Case Study: Billings Clinic achieves 300+ staff hours saved and nearly 1M fewer clicks with DrFirst SmartSig

DrFirst’s SmartSig Saves Billings Clinic Hundreds of Staff Hours

DrFirst partnered with Billings Clinic, a 304‑bed health system in Montana with more than 50,000 annual ED visits, to address a time‑consuming medication reconciliation problem. Pharmacists and technicians spent hours on the phone trying to obtain accurate outpatient medication histories, and the hospital’s existing HIS (Cerner) tools were not meeting their needs.

DrFirst deployed its MedHx solution with SmartSig, fully integrated into Cerner, to convert free‑text sigs into reliable hospital synonyms, prevent duplicate meds, and reach local pharmacies for more complete histories. The system improved workflow and provider confidence, enabled refill‑history–driven patient engagement, and delivered measurable savings—more than 300 staff hours and nearly one million clicks avoided each year—while speeding and improving medication reconciliation accuracy.

Billings Clinic

Jacob Thiesse

Pharmacy Informatics Coordinator