Preparing Students for the Technology of Tomorrow
Colleges of pharmacy are retooling curricula and faculty skill sets to ensure students are prepared to use the technology of the next decade.
What will the practice of pharmacy look like in 5 years? Educators must constantly look to the future to anticipate the skills needed in a rapidly changing health care system. Students beginning pharmacy school in fall 2025 will be entering practice at the dawn of a new decade. What skills will they need, and what technologies will they use?
Colleges of pharmacy are retooling curricula and faculty skill sets to ensure students are prepared to use the technology of the next decade. | Image Credit: luckybusiness - stock.adobe.com
Patient Care Technology
As we gaze into our magical crystal ball, we can envision numerous developments in the next 5 years. Shortages of physicians and nurses in primary care will lead to more opportunities for pharmacists to deliver health care services beyond medication dispensing.1,2 If the efforts of state and national pharmacist associations are successful in opening the doors to pharmacist billing for clinical services, we must prepare our students for a role involving basic skills in diagnosis and prescribing.3 The newest Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education standards for pharmacy schools require all schools to prepare students in these skills.4 Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are quickly evolving to assist with diagnosing health problems, tailoring drug therapy, and completing clinical documentation.5,6
Another primary care role for pharmacists is remote patient monitoring (RPM). A growing number of pharmacists are using digital blood pressure monitors or blood glucose monitors to remotely monitor patients’ progress towards therapeutic goals. These digital monitoring tools also enable chronic care management services by pharmacists. Recent studies showed the positive impact of these pharmacists’ roles on team communication and patient outcomes.7,8
Telehealth services involving pharmacists continue to expand into more clinical areas.9,10 Although early models for pharmacist telehealth used telephone calls to conduct medication therapy management services, the latest models utilize video technology. For example, pharmacists in the AspenRxHealth network have completed over 2 million consultations using video technology in an iOS-compatible mobile app.11 This technology lets pharmacists work remotely with greater flexibility.
AI is getting a great deal of attention given its rapid evolution in all aspects of life. Many of the health care applications of AI have focused on improving efficiency in operations. However, clinical AI is also gaining momentum, and a growing number of “AI copilots” are being launched to assist clinicians in managing clinical workflow.12,13 The American Medical Association surveyed physicians on AI utilization and found that by 2024, nearly two-thirds of physicians had used at least 1 AI tool.14 Many pharmacist-related applications will also start to see utilization for tasks involving drug information, reconciliation of medication lists, analysis of safety data, and adjustment of drug therapy based on real-time monitoring of patients.15
Therapeutic Technology
As drug discovery shifted to computer-based modeling that is optimized by AI, the types of products being launched have also shifted. The category of specialty pharmaceuticals now accounts for nearly half of all drug expenditures in the US.16 Many of these products are biologicals with a high production cost and specialized requirements for shipping, storage, and administration. A limited set of pharmacies may be able to procure these products; however, the role of pharmacists in those specialty pharmacies requires in-depth knowledge of the disease states being treated and the appropriate place in therapy for these high-cost products. AI is used in this sector to streamline clinical and operational workflows to minimize delays in starting patients on these treatments. AI chatbots also enable efficient communication with patients and can generate alerts for the care team based on a patient’s response.
Pharmacogenomic testing is also becoming more widespread. AI alerts based on pharmacogenomic test results can identify patients needing a dose adjustment or change in drug selection based on their unique genomic parameters. The genomic data can also be integrated with demographic parameters—age, gender, and race—and tests for renal or hepatic function to tailor the treatment.17 This augments the clinician’s expertise for optimal precision medicine.
The newest frontier in therapeutic technology is in gene and cell therapies.18 These technologies offer the potential to cure diseases by modifications at the cell or gene level. Treatments have been developed for several conditions but require many months of intervention to achieve the desired effects. These treatments may cost over $1 million and are only available at a handful of locations worldwide. The role of pharmacists is still evolving in this space, but the next generation of pharmacists will likely be managing patients who receive one of these therapies.
