Q&A: Prepare for the Future of the AI in 2025

In an interview with Pharmacy Times, Jim Dente of Advanced Pharmacy Solutions (APS) discussed key trends for pharmacists to be aware of in 2025. Dente discusses the future of health system pharmacies, highlighting key advancements he anticipates in 2025. He emphasizes the growing role of automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and patient-centric business models in streamlining operations, improving patient care, and addressing industry challenges such as staff burnout and medication errors. Dente also explores how AI and robotics can empower pharmacists to focus on clinical interventions, enhance patient safety, and improve overall efficiency within the health care system.

Jim Dente, vice president of sales at Advanced Pharmacy Solutions

Pharmacy Times: My first question for you, Jim, is what are the most significant advancements you anticipate in health system pharmacies in 2025?

Jim Dente: Sure, that's a good question. In 2025, I think we're going to find health system pharmacies will be covered by an increased use of automation, the broader adoption of AI, and we'll see a shift to a patient-centric business model as well. If I could, with the automation part, you know, you can imagine, right? These pharmacists, they do a lot within the facilities, and they're burnt out. There's a lot of manual tasks, a lot of responsibilities that they bear, and the industry itself is facing widespread fatigue and staffing difficulties that continue to be challenges. By replacing these manual processes like pill counting and packaging with automation technology, it will allow these pharmacists to operate at the top of their license, which is, let's face it, what they went to school for. So, by streamlining, say, automating the process that they perform, and automating the manual tasks, you’re freeing up staff time to do more clinical interventions by knowing they have a reliable system that's safer. [Automation is] built to improve medication availability, limit the opportunities for manual errors, and improve workflow efficiencies. [APS automation has] got assurances such that it's 99.99% medication accuracy rate. That is, you know, 1 pill in every million pills packaged. So that's pretty darn efficient and accurate, and it's simple to use. It's as simple, say, as using a cell phone, smartphone, because it's very simple, 4 clicks and you have access to the system relative to AI. While AI is not new to the space, it's been viewed as a tool for automating repetitive tasks in the past, allowing pharmacists to devote more time and attention to patient care. When it's truly valuable, its true value lies in its analytics capabilities. If they can use those analytics to help with smart self-learning technologies, clinical tools, and help the pharmacist with forecasting revenue and supply chain needs, it would be very beneficial with improving their efficiencies.

And then last [is] patient-specific, patient-centric business models and contact to the pharmacy. You know, it's a significant opportunity here that they face. Adopting patient-focused business models, patients and service providers alike will benefit by implementing automation, enhancing patient safety, improving access, and streamlining workflow, which will help make the health system pharmacy industry more sustainable.

Pharmacy Times: How do you envision the role of technology such as AI and robotics impacting pharmacy operations and patient care?

Dente: That's another great question. It's a big challenge these days, and it's a big hope, right? So, we're in the midst of a big revolution, I believe, that's taking place. And for the last question I just answered, with some of the solutions that the industry is facing and opportunities that they present to think differently and do things different. Pharmacists aren't just medication dispensers today. They're health care practitioners. They're providers, and on some levels, they're caregivers. By combining AI and the robotics or automation, we're able to avoid pharmacy burnout, industry fatigue, reduce waste, improve medication adherence, and create data-driven decisions to help pharmacies have the insights they need to stay ahead and improve patient care.

Pharmacy Times:How do you envision AI specifically assisting with the burnout that many pharmacists, especially in community pharmacies, are consistently reporting that they're facing?

Dente: Sure. I think by gathering that information and doing smart things with that information, we can make the pharmacist more efficient so they’re making more intelligent decisions. They have the data at their fingertips that they can review and understand and make intelligent choices that makes them more efficient. And at the same time, it improves patient outcomes, because there’s a level set, there’s a checking system in there to ensure that they’re thinking about all the capabilities, all the probabilities when they make those decisions more comprehensively.

