AI in pharmacy: Transforming medication management and patient care

Pharmacist shortages and operational inefficiencies in the pharmacy industry create challenges for both staff and patients. Pharmacists need effective ways to manage inventory and identify potential drug interactions to prevent adverse reactions and medication errors. Likewise, patients require tailored treatment plans to promote patient adherence and manage their health issues. 

AI provides tools to support pharmacists and involve patients in their treatment plans. By analyzing patient data, pharmacy AI tools can predict medication demand, identify potential risks, and automate tasks like prescription refills. This frees up pharmacists to concentrate on more clinical tasks, optimizing workflows and improving customer service.  

In addition, pharmacy AI helps in the drug discovery process as well as quality control and supply chain management to provide better options for patients.

Let’s examine the growing role of AI in pharmacy practices today and the future of AI in the pharmacy industry. We’ll explore important challenges that come with integrating AI technology into existing practices and recommend AI tools to boost your own efficiency. 

Key applications of AI in pharmacy

AI’s ability to process and analyze large datasets make AI software useful in many businesses. For the pharmacy industry, AI can be used to optimize the following:

Drug discovery and development

The National Library of Medicine notes that AI algorithms save time and money in drug discovery by predicting drug-protein interactions and aiding in the design of biospecific drug molecules. 

AI can also predict drug bioactivity with a target protein or receptor, revealing whether the medicine will deliver a desired therapeutic response. On the flip side, advanced AI algorithms can also predict the toxicity of drug molecules by analyzing input features, keeping patients safe.   

AI is also being used to recognize new uses for existing drugs. By analyzing large datasets of scientific literature, genomic data, and patient information, AI can help identify medications that can treat diseases they were not originally designed for. This form of machine learning (ML) aids in drug repurposing and building new therapeutic treatments.

Pharmaceutical manufacturing

When it comes to producing medicines, AI tools can optimize production schedules and inventory management by analyzing datasets in real time and forecasting demand. This helps improve transparency in supply chain management and gets pharmaceuticals to customers faster.

AI has also been used to schedule maintenance and predict equipment failure, preventing costly delays while improving efficiency. Advanced AI algorithms can even analyze image data and detect defects in production lines, such as incorrect pill sizes or packaging errors. Catching such issues early improves quality control by making sure medicines meet regulatory standards.  

Pharmacy services and patient care

Pharmacists can use AI-powered tools to analyze patient data and provide alerts for possible adverse reactions with other drugs. This risk identification helps pharmacists provide more personalized medication management and calculate safe dosages for individual patients.

AI can be used to automate key tasks like prescription verification and dispensing processes. This enhances safety while also providing pharmacists with more time to focus on patients and engage in clinical decision-making. 

By analyzing data like appointment attendance and refill rates, AI algorithms can identify patients at higher risk of nonadherence and flag them for pharmacists. Finding such patients early allows pharmacists to educate clients about the importance of patient adherence and potentially prevent costly emergency room visits. 

This type of preventative care even extends to public health, as AI can identify disease outbreaks in the area and the populations who are most at-risk. It can then tailor messages for these people, alerting them on how best to manage their health. 

Pharmacy benefits management

When it comes to negotiating costs, processing claims, and managing access to medications, AI platforms like RxIQ can help optimize workflows by providing quicker access to important data. The platform delivers this information in real time, often within an hour of processing claims, which helps management make faster, data-driven decisions. 

Additional tools such as Autosave help find prescription savings by automatically comparing copay costs with prescription discount cards. Meanwhile, RxIQ Savings Genius uses predictive modeling to find new savings opportunities for members. This not only helps patients manage costs but also streamlines claims processing, reducing administrative tasks for your staff. 

Managing the formulary, or the list of medications a health plan or organization will cover, is key to managing costs and staying current on the latest medical and safety standards. RxIQ provides formulary management tools to quickly update and make any necessary changes, streamlining the process.  

Challenges and considerations

While integrating AI tools into their day-to-day operations offers many benefits, pharmacists need to be aware of the challenges and issues involved in adopting AI in pharmacy practices.

FDA guidelines

The FDA has issued a guidance document, “Considerations for the Use of Artificial Intelligence to Support Regulatory Decision-Making for Drug and Biological Products,” which offers recommendations on the use of AI in pharmacy and other related fields. 

