The healthcare sector is bracing itself for the repercussions of a significant decline in the number of graduating pharmacists, raising concerns about the future of pharmacy care delivery.
Recent data indicate a notable reduction—by nearly 10% less, according to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP)—in the graduation rates of pharmacy students across the United States. AACP also found that pharmacy school applications have declined by nearly 60% within the last decade. This trend has prompted stakeholders to address the potential implications on patient care and access to essential medications.
The decreasing number of pharmacy graduates has become a notable concern within the healthcare sector. This plummet is attributed to various factors, including changes in career preferences among prospective students, the prevalent perception of pharmacists experiencing burnout and financial constraints linked to pursuing pharmacy education. As a consequence, the pipeline of qualified pharmacists entering the workforce is experiencing a notable contraction.
Addressing the decline in pharmacy graduates requires more than just boosting enrollment numbers. We need to tackle the issue at its core.
Burnout is a significant deterrent for many potential graduates. It necessitates comprehensive strategies that embrace innovative solutions like artificial intelligence–driven automation. By automating the tedious administrative work that often leads to burnout and detracts from patient care, these solutions address the prevalent manual and administrative tasks. This, in turn, makes the job more appealing by allowing pharmacy teams to concentrate more on patient care, a primary reason people are drawn to the profession.
Innovative Solutions
Consider the variety of nonclinical, labor-intensive tasks ranging from document data entry and auditing to savings capture, payor rate optimization and inventory management. These workflows are pervasive and often complex, with messy data that simple automation software struggles to handle. AI offers a solution by streamlining complex decision-making and disparate data processes, allowing it to effectively act on these intricate workflows.
By leveraging technologies like AI, pharmacy teams can streamline workflows, enhance efficiency and alleviate the burden on pharmacy teams. This not only improves the attractiveness of the profession leading to increased graduation rates but also immediately helps alleviate the burnout exacerbated by low graduation rates.
Beyond addressing labor shortages precipitated by declining graduation rates, these technologies inevitably also end up redefining the patient journey for the better. Given AI’s capacity to replicate sophisticated decision-making processes, envision a scenario where AI extracts information from handwritten notes containing vital patient medication data, a task that, prior to innovations in optical character recognition and natural language processing, needed to be completed by a human. Machine learning is then employed to analyze these collected data across currently disjointed data sources, proactively predicting potential issues and preventing human errors.
As an outcome, pharmacists are alerted for proactive intervention at the exact step in the workflow that is required for their input. By automating these administrative tasks and offering insights surpassing individual capabilities, it allows pharmacists to allocate more time to direct patient care and other critical tasks.
Inventory Management and 340B Auditing
Other prime examples of utilizing AI automation in pharmacy operations include leveraging it for inventory optimization and planning, 340B auditing and financial reporting, and missed claims qualification identification. Administrative tasks like these can be most successfully executed by leveraging AI. We’ve been fortunate to witness how pharmacy operations teams across healthcare, from health-system pharmacies to long-term care pharmacies, have prioritized AI innovation, leading to more efficient and effective workflows.
As pharmacy teams assess AI software solutions for their workflows, they should identify automations that help alleviate strain caused by labor shortages and declining pharmacist numbers. Prioritize purpose-built pharmacy operations automation solutions, as generic tools will likely not address pharmacy’s unique complexities including interoperability challenges and compliance requirements. Collaborate closely with vendors with backgrounds in pharmacy operations and tailored solutions to specific pharmacy requirements, developing a comprehensive implementation strategy. Continuous monitoring and feedback gathering post-implementation are also essential for successful onboarding.
The reduced number of graduating pharmacists presents a significant challenge, but within this challenge lies an opportunity for innovation. By embracing AI-driven automation, we can mitigate labor shortages, enhance efficiency and elevate patient care to unprecedented heights. Let us seize this opportunity not only to address immediate concerns but also to chart a course toward a future of enhanced healthcare delivery and innovation.
Ms. Liu is the CEO and founder of Plenful, an AI-powered workflow automation tool that optimizes pharmacy operations.