KY Health System Strikes Analytics Collab to Enhance Specialty Pharmacy Services

University of Louisville Health (UofL Health) has entered into a collaboration with population health analytics company Loopback Analytics that aims to use advanced data insights to enhance the health system’s specialty pharmacy efforts and improve patient-centered care.

Under the partnership, UofL Health will implement Loopback’s data analytics platform to gain access to specialty medications. The platform, known as Loopback Rx, is designed to support the growth of health system pharmacies by helping increase capture rates of high-value medications and establishing connections between pharmacy activities and clinical outcomes within organizations and across specialty pharmacy networks.

"UofL Health is thrilled to work with Loopback to enhance our specialty pharmacy efforts and maximize opportunities for improved patient-centered care", said Chelsea Maier, specialty pharmacy manager at UofL Health, in the press release.

Specialty pharmacies play a major role in helping providers and patients manage complex and chronic diseases. The National Association of Specialty Pharmacy (NASP), a nonprofit trade organization representing specialty pharmacy industry stakeholders, defines a specialty pharmacy as “a state-licensed pharmacy that solely or largely provides medications for people living with serious health conditions requiring complex therapies.”

Specialty pharmacies are often tasked with providing services such as training on how to use specialty drugs, treatment assessment, patient monitoring, and care coordination with the patient’s physician and care team. These pharmacies aim to drive medication adherence, appropriate use, and proper management of dosing and side effects, according to NASP.

Because of the complex nature of the medications and conditions that specialty pharmacies work with, efforts to support data exchange and analytics in this area are critical.

In an interview with EHRIntelligence last year, leaders from health IT company Surescripts discussed how enhancing clinical data exchange can improve dispense rates for specialty drugs, time to treatment, and clinician burnout.

One of the major hurdles impacting specialty pharmacy efficiency is the medication fill process. Issues can start at the beginning of this process, as making sure the prescription makes it to the correct pharmacy can be a challenge. Sometimes, providers accidentally send the prescription to a local retail pharmacy, which is not equipped to fill it and must forward it to the specialty pharmacy.

This process can take hours or days. Further delays can also occur once the prescription reaches the specialty pharmacy. With specialty medications, more clinical information about the patient may be needed before a pharmacist can dispense the drug. The volume of information needed can result in pharmacists and providers relying on fax machines and phone calls to share clinical data, which is inefficient and can lead to errors.

Various health IT and data exchange tools have the potential to streamline this process, but digital transformation at healthcare organizations will be key to their success, according to Surescripts leaders.