Pharmacy Operations Technology
Robotics coupled with AI can lead to significant efficiencies in filling prescriptions. Walmart, Walgreens, Kroger, and others in the retail pharmacy sector have expanded their “central fill” operations so that 1 central fill site can refill prescriptions for hundreds of retail outlets. This reduces staff workload in each community site, allowing pharmacists to spend more time on patient care services. The AI systems in central fill sites can efficiently manage the inventory by predicting demand for each medication and adjusting reorder points. For health systems, the AI platforms can be integrated with automated dispensing cabinets to monitor utilization and automatically fulfill demand. AI systems that oversee dispensing processes also improve safety by reducing errors related to wrong drugs or doses. Some systems claim an error rate of less than 1 in 1 million prescriptions filled.19
AI-powered chatbots can triage patient inquiries and answer basic questions. Other AI systems can streamline prior authorization and billing processes. In the near future, AI systems embedded within electronic medical records will seamlessly communicate clinical information to AI in payers’ claims processing systems and to pharmacy AI systems to minimize the human workload for prior authorization processes. It should also minimize delays in treatment for patients.
Nearly every step in the pharmacy dispensing process can improve efficiency or accuracy by being enhanced with AI. Numerous vendors have developed bots to assist with these processes, but implementation in pharmacy practice is just beginning.
Preparing Students for the Future
Pharmacy academia has always been challenged to prepare students for the future while readying them for current practice models and technologies. However, the rate of technological change seems to be accelerating due to AI. The first wave of AI disruption for academia has been in the classroom, as students begin to use ChatGPT and other AI apps to search for drug information and prepare reports or presentations on diseases and drugs.20 At Ohio Northern University, we have tasked our students with testing the ability of ChatGPT to correctly answer various types of drug-related questions. The students must do their own search of drug information to compare it with the ChatGPT response. This opened their eyes to the strengths and limitations of AI for interpreting and explaining evidence about drugs. Instructors for several health-related professions have also begun to train ChatGPT to serve as a mock patient so that students can practice communication skills and problem-solving, while some are using AI for tutoring on calculations and other topics.21-23
Many colleges are helping faculty and preceptors retool their skill sets through professional development workshops or sabbaticals focused on AI and other innovative technologies. Gloria Grice, PharmD, associate dean for academic affairs at the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis, said, “Colleges must allocate budget toward faculty development on AI and for faculty use of generative AI to enhance instruction. These technologies will be crucial for our students to learn to use.” Grice also says she encourages faculty members to use AI to increase efficiency in teaching and assessment. By having AI update assignments or test questions, faculty members can focus on other facets of academia.
Many pharmacy schools are offering elective courses on digital health and AI.24 During the past year, the University of Florida launched an online graduate certificate in pharmacy AI.25 This program is available to student pharmacists as well as working professionals. Long Island University launched a master’s degree in AI that can be taken alongside a PharmD degree.26 These programs are designed to provide graduates with an advantage in finding cutting-edge positions in a high-tech health care environment.
As noted by Cain and colleagues, AI in pharmacy education is rapidly evolving in terms of AI as augmentation for teaching and for clinical practice.27 Schools will need to continually update the curriculum, as well as lectures and assessments, to keep pace with the expanding applications of AI in drug development and clinical practice. Experiential directors must also try to ensure that introductory pharmacy practice experiences and advanced pharmacy practice experience rotations expose students to the use of AI in pharmacy practice and by interprofessional teams. We also expect to see a growth in residency and fellowship programs focused on digital health and AI, as well as internships within digital health companies.
It is important to recognize that the implementation of new technology cannot be disconnected from the practice model and payment model for pharmacists. It would not be helpful for AI to notify pharmacists of needed changes in drug therapy if the pharmacist lacks the authority to change the therapy. Similarly, if AI replaces many of the dispensing tasks currently performed by pharmacists and technicians, the pharmacist’s time will only shift to clinical services if there is revenue to be generated from those clinical services. If not, then AI may lead to the elimination of pharmacists’ jobs rather than enabling a shift to clinical programs. Our profession needs to continue the e ort to enable greater practice authority and clinical services revenue opportunities. The colleges of pharmacy will continue to educate students to deliver clinical services with augmentation by AI, but we also need to work with our professional associations to advocate for new roles of pharmacists along with AI as augmentation rather than replacement.
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REFERENCES
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