Artificial Intelligence: Coming for Your Job or Improving Your Performance?

The rapid acceleration of artificial intelligence is transforming healthcare, posing a critical question for every pharmacist: will this technological tsunami drown our profession or empower us to redefine our essential role?

Leading healthcare technology providers, like Epic Systems, are rapidly deploying AI tools. With extensive patient data, these systems aim to significantly reduce administrative burdens and costs—often 40% to 60% of healthcare expenses. Early applications show promise in reducing professional burnout, with some physicians reporting a 40% decrease in documentation time using AI for charting. This shift is not a distant prospect but an immediate reality.

AI's Inevitable Integration

AI’s presence in healthcare is growing, driven by a focus on efficiency. Epic’s vast network enables predictive models and automated interactions, fundamentally altering health system operations and provider workflows. These advancements are designed to streamline processes, particularly those involving menial tasks and initial patient engagement.

The Business Model Imperative

Pharmacists understand the challenge of technological advancement. Past automation in prescription filling often increased volume without creating new economic models to support advanced clinical services. This led to pharmacists processing more prescriptions, not necessarily practicing more clinically.

Avoiding Past Pitfalls

The same risk exists with AI. If the business model does not evolve to value and reimburse pharmacists for cognitive services, AI’s efficiency gains could merely result in higher expectations for administrative tasks or increased medication processing volume. This perpetuates task-driven work instead of enabling full utilization of clinical expertise.

Physicians share concerns that AI might simply escalate encounter quotas rather than genuinely improving care or professional satisfaction. Currently, AI adoption is largely driven by cost-saving metrics, highlighting a business model focus over enhanced patient care delivery.

Redefining Pharmacy in an AI Era

Pharmacists have historically served as vital information hubs – from notebooks to digital tools. AI is the next evolution of this "peripheral brain." However, a critical risk is if pharmacy is perceived solely as administrative, easily replicable by AI. This could diminish our unique value in medication optimization and patient assessment.

Asserting Clinical Value

If AI becomes the physician's primary decision support, the pharmacist's role in direct patient care and identifying drug therapy problems becomes vulnerable. We must assert our clinical expertise, demonstrating how AI can augment, not replace, the pharmacist's nuanced judgment and patient interaction.

A Call to Proactive Action

AI's acceleration is an immediate reality. The pharmacy profession must proactively engage. This means fostering regulatory discussions, shaping future practice models, and educating both current and future pharmacists on effectively integrating AI for safer, more innovative patient care.

Achieving provider status is more critical than ever. If pharmacists are recognized and reimbursed as healthcare providers, AI can be a powerful assistant, expanding our clinical reach. If we remain primarily clerical or distributive, AI’s efficiency will likely displace us. We must demand business models that economically support our care delivery, ensuring AI empowers, rather than marginalizes, the vital role of the pharmacist.

The choice is ours: allow AI to define our future, or proactively seize this moment to solidify pharmacy’s indispensable position at the forefront of patient care.