Artificial intelligence and the future of pharmacy

Extract

On March 7, 2023, ASHP convened a group of thought leaders in healthcare to review societal and healthcare trends that may affect pharmacists and patients in the near future. Some key topics presented in the executive summary of that meeting, published in this issue of AJHP,¹ describe challenges in managing data from internal and external sources, interoperability between systems, and how the increasing volume of data can lead to information overload and burnout. However, if used appropriately, this massive volume of data can also have benefits for patient care outcomes, patient safety, quality measure reporting, and addressing health inequities. The potential benefits and side effects of applying data to healthcare lead the group to recommend putting in place a structure to govern data use, a process some called “data stewardship”.

These large volumes of clinical data are, in large part, due to the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) across the United States and other countries. EHRs have transformed medication use by improving ordering with computerized prescriber order entry (CPOE) with clinical decision support, and medication administration with barcode medication administration, to name a few. The digitization of healthcare has led to significant efficiency gains, improved patient outcomes, and allowed for unprecedented sharing of patient data. While some people complain about EHR design, many of us have seen the chaos that results from unplanned downtime. Pharmacy practice is not the same as it was 10 or 20 years ago.