized patient care, such as identifying medication adherence risks and allowing for early intervention. Data-driven decisions help optimize inventory management, forecast demand, and support continuous improvement by identifying and addressing inefficiencies.
By embracing these technologies, Total Health Care Inc. remains focused on its mission of providing quality healthcare to our patients while improving patient safety, enhancing operational efficiency, driving better health outcomes, and setting a new standard for excellence in patient care and innovation.