Potential Applications, Risks of AI in the Pharmacy | NCPA 2024
A conversation with Sean Jeffery, PharmD, BCGP, FASCP, AGSF, director of pharmacy at Hartford HealthCare Integrated Care Partners and professor of pharmacy practice at the University of Connecticut.
AI has significantly changed the health care landscape in recent years and has been applied to everything from data and information storage to diagnostic tools. The pharmacy profession has been no exception, with increasing interest in using AI for things like drug discovery, dosage form designing, polypharmacology, and hospital pharmacy.1 As AI continues to grow, there is no doubt that it will be playing a bigger role in the lives of independent pharmacists.
At the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) 2024 Annual Convention and Expo, held October 26 to 29 in Columbus, Ohio, Drug Topics sat down with Sean Jeffery, PharmD, BCGP, FASCP, AGSF, director of pharmacy at Hartford HealthCare Integrated Care Partners and professor of pharmacy practice at the University of Connecticut, to discuss how AI may be used to improve pharmacy workflows, and potential risks associated with AI when it comes to patient data security and privacy.
“I think we’re actually still in the infancy of how AI is going to be applied within the pharmacy,” Jeffery said.
“There’s a real big opportunity here to leverage the connection with a patient,” he added. “This is a little bit more downstream, but think about the individuals that you are caring for in between their visits. Wouldn’t it be nice if you’re able to have a more durable, lasting, ongoing communication with them about their medication needs between those visits. That’s where I think AI has the ability to bridge that and create educational content, create ways of connecting to patients and keeping your pharmacy connected with them.”
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