Healthcare IT leaders are finding innovative ways to address one of medicine’s challenges: the exponential growth of clinical knowledge that physicians must navigate daily. In our recent interview, we hear from Julia Vu, Pharm.D., Vice President, GTM North America at Elsevier and Colin Banas, MD, MHA, Chief Medical Officer at DrFirst about their partnership to integrate AI-powered clinical decision support directly into e-prescribing workflows.
Both leaders bring extensive backgrounds in clinical informatics, having worked through the Meaningful Use era and witnessed firsthand the challenges of fragmented systems and information overload. Their collaboration addresses a critical gap: providing physicians with trusted, evidence-based content at the moment they need it, without adding to alert fatigue.
Banas points out that the list of available medications, as well as their potential uses and interactions, keeps growing. (Just think, for instance, of the potential found in GLP-1 drugs). The partnership leverages generative AI to deliver real-time clinical guidance within the DrFirst e-prescribing platform, powered by Elsevier’s medical content. Rather than forcing clinicians to search through disparate resources or wade through hundreds of pages of clinical guidelines, the solution points them directly to relevant sections—such as specific diuretic recommendations on page 118 of a cardiology guideline.
Both leaders emphasized the importance of the “human plus AI” equation rather than AI replacing clinical judgment. The solution includes transparent citations showing exactly where recommendations originate, building trust through transparency.
In addition to helping a doctor treat individual patients, the system can do even more: help a doctor earn accredited continuing medical education credits. As physicians query the system and engage with evidence-based content while treating patients, they simultaneously earn CME credits through ACCME.
Looking ahead, Banas and Vu envision multimodal AI that understands the full context of individual patients—their complete medical histories, failed treatments, and unique circumstances—while seamlessly integrating evidence-based literature. The goal is making these tools feel like a natural part of the EHR rather than another grafted-on solution.
Check out the interview below to learn more about DrFirst and Elsevier’s collaboration.
Learn more about ELSEVIER: https://www.elsevier.com/
Learn more about DrFirst: https://drfirst.com/
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