The document provides a risk-based credibility assessment framework for measuring the credibility of AI models in different applications. This is important since the accuracy of AI models directly impacts the quality, safety, and effectiveness of the drugs they help develop and distribute.

The framework outlines a seven-step process for evaluating AI models:

• Define the question the AI model seeks to answer (such as predicting clinical trial results).
• Specify the context of use (COU) of the AI model, including any limitations.
• Consider the possible risks of using the answers supplied by AI models on decision-making.
• Develop strategies for verifying the credibility of the AI model’s results within the COU.
• Collect and analyze data to evaluate the AI model’s performance.
• Document the results of the credibility assessment plans.
• Assess the adequacy of the AI model for its COU based on documentation and recorded evidence.

Although the recommendations provided by this document are non-binding, assessing AI models with the seven-step process helps keep managers and staff aware of the impact and limitations of using AI in pharmacy practices.

Working with pharmacy AI

Pharmacies also cannot rely exclusively on AI to manage its practices. Instead, pharmacists should use AI to augment tasks that require more clinical thinking. For example, while AI can help identify patients at risk of nonadherence, a pharmacist is better suited to counsel a patient on how to stay with their plan of care or develop a new one if side effects and drug interactions interfere with its effectiveness. 

Privacy concerns

AI software integration also gives AI access to patient records and sensitive medical information, creating trust issues and data privacy concerns. Pharmacies need to implement strong data security with encryption measures to protect patient data. Anonymization techniques can also be used to protect confidential information when training AI algorithms.

Patients should also be informed about how their data is used in AI-driven pharmacy practices to improve transparency and build trust. Patients must have the right to grant and withdraw consent for how their data is used, and they should be able to access their healthcare information to make informed choices.    

Boost efficiency and patient engagement with Jotform’s Pharmacist AI Agent

AI chatbots are commonly used in pharmacies to answer patient questions and order refills. However, pharmacists now have access to smarter AI tools, like AI agents.

What are AI agents? AI agents are software capable of making decisions and performing tasks on their own without human intervention. Unlike chatbots that often follow established scripts when communicating with customers, AI agents use ML to perform more complex tasks. This makes them useful in customer support and data analysis.

Jotform’s Pharmacist AI Agent improves patient experiences by streamlining and enhancing a pharmacy’s prescription request process. This sophisticated conversational assistant is capable of much more than simple data collection. After collecting patient information, it can recommend dermocosmetic products tailored to individual client needs and facilitate product comparisons.   

In addition, this AI agent can provide clients with essential healthcare and public health information, significantly improving the overall user experience in pharmacy settings.

Let’s take a closer look at the benefits, features, and applications of Jotform’s Pharmacist AI Agent. 

Purpose and benefits

Jotform’s Pharmacist AI Agent simplifies prescription requests by collecting vital data from patients, including their personal details, prescription requirements, and preferred pharmacies. Patients can even upload prescription images through the Pharmacist AI Agent, providing pharmacists with comprehensive data. Once it has this data, the AI Agent can offer tailored product recommendations to each patient. 

Automating this routine but important process reduces work for pharmacy staff. It also provides faster assistance for patients, leading to better customer satisfaction. 

Who can use it?

The Pharmacist AI Agent is designed for healthcare providers and pharmacies looking to streamline patient interactions and automate prescription requests. Pharmaceutical companies that want to enhance customer engagement and operational efficiency can also benefit from this AI Agent template. 

Use cases

Patients can chat with the Pharmacist AI Agent, allowing it to collect the information needed for prescription processing and provide tailored product recommendations based on what it learns. 

In addition, the Pharmacist AI Agent can provide patients with general healthcare information to better manage health concerns. The agent can also answer direct queries, creating a more personalized experience. 

Key features

Pharmacies that use the Pharmacist AI Agent benefit from the following key features:

• Data collection: The AI Agent gathers and records patient names, contact information, prescription details, and preferred pharmacies.
• Prescription image uploads: If physical prescriptions are unavailable, patients can take photos of their prescriptions and upload them directly to the pharmacy, improving convenience and providing more thorough documentation.
• Customizable conversation flows: Pharmacies can create a more personalized experience by building multiple structured paths with branching logic. This helps tailor the agent’s responses to different patient needs and provide vital information, such as appointment reminders, or important services, like medication refills.
• Multiple form support: Add multiple forms to collect diverse data from patients and use this information to provide a more comprehensive approach to patient interactions.
• No coding requirements: Pharmacies of all sizes can customize the agent to their needs without doing any coding.
• Customizable appearance: Jotform’s Agent Designer lets you match your AI Agent to your pharmacy branding with appropriate colors, fonts, and themes.

