Using AI-augmented RPA to Accelerate Prescription Fulfillment
The Problem
Military Health System (MHS) prescription processing depends on manual entry, delaying fulfillment and creating human errors that interfere with the military personnel tactical readiness.
The Department of Defense (DOD) healthcare system processes approximately 33 million prescriptions annually. The volume of prescription fulfillment places significant operational burden on healthcare staff, requiring 280 full-time equivalent (FTE) personnel to manage manual prescription verification, entry, and processing.
As demand for medical services grows, this dependence on manual labor results in systemic inefficiencies:
- Extended Wait Times: Before automation, the average wait time for prescription fulfillment was 33 minutes, contributing to patient frustration and reduced operational efficiency.
- High Labor Costs and Workforce Strain: The manual processing of prescriptions consumes significant human resources, limiting the availability of healthcare personnel for patient-facing roles.
- Elevated Error Rates and Rework Burden: Human-driven prescription processing results in an error rate of approximately 12%, necessitating extensive rework that accounts for 43% of overall manual workload.
- Inefficient Handling of Controlled Repeat Prescriptions (CRXs): While computerized prescription orders streamline aspects of prescription management, the system still requires human intervention for validation and queue management.
The Approach
To address these inefficiencies, the RxBot system uses robotic process automation (RPA) to streamline prescription processing workflows. By integrating RxBot with MHS GENESIS, the DOD’s electronic health record system, the solution automates key workflows such as Fill-in-Advance and Fill-and-On-File, significantly reducing human workload while maintaining high accuracy.
Key benefits of RxBot include:
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Automate tasks
approximately 50% of prescription processing tasks.
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Eliminate rework burden
by automating verification steps and improving data integrity.
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Design error detection and correction mechanisms
to reduce manual processing errors.
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Automate Controlled Repeat Prescriptions (CRXs)
to address common bottlenecks such as prescriptions running out of processing queues or requiring additional validation.
The Outcomes
Ensuring timely prescription fulfillment enables service members to maintain peak physical readiness, meet their tactical responsibilities, and rapidly return to duty. RxBot is designed for DOD-wide deployment, ensuring standardized prescription automation across military healthcare facilities.
OTOT’s RxBot development produces the following results:
- Reduce the average prescription fulfillment time from an average of 33 minutes to 10 minutes. The removal of manual steps in prescription fulfillment allows staff to allocate more time to patient care and operational priorities.
- Aid pharmacies by offsetting tedious and error-prone tasks to focus on prescriptions that require clinical judgement.
- Reduce dependency on FTEs allows personnel to focus on direct patient care, and saves an estimated 95 years’ worth of labor hours over the system’s operational lifespan.
- Reduce the manual processing error rate from 12% to less than 2.5%, significantly improving prescription accuracy and minimizing patient safety risks.
- RxBot now processes ~70% of CRXs autonomously.
- Iterations integrate artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to accelerate fulfillment based on urgency and patient condition, and flag potential medication conflicts.
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