Creighton’s RX24 AI Chatbot Revolutionizes Pharmacology Education
Creighton’s RX24 AI chatbot supports nursing students with 24/7 guidance in pharmacology, reducing stress and boosting clinical learning outcomes.
Antimicrobial pharmacology—a core topic in nursing and healthcare education—explores how infection-fighting drugs target harmful microbes while sparing the patient. This complex blend of science and medicine is essential for safe, effective treatment planning. For graduate nursing students at Creighton, it’s a high-stakes, high-stress topic that makes up half of a major exam.
Creighton’s RX24: A Faculty-Guided AI Chatbot
To help students master this complex content, Lindsay Iverson, DNP, associate professor of nursing, teamed up with Steven Fernandes, PhD, assistant professor of computer science, to develop RX24—an AI chatbot designed to simulate personalized faculty guidance using natural language processing. The result: a conversation chatbot that mimics faculty guidance to boost understanding and academic performance.
“I really wanted to set my students up for success—not just to pass the course, but to truly understand and even enjoy this critical content area,” says Iverson, “instead of dreading it.”
Their project, titled “AI-Powered Clinical Pharmacology: Enhancing Lifespan-Based Prescribing Through Interactive Learning,” was approved as a National Science Foundation (NSF) National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot Classroom initiative. Creighton is the first university in Nebraska—and one of only 42 institutions nationwide—to receive the allocation. The team was awarded 150,000 service units (SUs) to develop three 24/7 retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)-based conversational chatbots—now known as RX24.
“This project represents an exciting interdisciplinary partnership between the College of Nursing and the College of Arts and Sciences,” says Fernandes.
How RX24 Supports Clinical Learning: 24/7 support for student success
“Antimicrobial content is one of the most difficult areas for advanced practice nursing students,” says Iverson. Over the years, she noticed a clear pattern: students struggled to both understand and apply the complex concepts in clinical scenarios. Motivated to find a new approach, she turned to RAG-based AI.
The result was RX24—an AI chatbot that closely mirrors faculty interaction by drawing from curated scripts based on common student questions and faculty responses. It also integrates the course’s required pharmacy textbook and past assessments to ensure alignment with learning objectives.
Students can submit questions, review core material and receive instant, evidence-based feedback delivered in a conversational tone modeled after faculty communication “to promote a warm, approachable learning environment,” says Fernandes.
Embedded in the antimicrobial therapy section of the advanced pharmacology course, RX24 serves as a 24/7, interactive learning tool to support both structured modules and independent study
“Pharmacology is a content-heavy and often intimidating course for many students, but RX24 offers a low-stakes, judgment-free space for them to engage with the material on their own schedules,” says Iverson.
It gives students a safe space to think critically and reflectively about clinical decisions, ultimately preparing them to deliver safe, informed and patient-centered care. “More broadly,” adds Iverson, “the project aligns with national nursing education priorities by integrating advanced technologies, building AI literacy and fostering competency-based education.”
AI Collaboration Between Nursing and Computer Science: Moving the collaboration forward
Undergraduate computer science students played a key role in the development of RX24, contributing to everything from the chatbot’s conversational interface to the integration of its retrieval system. “They’ve helped refine the avatar’s natural language capabilities to ensure smooth, intuitive interactions,” says Fernandes, “while nursing faculty have ensured that its content is clinically accurate and pedagogically sound.”
“This collaboration gave students real-world experience in AI development,” Iverson adds, “while advancing educational innovation in healthcare.”
Next Steps: Expanding AI Across Healthcare Education
With RX24’s adaptable model, Fernandes says the technology is primed to support additional high-impact, high-stress content areas across healthcare curricula.
Building on that success, Iverson and Fernandes are now developing additional AI chatbots and avatars to help healthcare professional students practice challenging conversations—such as delivering difficult news and communicating with empathy. The platform has also expanded to support an intimate partner violence (IPV) training workshop for healthcare providers and staff across Nebraska.
“This [NSF NAIRR Pilot Classroom] grant is not only a recognition of what we’ve accomplished,” says Iverson, “but also a catalyst for further innovation, national collaboration and broader impact in the use of AI to support student learning and interprofessional development.”
