Stanford Health Care is consolidating how it manages some of the most complex and expensive medications in modern medicine, betting that a single, integrated technology platform will improve care and shore up a key source of revenue.
On March 30, SHC went live with Epic’s Willow Ambulatory and Epic Specialty Pharmacy modules at its specialty pharmacy, replacing a patchwork of third party tools that made it difficult to track prescriptions, monitor patients, and bill accurately for high cost specialty drugs.
“Transitioning from a best of breed third party solution to an Epic based, internally managed technology stack positions us to strategically scale our specialty pharmacy service line,” said Puneet Waraich, Senior Director for Ancillary and Advanced Therapeutics.
“By enabling users to operate within a single, integrated system, we’ve improved visibility for all stakeholders, providers, patients and pharmacy, while significantly reducing the complexity and cost of future growth,” he said.
These therapies present unique challenges, requiring intensive clinical oversight, including comprehensive patient education at initiation, ongoing follow ups, and adherence monitoring with regular assessment of therapeutic outcomes.
Additionally, due to the high cost of these specialty treatments, most medications require a team to take care of prior authorizations.
Reimbursement associated with insurance also requires close monitoring to prevent delays, and many specialty medications are subject to limited distribution networks, meaning only select pharmacies are authorized to distribute them based on manufacturer requirements.
Until now, processing a single specialty prescription could require staff to move through at least four disconnected systems: Epic for chart notes and labs, ScriptPro for dispensing and insurance claims, Therigy for documenting clinical reviews and care plans, and a spreadsheet in Box to track referrals. Each prescription touched every system — manually.
No single source of truth existed for where an order stood or how a patient was doing on therapy. The new setup brings those functions into Epic, and adds dedicated modules for specialty pharmacy operations, inventory, and 340B drug discount tracking.
By replacing multiple disconnected systems with a single, integrated platform, the implementation reduces manual steps, shortens wait times, and gives clinicians clearer visibility into prescriptions and order status — changes that support safer, more coordinated care and smoother visits for patients.
Stanford Health Care’s specialty pharmacy currently supports 24 clinics, focusing on high‑cost therapies that insurers increasingly prefer to see administered or managed in outpatient settings. Leaders say the new system is intended to give clinicians clearer visibility into prescriptions and refills, improve tracking of whether patients are actually receiving and taking their medications, and streamline coordination between prescribers and the pharmacy.
“This was one of the most complex undertakings we’ve ever taken on,” said Vinodh Stanley, Senior Manager, Information Technology. “Migrating two vendor-provided systems — ScriptPro and Therigy — off nine years of legacy infrastructure and onto our enterprise systems was no small feat, and the data conversion from these disjointed legacy platforms added another layer of complexity.”
“None of it would have been possible without the team,” Stanley added. “The dedication, ownership, and collaboration this group brought day in and day out is what made it happen, and I’m truly proud of what they accomplished.”
