Pharmacy Patient Engagement Automation with Epic Willow and Cisco Contact Center Client Profile A large Northern California health system client serving over 6 million residents across Northern and Central California. They have over 600-beds and maintain an annual budget of roughly $1 billion. Background

Like many large hospital systems, this health system has migrated to Epic Systems for their Electronic Health Record platform. Epic’s software, designed for mid-size and large medical groups, hospitals and integrated healthcare organizations, spans clinical, access and revenue functions. While offering a number of operational and clinical efficiencies, transitioning to such a system is layered with many complexities. In the instance of this client, serving their patients with a means to refill prescriptions over the phone created a challenge. Their old pharmacy system had provided call attendant functionality that was lost upon transition to Willow, Epic’s pharmacy application. During this time of conversion, pharmacists were not only filling prescriptions, but also handling live calls and retrieving voice mails. With nearly 7,500 calls per month, this became a daunting task. Finding a replacement solution was critical. Rather than outsourcing their refill system which would entail recurring fees and less flexibility, their leadership recommended exploring how they might leverage their own existing technologies to support such a solution.

Engagement

The health system’s team consulted with Nexus Connected Healthcare to determine the viability of utilizing their existing Cisco Contact Center Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to support Epic Willow. Through a rigorous process of interviews and technology assessments, the Nexus Professional Services team devised a plan that would leverage two Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) published by Epic along with our deep knowledge and expertise within Cisco’s Contact Center environment to create a custom-developed solution to meet the Health System’s requirements.

Upon completion of this highly-specialized professional services engagement, Nexus enabled restoration of their patient-facing prescription refill service. With no additional investment in technology other than additional Contact Center Agent licenses, Nexus Connected Healthcare made it possible for this health system to:

• Enhance Patient Satisfaction: Easy to use refill service • Workflow Automation: Improved pharmacy workflow by automating the prescription refill

process • Improved Patient Safety: Automation of information gathering and error reduction caused by

human intervention

Summary

By leveraging existing technology and our expertise, Nexus Connected Healthcare was able to save their client time, money, and disruptive change. Additionally, by integrating directly to Epic’s Willow application, we were able to streamline pharmacy workflow, reduce prescription errors, and enhance the patient experience.

Epic Systems makes software for mid-size and large medical groups, hospitals and integrated healthcare organizations – working with customers that include community hospitals, academic facilities, children's organizations, safety net providers and multi-hospital systems. Epic’s integrated software spans clinical, access and revenue functions and extends into the home. Founded in 1979, Epic is private and employee-owned. Epic develops, installs and supports all applications in-house. Epic's leadership team includes clinicians, developers and process experts – people deeply experienced in patient care and healthcare technology.

Nexus Connected Healthcare, a dedicated vertical of Nexus IS, Inc., is a team of industry specialists with diverse skill sets supporting the specific needs of healthcare. Connecting people, process, and technology to improve patient care, Nexus improves healthcare workers’ efficiency and effectiveness through the use of Advanced Technology, enabling an improved patient/care provider experience. With a focus on payors, providers, medical groups and ancillary service partners, Nexus has been responsible for creating and implementing the technical designs for hospitals, clinical data centers, and other clinical environments across the country.