Pharmacists are getting more duties in direct patient care. A survey from 2024 by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) says that 74% of hospitals now have pharmacists assigned to most patients for at least eight hours each day. This is a big increase from about ten years ago when fewer pharmacists worked in clinical areas.
Today, pharmacists do more than just count pills or fill prescriptions. They help manage medication therapy, treat long-term conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, and asthma, do quick tests like flu or strep throat screenings, and give vaccinations. They also talk to patients to help them take their medicine properly and understand their health better.
According to data from Wolters Kluwer Health, patients see pharmacists almost twice as often as they see doctors. This means pharmacists have a special chance to help with patient care. Also, 81% of people trust pharmacists to diagnose and treat small illnesses, and 58% say they would rather get nonemergency care at their pharmacy first. These numbers show that pharmacies are becoming important centers for healthcare in communities.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more important in pharmacy services throughout the United States. AI software can look at large amounts of data to make medication use safer, help create treatment plans for each patient, and do routine tasks that used to take up a lot of pharmacists’ time.
One major use of AI is to help with clinical decisions. Pharmacists use AI systems to spot possible drug interactions, suggest safer or better medication options, and alert them if patients might not take their medicines as they should. For example, AI can check electronic health records (EHR) to find problems early, letting pharmacists act before issues get worse.
For instance, Shields Health Solutions uses AI in its specialty pharmacy care. This system reached a 92% medication adherence rate. It also cut the time to start treatment to just two days. This quick action is very important, especially for patients with complex medical needs.
Besides helping make decisions, AI also helps check that medications match their digital records to reduce mistakes. This is important as pharmacists handle more complicated drugs. Paria Sanaty Zadeh, a pharmacist, researched this AI use and showed how it can reduce errors that affect patient safety.
Pharmacy work often includes many tasks that repeat, like counting pills, filling prescriptions, managing stock, and dealing with approval for certain drugs. These tasks use a lot of pharmacists’ time and stop them from focusing more on patient care.
Technology is now automating these tasks. This cuts down on manual work and lets pharmacists spend more time caring for patients. Automation for counting pills and filling prescriptions is expected to more than double by 2030 in retail pharmacies.
AI tools also make the prior authorization process faster—a task that can be very time-consuming. By automating the paperwork, listing patients who don’t follow rules, and sending reminders for refills, AI lowers the work that often causes pharmacist burnout.
These improvements help pharmacies work better and reduce errors. Automation with digital health records also helps pharmacists keep a closer watch, lowering risks like giving duplicate drugs or harmful drug combinations.
Telehealth, along with AI and mobile health tools, lets pharmacists reach patients beyond their regular pharmacies. Telepharmacy allows remote medication reviews, patient talks, and managing long-term health problems. This makes pharmacist services easier to get, especially for people in rural or hard-to-reach places.
Programs that manage chronic diseases virtually let pharmacists follow patients from far away. They can watch if patients take their medicines and change treatments without needing in-person visits. Pharmacists like Dalia Saleh at Advocate Health lead these programs using telepharmacy and technology to give steady, personal care.
This way works well for patients who find it hard to visit pharmacies often. This includes people with limited mobility, no transport, or busy lives. Mobile apps and wearable health devices support this method by giving real-time health info and medicine reminders that pharmacists can check during telehealth calls.
One key part of this change is better data sharing. Pharmacists now have better access to electronic health records (EHR) that include full patient medication histories, lab results, and clinical notes. Having all this data helps pharmacists carefully review medications, avoid harmful drug interactions, and work well with other healthcare providers.
Electronic prescriptions (e-prescriptions) linked to EHR reduce mistakes caused by bad handwriting or typing errors. This makes medication use safer and faster.
Pharmacogenomic data, which uses genetic information to make treatment personal, is also becoming more available to pharmacists. These advanced tools let pharmacists choose the best medicines for each patient based on their genes, making treatments work better and causing fewer side effects.
AI helps with more than just clinical decisions. It supports many parts of pharmacy work, from managing inventory and supply chains to talking with patients and keeping them involved.
Pharmacy managers and IT staff should know that AI systems can change inventory automatically using predictions. These systems can guess how much medicine is needed and cut down on waste. This saves money, especially for expensive specialty drugs that need special care.
AI can also find patients who might not take their medicines properly. It looks at refill records, missed appointments, and emergency visits to spot those needing extra help. With this information, pharmacists can reach out by phone or telehealth for advice and support.
For patients, AI chatbots and reminder systems help by sending medicine alerts, answering questions about medicine use, and booking appointments. These AI tools give help outside of normal pharmacy hours. This makes patients happier and more involved in their health care.
More than 100 studies show that using clinical decision support tools can improve health results. These tools help cut down on medication mistakes, reduce hospital readmissions, and improve quality of care.
Programs where pharmacists manage medication using these technologies have shown a 30% increase in patients taking medicine correctly. For example, a pharmacist-led service for blood-thinning medicine lowered bad effects and saved about $3,700 per patient. These results show that using advanced technology in pharmacy care saves money.
Better medicine-taking and safety lead to fewer health problems, hospital stays, and emergency visits. This lowers pressure on the whole health system. As pharmacists take on more clinical work with tech help, they improve health management and support care that focuses on value.
Specialty pharmacy handles hard-to-manage, costly medicines like biologics and cancer treatments. AI has helped a lot by giving special clinical decision support for patients at higher risk.
In cancer care pharmacy, AI tools like machine learning and predictive analysis help pharmacists understand patient data and create personal treatment plans. They manage complex treatments and watch for side effects and drug interactions more efficiently using AI. This work needs pharmacists to have more tech skills and ethical knowledge as AI becomes part of decisions.
For example, pharmacists at Shields Health Solutions used AI in their specialty pharmacy to improve how well patients take medicine and shorten the time to start treatment. AI also helps find patients who have money or emotional challenges. Pharmacists can then contact these patients early, showing that human judgment is still important even with AI support.
Even though AI and automation offer many benefits, there are challenges to using them. Pharmacists and healthcare leaders must think about data privacy, ethical use of AI, and possible bias in AI systems. Making sure AI is tested in real settings and clear helps keep trust.
Training is also very important. Pharmacists need to learn not just clinical care but also digital health, data analysis, and technology skills to use AI well. Preparing staff with these skills helps technology fit into work smoothly without losing focus on patients.
Rules and payment systems also need updates. Letting pharmacists do more through agreements with doctors, like managing diseases, ordering tests, and adjusting medicine, can help. Recognizing pharmacists as independent providers will let them use technology fully in clinical care.
New technologies in pharmacy bring chances and duties for health system leaders and IT teams. A clear plan that includes investing in EHR systems that work well together, adding clinical decision support tools, and building telepharmacy networks is needed.
Administrators should support teamwork between pharmacists and doctors to use AI decision tools best. IT managers play a key role in keeping patient data safe and systems working well for timely medicine management.
As pharmacies become centers for community care, combining pharmacy data with wider health records helps keep care connected. This supports efforts to lower hospital readmissions, manage chronic diseases better, and improve health for groups of people.
Technological changes including AI tools are shaping modern pharmacy work in the United States. They expand pharmacists’ roles beyond traditional tasks and improve how medicines are managed. For healthcare organizations that want to raise patient care quality and work better, supporting these changes in pharmacy services is an important move forward.
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