As we look ahead, we’re also proud to highlight the meaningful impact our Fellows are already making. At our most recent CNIO Spring Forum, we celebrated the exceptional inaugural cohort of the 2025 Academy AWS Technology Fellows Program. Each participant completes a strategic action project during their two-year experience, translating learning into real-world innovation.
This month, we’re spotlighting a recent graduate from UT Southwestern Medical Center who led an initiative to expand their Meds-to-Beds program through a point-to-point delivery robot and a patient-interactive technology system.
2025 Academy Fellow: Emily Flahaven, MSN, RN, NI-BC, Director of Nursing Informatics at UT Southwestern Medical Center
If you are interested in learning more or nominating a healthcare leader, please reach out to LDPrograms@hmacademy.com.
Opportunity
Medication non-adherence contributes to 33–69% of medication-related hospital admissions and costs the U.S. $100 billion annually (Stedge et al., 2023). Zillich et al. (2020) found that a “meds-to-beds” program reduced 30-day preventable readmissions.
UT Southwestern Medical Center’s current “Meds to Beds” Retail Pharmacy Program at Clements University Hospital (CUH) fills about 50 prescriptions per day, delivers Monday–Friday from 8:30 a.m.–6 p.m., and maintains a 6% fill rate. Awareness is limited to word of mouth and emails to inpatient unit managers. There is an opportunity to leverage Moxi (the point-to-point delivery robot) and the GetWellNetwork (patient interactive technology) to increase awareness, expand service availability (nights, weekends, Emergency Department, Day Surgery), and grow the program overall.
Scope & Methods
Scope: “Meds to Beds” availability for patients discharged with outpatient prescriptions at Clements’s University Hospital Inpatient, Emergency Department and Day Surgery departments.
Methods: At a high-level, patients will be made aware of the “Meds-to-Beds” Retail Pharmacy Program, Pharmacy will be notified of patients interest in the “Meds to Beds” Program, Moxi will deliver the medications to the departments, and confirmation of delivery will be recorded.
Results
Results:
Improved staff satisfaction as evidenced by time back to retail pharmacy work, decrease time nurses off unit to pick up meds
Expand “Meds to Beds” deliveries and support nights and weekends
Increase CUH Retail Pharmacy fill rate
Patient awareness of program as evidenced response rate