Research demonstrates that consolidating medication guidance around patient risk can reduce alert fatigue and help pharmacists focus more time on patient care.
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., May 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Clinical informatics pharmacists from FDB (First Databank, Inc.), a leading provider of drug knowledge that helps healthcare professionals make precise medication decisions, will present research at the 2026 AMIA Amplify Informatics Conference demonstrating how a patient-specific approach to medication clinical decision support (CDS) reduced pharmacy alert volume by 70% in a high-volume community pharmacy setting.
The findings highlight how consolidating multiple medication safety alerts into a single, actionable alert based on the patient’s most clinically relevant risk can significantly reduce alert fatigue, streamline pharmacist workflows, and support more meaningful patient interactions.
Usha Desiraju, PharmD, manager of informatics and clinical content at FDB, and Michael T. Silver, PharmD, clinical informatics pharmacist at FDB, will present the poster, “Optimizing Community Pharmacy Workflows with Enhanced CDS Tools” (Poster 109), during Poster Session 2 from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 20.
Today’s community pharmacists must review medication alerts independently across multiple clinical domains, including drug-drug interactions, duplicate therapy, dosing, drug-disease contraindications, and specialty population precautions. This fragmented approach can generate hundreds of alerts per shift, contributing to cognitive overload, burnout, and the risk that critical safety signals may be overlooked.
FDB’s re-engineered approach consolidates medication screening across clinical domains and presents pharmacists with the most clinically pertinent risk for each patient, along with recommended next-best actions.
To evaluate the approach in practice, the FDB research team analyzed medication screening data from a large national community pharmacy. Each alert was mapped to a single primary clinical outcome, or “Clinical Consequence.” Using a proprietary API, alerts associated with the same Clinical Consequence were aggregated into a unified “Risk of” message paired with recommended actions, such as contacting the prescriber, reaching out to the patient, or providing patient-specific counseling materials.
The approach also incorporated intelligent alert management features, including suppression of repeat alerts based on prior pharmacist overrides, expiration logic for ICD-10-CM codes tied to acute conditions, and escalation or downgrading of alerts based on patient-specific predisposing and mitigating factors.
“Community pharmacists are doing more than ever for their patients, yet the volume of alerts they face each day can work against the very safety those alerts are designed to support,” said Desiraju. “This research shows that a consolidated, risk-based approach can re-engineer medication CDS around both the patient and the pharmacist workflow by surfacing the single most important risk — and the action that should follow — instead of asking pharmacists to piece together siloed warnings themselves.”
Before implementation, pharmacists received an average of 241.5 alerts per 250 prescriptions. After implementation of the consolidated, risk-based approach, alert volume dropped to fewer than 50 alerts per 250 prescriptions — a 70% overall reduction.
Pharmacists’ acceptance of recommended next-best actions exceeded 75%, and participants also reported higher satisfaction and more dedicated time for patient interaction.
“What stood out in the results is that reducing alert volume by this magnitude did not come at the expense of clinical rigor,” said Silver. “It came from organizing clinical knowledge in a more meaningful and patient-specific way. When pharmacists trust that the alerts surfaced represent the highest priority risks for a particular patient, they can act more confidently and spend more time where it matters most — with the patient.”
FDB delivers this next-generation approach to medication guidance through FDB Navigo™, a web-based API solution that replaces siloed, severity-based alerts with consolidated, risk-based guidance aligned with real-world clinical decision-making.
As community pharmacists continue to expand their responsibilities — including vaccinations, health screenings, and medication therapy management — reducing the cognitive burden associated with legacy alerting systems is becoming increasingly important. By standardizing responses across pharmacy locations and surfacing more actionable guidance, FDB Navigo helps support more consistent, efficient, and patient-centered care.
About FDB
FDB (First Databank) delivers clinically robust, workflow-integrated drug knowledge that is intuitive, patient-specific, and actionable, enabling more precise medication decisions at the point of care. Trusted for rigorous quality control, deep clinical expertise, and a collaborative approach, FDB helps improve patient safety, streamline operations, and enhance health outcomes. FDB’s comprehensive drug databases and next-generation medication decision support solutions power healthcare information systems used by the majority of hospitals, physician practices, pharmacies, payers, and beyond, impacting millions of clinicians, business associates, and patients every day. For more information, visit www.fdbhealth.com, or follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube.
About Hearst Health
The mission of Hearst Health is to guide healthcare organizations by delivering essential intelligence and software that improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of care. Hearst Health has been innovating with care for more than 40 years, with a commitment to making a lasting positive impact on health. The Hearst Health companies, FDB, Homecare Homebase, MCG, MHK, QGenda, and Zynx Health, elevate care by informing and empowering participants across the health journey. Learn more at www.hearst.com/hearst-health and follow @Hearst Health on LinkedIn.
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SOURCE FDB (First Databank)
