Case Study: Avera Health achieves projected 15,000 hours and $800,000 in first-year savings with DrFirst SmartStrings

Hospital System Predicts 15,000 Hours and $800,000 Saved in First Year with DrFirst SmartStrings

Avera Health, an integrated system of hospitals, clinics and long-term care sites across five states, had rolled out e-prescribing via its MEDITECH HIS and now transmits more than 25,000 prescriptions weekly. When moving to a full Formulary Service Vendor (FSV) medication list, the provider lookup ballooned to over 30,000 medications, threatening to slow workflows because clinicians relied on small, personal “favorites” lists and would struggle to find and order medications quickly.

To address this, Avera partnered with DrFirst to implement SmartStrings within MEDITECH, a single workflow that preserves true personal favorites, exposes a curated list of commonly prescribed meds with complete order strings, and still allows access to the full formulary. The rollout was seamless and well-received, improving speed, accuracy and generic prescribing; 1,484 physicians now use SmartStrings, and Avera projects first-year time savings of about 15,000 hours—roughly $800,000—in efficiency gains.

Avera Health

Lisa Rave

Clinical Integration Pharmacist