MUSC Health has expanded its use of SoundHound AI's (Nasdaq: SOUN) voice agent platform to include retail and specialty pharmacy operations, according to a press release. The health system's AI agent, called "Emily," has handled more than 2.2 million patient calls since its initial deployment in 2024.

Emily was first deployed to manage patient appointment scheduling. MUSC Health has since scaled the technology across patient access and other nonclinical service workflows. The latest expansion connects Emily to pharmacy phone lines, allowing patients to process prescription refill requests, receive real-time refill status updates, access pharmacy hours and location information, and be routed to pharmacy staff when needed.

The pharmacy integration is built on SoundHound's agentic AI platform and is connected to MUSC Health's Epic electronic health record system. The company claims this represents one of the first agentic voice implementations for an Epic system.

Crystal Broj, Chief Digital Transformation Officer at MUSC Health, said the collaboration "has enabled us to scale agentic AI in a way that delivers measurable efficiencies while maintaining the high level of service our patients expect."

Michael Zagorsek, Chief Operating Officer at SoundHound AI, said supporting more than 2 million patient interactions and expanding into pharmacy operations "underscores how our sophisticated AI agents can scale securely within the industry."

MUSC Health is the health care system of the Medical University of South Carolina, which was founded in 1824 in Charleston. The organization has an annual operating budget of $8.9 billion and more than 36,200 members.