Insight into the Future: How Pharmacy Teams are Leveraging Predictive Technology to Boost Efficiencies and Savings

Key takeaways:

• One large Midwestern health system recognized the need for greater visibility and predictability into their drug supply.
• Today, market insights and actionable data are key to a modern, more cost-effective and resilient pharmaceutical supply chain.
• CognitiveRx® automates the intake and management of a hospital’s or health system’s purchasing data – allowing pharmacy teams to streamline operations, proactively address drug shortages and optimize value.

Today’s healthcare environment is ever changing, making it critical for pharmacy leaders to better understand market dynamics and trends shaping the global pharmaceutical supply chain.

Ensuring both supply chain and financial resiliency is especially important in today’s climate where drug shortages and high drug costs remain pervasive. Add to this a challenging macroeconomic environment and compressed provider margins – both of which require hospitals and health systems to make smart decisions on where and how to spend their funds in support of high-quality patient care.

Leveraging market insights and actionable data can help providers mitigate these issues – allowing pharmacy teams to make more informed decisions that reduce waste and time, proactively manage drug shortages and optimize value.

Actionable Data on Market Signals

Honing capabilities through intelligence from signals in sourcing and fulfillment, CognitiveRx® serves as a comprehensive solution for a health system’s pharmaceutical supply chain.

Via predictive data, collaborative forecasting and advanced supply chain management capabilities, CognitiveRx is allowing providers to:

1. Review price increase predictions before they occur.
2. Pinpoint market signals for early drug shortage detection and management.
3. Monitor margin by calculating and tracking cost savings versus reimbursement.
4. Plan and communicate medication strategies in advance with all caregivers.

CognitiveRx automates the intake and management of a hospital’s or health system’s purchasing data and utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to surface actionable insights to pharmacy leaders – enabling cost savings and workflow improvement. The platform analyzes wholesaler purchase data at a health system and facility-level to uncover value, enable preparedness and generate supply chain stability.

Case in Point: Pharmaceutical Buy-In Savings

One large Midwestern health system recognized the need for greater visibility and predictability into their drug supply.

CognitiveRx enabled an innovative, technology-based approach to allow this health system to better understand products predicted to see future price increases. These predictions helped them mitigate costs for multiple high-dollar products, such as their specialty infusion medications.

In January 2023, this organization saw its first significant savings with CognitiveRx after making some advanced purchases in December 2022. When the December price increase predictions were surfaced, its pharmacy team acted quickly, helping the health system realize more than $450,000 in total savings in just one month. As an example, one of the medications they purchased saw an 8 percent price increase from December 2022 to January 2023. By purchasing some additional stock, the team was able to see a $97,000 return on investment for this one product alone.

For Premier members, CognitiveRx is helping pharmacy teams across the nation proactively realize savings, better understand product availability and risk, increase efficiencies and value, and help stabilize their drug supply enterprise wide.

From comprehensive purchase history insights to price change monitoring – the technology and actionable data surfaced in CognitiveRx is saving pharmacy teams time and money, allowing them to focus on clinical matters and patient care.

The tool has been vital in allowing this Midwestern health system and other hospitals to identify drugs with a high probability of a future price increase. This has helped them proactively make smarter advanced purchasing decisions, resulting in true cost avoidance.

Knowledge is Power

We can’t understand, nor can we measure, what we can’t see.

With the right information and data, pharmacy teams can better manage inventory and provider expectations, make necessary adjustments, and ultimately, avoid additional obstacles that contribute to larger market challenges.

CognitiveRx technology surfaces all disparate data, allowing pharmacy teams to accurately and effectively make data-based decisions and understand the full, comprehensive picture of what is happening in their organization.

Technology enablement – and actionable data insights – are key to a modern, more cost-effective and resilient pharmaceutical supply chain.

For more:

• Contact us today to learn more about how CognitiveRx can help transform your pharmacy supply chain and see an example of your data in action.
• Download your copy of the INSCRIPT thesis on drug shortages today.
• Check out Premier’s full suite of Pharmacy solutions.