Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Pharmacy area

The Future is now: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Pharmacy area The world is moving rapidly towards the adoption and seamless integration of artificial intelligence (AI), including machine learning (ML) as a subset of AI throughout our daily lives. As a society, we are now beginning to see how this technology will become a ubiquitous part of life in the coming decades.

Health care, including the care industry, is not immune to this adoption. In contrast, the adoption of AI and ML in strategic planning and business models by various stakeholders in the health care industry has led to a charge. A recent survey of more than 50 executives from healthcare organizations that are currently developing AI technology shows that more than 50% of respondents believe AI will be ubiquitous in healthcare by 2025, but more than 25% of respondents say that adoption of AI will occur by 2025.1 As a profession, the pharmacy faces challenges in proving the value of contributing to the entire health care space. As time goes on, the rapid adoption and efficient use of AI technology can help strengthen the future value of the pharmacy profession.

Specialty pharmacies who want to be competitive leaders in this field are early adopters of available AI and ML technologies. This technology should be seen as a forward-looking, long-term investment in an asset that will differentiate the market now and in the years to come.

By investing in emerging AI technologies, a specialty pharmacy is sending a signal to the market that it is looking toward the future. In the eyes of manufacturers, preschoolers and payers, such investments will position the pharmacy as a partner, enabling their patients to receive the highest level of precision care, with great potential for positive results at lower costs.

How does Specialty Pharmacy leverage AI and ML to ensure the most beneficial outcomes for all stakeholders? The use of AI allows for more personalized, high-touch care for patients. While already a hallmark of a specialty pharmacy, this type of care will continue to grow through the use of AI technology in the coming years.

AI enables specialty pharmacies to provide individualized patients with more accurate care, with a focus on prevention and personalization that has not yet been seen. This increase in personalization correlates with the ability of AI to process and analyze large amounts of data in a hyper-efficient manner.

Budget improvements, lower operating costs and improved overall organizational efficiency can be seen as a positive result of AI data analysis. For example, a professor at the University of Toronto has recently used AI technology to plan radiation therapy for patients, even though they are not directly related to pharmacy.

With the use of AI, the operational processes are exponentially streamlined. Therefore, more support staff is available to assist those with different functions such as advance authorization and copy / financial assistance. Overall, saving time and money for the prescriber, the pharmacy value proposition for this important stakeholder is likely to increase sharply.

As AI and ML technologies become more sophisticated and refined, prescribers use this technology to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of conditions to enhance patient outcomes. In the study cited at the beginning of this article, survey respondents were ranked "Decision Support Systems" (to improve patient outcomes), with AI likely to improve over the next 5 to 10 years.

If a prescriber uses AI in their decision-making processes, they will certainly be more inclined to partner with a specialized specialty pharmacy that will use AI in their strategic planning and business model. For the payer, partnering with an AI-enabled specialty pharmacy is a mutually beneficial proposal.

The specialty pharmacy gains access to payer-covered lives, but the payer appears to offer its specialty pharmacy partner the most accurate care possible at the lowest cost, due to the many benefits listed above by AI. ML. While this is always a perennial issue, payers have increased their spending in recent years, especially in the specialty drug category.

Any ability to reduce costs to the specialty pharmacy payer is clearly an advantage. As mentioned earlier, a specialized pharmacy that embraces and integrates AI technology into its business model and operations sends a signal that has the potential to reduce costs compared to its competition.

Health care continues to move towards value-added contracting and care. As a consequence, payers will continue to favor partnerships with other organizations, including specialized pharmacies that can show value in the care they provide and are comfortable and use a value-added contract.

As AI and ML allow for an increase in the sophistication and depth of data collection and analysis, payers would prefer to partner with AI-enabled specialty pharmacies to be able to showcase the value of care provided. Currently, multiple companies are trying to promote AI adoption in the healthcare space, including in the specialty pharmacy field.

Large, international companies like Google and Philips want to be leaders in health care AI, but there are also multiple smaller companies that are trying to leverage their flexibility and versatility as they build to make a big impact now and in the years to come.

This use of ML streamlines processes, reduces waste, and reduces costs, all of which are ultimately unaffordable health care providers and organizations so they can focus on their patients more efficiently.

We are now beginning to scratch the surface of the potential that AI and ML have in health care.

Organization efficiency and the time available to deliver high-touch patient care to specialists, along with low costs and waste, are positive outcomes for a particular pharmacy with the adoption of AI and ML technology.

Ground-floor adoption of these technologies in the field of pharmaceutical care, especially in specialty pharmacies, will provide a unique and diverse competitive advantage both now and in the coming years.