Training and enhancement

Engage directly with your Pharmacist AI Agent to refine its responses to patient questions and requests. Expand its knowledge base by adding relevant URLs, documents, and frequently asked questions so it has the information required to support your pharmacy’s specific needs.

The Pharmacist AI Agent can also refine its own responses through context awareness, which enables the agent to remember prior interactions with patients. By accessing data on returning clients, the AI Agent can serve patients faster, offer more personalized experiences, and improve engagement, providing you with the best AI Agents.

Impact

Jotform’s Pharmacist AI Agent does more than just collect patient information. By engaging patients in personalized conversations, it transforms routine prescription requests into more satisfying, educational encounters that help patients feel more in control of their healthcare plans.

Meanwhile, when AI Agents handle administrative tasks, pharmacists have more time to focus on in-depth care, patient adherence, and planning. Not only does this enhance operational effectiveness, but it also increases patient satisfaction by helping pharmacists stay on top of client needs. 

Future outlook: AI’s expanding role in pharmacy

Agentic AI, or AI that can simulate human reasoning, carry out complex conversations, and learn from past interactions and experiences, has many practical applications in the pharmacy industry.

Beyond simply automating administrative tasks like prescription refills, AI Agents can analyze a patient’s medical records, medication history, and even genetic information to provide pharmacists with advanced diagnostics that help build a more detailed treatment plan. 

AI-powered systems can provide pharmacists with evidence-based recommendations in real time based on the supplied data, which aids in early disease detection or predicts adverse reactions to certain medicines. Pharmacists can then use these insights to make changes to a patient’s prescriptions or healthcare plan and avoid serious issues.

AI algorithms will also continue to be used in drug design and development. By analyzing vast amounts of molecular data and predicting interactions with drugs and targets, AI can accelerate the creation of new medications and therapies. This includes identifying patients in clinical trials who are more likely to benefit from new drugs and reducing the time it takes to bring those pharmaceuticals to the market. 

As AI becomes further integrated into pharmacy practices, pharmacists and other medical professionals must increase their own AI literacy. This includes understanding the principles of ML, natural language processing, and AI algorithms, and how these tools can be applied to key tasks such as medication management, patient care, inventory management, and scheduling.

At the same time, pharmacists must be aware of the limitations of AI, such as potential biases in AI algorithms, and develop their own critical thinking skills to evaluate the information provided by AI tools. Pharmacists should also consider the ethical implications of using AI in pharmacy, particularly when it comes to protecting sensitive data and maintaining patient privacy.  

Ultimately, an ideal future of AI in pharmacy is one where pharmacists can augment their abilities with pharmacy AI. Rather than being replaced by or becoming too dependent on AI, future pharmacists should spend time tailoring AI systems to handle routine tasks while focusing on counseling patients and building treatment plans. By viewing AI as a tool to provide better care, pharmacists can enjoy the benefits that come with AI and pharmacy work.   

Moving forward with AI in pharmacy

Incorporating AI in pharmacy operations can offer pharmacists much needed support while improving patient outcomes. 

AI’s ability to gather and analyze large datasets make it ideal for managing inventory, automating routine tasks, and scheduling appointments. By streamlining workflows, AI tools provide pharmacists with additional time to focus on tasks that require more critical thinking, such as counseling patients and preparing medications. While AI systems can aid in these activities, the responsibility of providing safe and effective patient care remains in the hands of the pharmacist.   

As the pharmaceutical industry continues to use new AI systems, it’s to your advantage to explore AI tools that can assist you in your day-to-day activities. Advanced digital assistants like Jotform’s AI Agents provide invaluable aid in collecting patient data and offering product recommendations. This improves customer satisfaction while reducing your own workload. Learn how using AI Agents can help you stay ahead in the evolving pharmacy landscape by building and training your own Pharmacist AI Agent today.