Seamless Handoffs in Healthcare: 5 Highlights from Our Annual Impact Report

Just like the Super Bowl winning Philadelphia Eagles executed seamless handoffs to maintain control and drive to victory, effective “handoffs” in healthcare are crucial for ensuring continuity, safety, and successful patient outcomes.

Check out our 2024 Annual Impact Report and the impact the Surescripts Network Alliance made on healthcare last year.

The Network Alliance made significant strides addressing some of healthcare’s biggest challenges in 2024. From creating Touchless Prior Authorization to building bridges for simpler, trusted health intelligence sharing, the Network Alliance tackled tough obstacles that impact access, quality and affordability.

27.2 billion transactions were exchanged in 2024. It’s an astronomical number that includes sending e-prescriptions, optimizing them with benefit information, managing prior authorizations, accessing medication histories, exchanging clinical direct messages, and more. That’s a lot of health intelligence sharing across nearly all electronic health records (EHR) vendors, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), pharmacies and health systems.

And it’s all for the benefit of patients and those who care for them.

2.6 billion e-prescriptions were filled in 2024. Efficient prescribing is as important as ever in 2024, and we worked to deliver timely prescriptions across care settings by infusing more intelligence, automation and collaboration into the prescriber and pharmacist experience.

See more data about intelligent prescribing on page 8 of the report.

889,907 prescribers used Real-Time Prescription Benefit last year. The 16.1% year-over-year increase (2023-2024) speaks to the breadth and power of the Network Alliance. When these prescribers used Real-Time Prescription Benefit to find a lower-cost alternative medication, they saved patients an average of $82 per prescription in 2024 (up from $37 in 2023).

See more relevant data about benefit and price intelligence on page 12 of the report.

Another example of a seamless handoff is Touchless Prior Authorization, which delivered approvals in 34 seconds (on average). Clinical values from the patient’s EHR flow directly to the PBM, enabling more efficient processing of requests. Touchless Prior Authorization represents automation in healthcare. It curbs prescription abandonment and points to a future of significant efficiency gains with less administrative burden.

Learn more about the impact of Touchless Prior Authorization on page 16 of the report.

Medication History for Populations could save healthcare $3.76 billion within three years. It supplies not just pharmacy claims data but pharmacy fill data—including cash-pay medications—and provides targeted, timely intelligence via prescription notifications. Our analysis estimates billions in savings for health plans, patients and employers—and a 4.2-to-1 projected return on investment for health plans.

For more on the progress we’ve made in interoperability and value-based care with Medication History, see page 20 of the report.