MUSC Expands 'Emily' Voice AI Into Retail and Specialty Pharmacies
The rollout tests whether a voice agent tied directly to Epic can reduce routine call burdens across a large health system.
Overview
- SoundHound and MUSC announced on Wednesday that Emily has been added to MUSC Health’s retail and specialty pharmacy phone lines and that the system has handled more than 2.2 million patient calls.
- Patients can use natural-language conversations with Emily to request prescription refills, get real-time refill status, find pharmacy hours and locations, and be routed to the right pharmacy team for complex issues.
- MUSC first deployed Emily in 2024 for appointment management and has since scaled the Epic-integrated agent across patient access and other nonclinical workflows.
- SoundHound and MUSC say Emily shortens wait times and lowers routine administrative load by handling common calls, but the operational benefits cited come from the vendors and the health system without independent audit in the coverage.
- Investors reacted to the announcement with an intraday drop in SoundHound AI shares of about 5.53%, a market move that neither confirms long-term commercial impact nor validates the reported efficiency gains.