Extract data from prescription orders

A prescription order is the instruction that tells a pharmacy what to dispense, and a pharmacy intake team reads dozens an hour, often from scans and faxes that have to be transcribed before anything reaches a patient. Each order names the drug, its strength, the directions for use, the quantity, and the refills, plus the prescriber and the patient. A retail or mail-order pharmacy processing a high volume sees orders for a maintenance medication at a specific strength, a controlled substance that triggers extra checks, and a compounded preparation, each written by a different prescriber on a different system, some printed from an EHR and some handwritten on a pad and faxed. Difficulty concentrates in the sig and the drug identity. Directions, the sig, are written in a shorthand that has to be expanded correctly: "1 tab PO BID" means one tablet by mouth twice daily, and "ii gtt OU QHS" means two drops in both eyes at bedtime. Misreading the sig becomes a dispensing error. Drug names must resolve to a specific product and strength, and the National Drug Code (NDC) when present pins it exactly. Quantity and days supply have to be consistent with the sig. A controlled substance carries a schedule and, on an electronic order, the prescriber's DEA number in its standard two-letter-then-seven-digit format. Refills and the date written govern how long the order is valid. Talonic reads the prescription order and returns the drug, strength, sig expanded to plain language, quantity, refills, and prescriber detail including the DEA number when present, so a pharmacy intake system receives structured data and flags controlled substances for the checks they require. Written 2026-05-30 and printed from the EHR, an order billed in USD carries the drug, the strength, and the sig before the US pharmacy dispenses and posts the claim to the payer.

What gets extracted from prescription orders

How extraction works for prescription orders

Prescription orders arrive as e-prescribing transmissions printed to PDF, EHR printouts, and handwritten scripts faxed to the pharmacy, so the format ranges from structured to handwritten. Talonic classifies the order and maps it to the prescription schema in the Field Registry, which captures the drug, strength, sig, quantity, refills, prescriber, and patient. Sig shorthand is expanded to plain language: "1 tab PO BID" becomes one tablet by mouth twice daily, with the dose, route, and frequency held as discrete fields. Drug identity resolves to a product and strength, and a National Drug Code is captured when present. Prescriber DEA numbers are validated against the standard format, and a controlled-substance order is tagged with its schedule. Every value returns with a confidence score and pixel-region provenance under DIN SPEC 91491 conformity, so a pharmacist can verify the drug and sig against the source order before dispensing.

Sample extraction

A single-item prescription order printed from an EHR

{
  "patient_name": "Helen Park",
  "patient_dob": "1968-02-14",
  "drug_name": "Lisinopril",
  "strength": "10 mg",
  "dosage_form": "tablet",
  "sig_raw": "1 tab PO QD",
  "sig_expanded": "1 tablet by mouth once daily",
  "dose": "1 tablet",
  "route": "oral",
  "frequency": "once daily",
  "quantity": 90,
  "days_supply": 90,
  "refills": 3,
  "prescriber_name": "Dr. Alan Reyes",
  "prescriber_dea": "BR1234563",
  "date_written": "2026-05-30",
  "controlled_substance": false
}

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