Routine prescription refills take up a lot of time and resources in medical offices and clinics. In California alone, doctors can get up to 20 refill requests every day. Doing this by hand can use about 30 minutes of a doctor’s work time. Even though nurses and medical assistants can approve routine refills under a doctor’s supervision if certain rules are met, doctors still often handle most of these approvals. This slows down care and adds stress to the providers.
The usual refill process means looking over each request in the patient’s electronic medical records (EMRs), checking the correct dose, possible drug interactions, and if the refill is right for the patient. Without help from systems, errors can happen. This can cause wrong medication orders and could be risky for patients.
Healthfinch, with support from the California Health Care Foundation, created an automated refill software called Swoop (used to be called RefillWizard). This software helps fix problems in how prescription refills are handled by automatically using clinical rules when refill requests come into EMRs.
The software checks important rules like whether a medication was stopped, if there are duplicate refill requests, and if there are open refill orders. It follows current clinical guidelines to make sure only the right refills move forward for approval.
Swoop works like this:
This helps healthcare workers spend less time on routine checks and more time helping patients.
Using evidence-based protocols in software like Swoop is very helpful. Clinical guidelines made by expert groups review the best clinical data and give clear advice. These guidelines help make sure patients get the right medicine in the right way.
Experts like Steve Mok, PharmD, say that using these guidelines in healthcare helps improve care and fairness. This also covers antibiotic use, managing long-term diseases, and refills where clear rules help prevent unsafe medication use.
In 2023, the Joint Commission set standards for antimicrobial stewardship (AMS). Hospitals and clinics in the U.S. must follow at least two evidence-based antibiotic guidelines. These focus on local bacteria, drug options, and patient groups. Automated refill software that uses these rules helps make sure prescriptions follow these standards. This lowers errors and increases safety.
Following these protocols in software is important because drug decisions need to think about dose, how the drug is given, how often, and how long. When refill software uses these rules for every request, it stops guesswork, makes orders steady, and helps meet rules from pharmacies and safety regulations.
Using evidence-based protocols in automated refill systems brings many benefits for medication safety and work efficiency:
Healthfinch got $7.5 million to build “Charlie,” a new automation tool to make EMR tasks even more efficient. This shows automation is becoming a bigger part of healthcare.
Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a big role in automating healthcare tasks like prescription refills. AI can look at lots of data fast, use rules, and learn from results to make routine jobs better and quicker.
For refill systems, AI helps with:
For IT and healthcare managers, AI systems offer ways to improve work while following state and organizational rules. In California, nurses and assistants can approve refills with supervision. AI helps by preparing refill orders safely and reducing risks from missed steps.
One important part of using automated refill systems is adjusting the clinical rules to fit local needs. For example, in antibiotic stewardship:
Automated systems that link with local EMRs, drug lists, and decision support can better match these special rules. This helps avoid wrong medication use and supports ongoing care improvements.
Medical practice leaders and IT managers in the U.S. should think about these points when choosing automated refill software:
Automated prescription refill systems using evidence-based protocols make medication management better in U.S. healthcare. They reduce work for providers, make medication more accurate, and help keep patients safer. These tools give healthcare managers ways to improve operations, follow rules, and provide good patient care.
Healthfinch is a software platform aimed at improving quality and access to care by automating routine and repeatable healthcare tasks to enhance provider efficiency.
It addresses inefficiency in processing routine prescription refills, which often takes up to 30 minutes per shift per physician, diverting time from direct patient care.
California law allows nursing staff and medical assistants to authorize routine prescription refills under physician supervision, given prescriptions are in the patient’s chart as physician-approved standing orders, dosage remains unchanged, and no patient monitoring is due.
Swoop is Healthfinch’s software that automates the prescription refill process by applying evidence-based protocols, improving accuracy, and saving provider time.
Swoop checks for discontinued medications, duplicate or outstanding refill requests and applies established protocols before prepopulating refill orders for approval.
Refill orders prepopulated by Swoop are delivered to nurses, medical assistants, or physicians for final approval.
Automation enables staff to work at the top of their license by reducing administrative burdens and freeing up time for direct patient care.
CHCF invested $450,000 in Healthfinch to expand operations to California safety-net providers and supports the potential of healthcare automation to save time, reduce costs, and improve care.
Healthfinch received $7.5 million in funding to build a second automation app named ‘Charlie’ aimed at further automating electronic medical record (EMR) processes.
By reducing inconsistent refill orders, ensuring protocol compliance, and minimizing manual errors, automation ensures safer, more accurate medication management, positively impacting patient outcomes.
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