Pharmaceutical supply chain and technology | Image credit: Prathankarnpap | stock.adobe.com

Pharmacy Times: Considering the high focus on health care costs, how do you foresee health system pharmacies adapting their services and roles to improve patient outcomes while also reducing costs?

Dente: You know, the adoption of AI can improve patient outcomes and reduce costs for both the pharmacies and the patients. For reducing costs, AI is expediting the discovery of potential drug candidates, decreasing the amount of time spent on medication trials and error and ultimately lowering the cost of emerging therapies. This will make those therapies and treatments more effective and affordable for patients. As far as patient outcomes, medication accuracy from advanced pill counting automation to precise, on site, 24/7 remote pharmacy automated medication dispensing systems, AI-driven solutions are minimizing human errors, ensuring patients receive the correct dosage every time. A pharmacy system equipped with AI will detect discrepancies, flag potential interactions, and adapt prescriptions to align with that patient's specific health conditions, enhancing safety and adherence, assisting the pharmacy in the process.

Pharmacy Times: Wonderful. How about drug formulation?

Dente: AI is transforming how new medications are developed and how existing ones are optimized. By analyzing vast data sets, AI can predict drug behavior in the human body. This reduces the trial-and-error period for finding the right medication or dosage for a patient, ultimately accelerating effective treatments for patients with complex or chronic conditions. AI-powered insights can lead to faster, more personalized care plans, significantly improving their quality of life.

Pharmacy Times: Do you foresee any changing priorities with the incoming presidential administration and their goals?

Dente: Where do we start? I foresee a lot of this, you know, especially with this leadership and the support he has. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) comes to mind. There's been a lot of talk of replacing ACA with a new health plan. One that I heard mentioned would suggest that allowing insurance companies to adjust premiums based on pre-existing conditions would be a consideration. There's a lot there.

Another one is pharmacy benefits management (PBM). Over the last few weeks, in particular, we've heard a lot about PBMs in the news. They're under the microscope. You know, what's their value? What do they bring to the equation? We could see drug pricing reform, rebate policies, and caps on out-of-pocket expenses at the forefront of a conversation in the coming years. New policy changes could add apprehensions across the industry, with unknown potential budget cuts, policy changes, oversights, which could affect the health systems’ finances, resulting in patient care changes. It could create pauses, delays in decisions due to uncertainty, so we'll have to see that as well.

In addition, we have pharmacy deserts. You know, in 2019, a report from the Journal of American Medicine Association [showed that] roughly 1 out of 8 pharmacies closed between 2009 and 2015. More recently, we've heard about major change like Walgreens and CVS in this past year closing hundreds of locations. And then we all know about Rite Aid pharmacy. They're going through bankruptcy. As we speak, there's a push for higher Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates to help pharmacies stay afloat. It’s a challenge, it’s a problem in this process, and it needs to be addressed. There's definitely going to be a health care and economic topic for months to come. There's no panacea to this growing crisis, but there are some ideas out there to consider: increased reimbursement rates, financial support for at-risk pharmacies, and also considering inadequate telepharmacy services as a bridge to all this.

Pharmacy Times: Is there anything else you wanted to add, or you think our audience should know about?

Dente: What strategies could pharmacies adopt to navigate the complexities of compliance while maintaining efficiency? And I think one of the best strategies right now is implementing advanced systems to help ensure regulatory compliance without administrative burden.

Demand on nurses continues to increase, and pharmacies as well, yet fewer people are entering both of those professions. And keep in mind, the population is continuing to age and grow, right? Without intervention and change, this imbalance is only going to get worse, leading to increased staff burnout, reduced quality of patient care, and difficulty attracting younger professionals to the field. Something has to change. Automation makes sense in so many ways. If there's a solution out there that can help, why not use it? Imagine a health care system where pharmacy and nursing shortages and unavailability of medications no longer delay patient care. No longer does somebody have to reach into the system, pick the medications, sort them themselves. All this manual human intervention is where errors occur. We can completely automate that process. We close the critical gaps while elevating the standard of care across facilities. This frees up nursing time, as well, to focus more time on improving patient care.