KMCH College of Pharmacy, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are transforming pharmaceutical care by enhancing decision-making, optimizing workflows, and improving patient outcomes. Applied in areas such as medication management, patient monitoring, and personalized treatment plans, these technologies support pharmacists in selecting medications, predicting treatment responses, and identifying drug interactions—reducing errors and hospital readmissions. AI also aids in real-time monitoring and operational improvements in hospital and community pharmacies. However, challenges persist, including data security, ethical considerations, regulatory needs, and some resistance to adopting AI-driven systems. This review consolidates findings from 16 articles, highlighting both the benefits and barriers to AI integration. Overall, while AI and ML hold great promise for enhancing patient safety and streamlining pharmacy practice, overcoming issues related to data privacy, ethics, and awareness among pharmacists will be essential to fully unlock their potential in pharmaceutical care.
Globally, artificial intelligence has transformed a wide number of industries as a disruptive technology. Innovation has been led by artificial intelligence, which has made previously unthinkable advancements possible. Through the use of clever codes/algorithms, robotics, and data discovery, artificial intelligence has opened the door to efficiency and the ability to make decisions. The field of artificial intelligence studies intelligent computer systems that produce outcomes akin to those of human attention. Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a vital component of all sectors, with practical applications in a wide range of technical and scientific domains. Even with a scarcity of pharmacists, the pharmaceutical care unit has performed well in meeting the increasing need for patient monitoring over the last 15 years. The Pharmaceutical Care Unit has also done an excellent job of utilizing technology automation to enable safer, more accurate, and efficient workflows in all pharmacy environments.
Overview Of Ai In General:
AI has the fundamental capacity of a robotic system or computer to analyze data and produce results that resemble human thought processes during problem solving, learning and decision- making. A branch of computer science called artificial intelligence focuses on using symbolic programming to solve issues. It has advanced dramatically into a discipline of solving problems with numerous applications in engineering, industry, and medicine. AI in the pharmaceutical sector refers to the application of automated algorithms to the tasks that often call for human brain. Throughout the last five years, the use of artificial intelligence in the pharmaceutical sector has completely changed how researchers develop medications, manage illnesses, keep an eye on patients, and much more. We would call a computer “intelligent” if it could solve real-world issues by growing autonomously and learning from its failures Following this, AI systems are becoming more adaptable, general, and “thinking,” rather than specific. As everyone knows, intelligence is the ability to acquire and use knowledge. Knowledge is the information that experience conveys. Experience is the term used to describe knowledge that is gained via trainings.
Drawbacks Of Artificial Intelligence:
AI has the ability to make tremendous progress toward the aim of providing pharmaceutical care that is unique, anticipatory, proactive, and reactive. We believe AI will continue down this path and eventually become a useful tool for the pharmaceutical sector. Concerns about data security and confidentiality also arise with AI-based solutions.
Health records are a common target for hackers during data breaches because they include delicate and significant data records(20). The lack of established guidelines for the moral use of AI and machine learning in pharmaceutical care has made the problem worse. There is controversy about the extent to which AI can be employed ethically in the pharmaceutical sector because there are no defined regulations in place. Therefore, protecting the privacy of medical data is crucial. Moreover, numerous tasks could be automated by artificial intelligence, requiring retraining and possibly leading to job losses.
Artificial Intelligence's Application In Pharmaceutical Care:
Patient care:
AI has an effect on patient outcomes when it comes to pharmacological care. Artificial intelligence companies in the medical field develop a system that supports patients holistically. Furthermore, clinical intelligence offers patients insights to enhance their quality of life by analyzing medical data.
Maternal care:
One possible method to detect high-risk mothers and lower the rate of maternal death and postpartum complications is the following:
a) Predicting the expectant mom’s risk of delivery by utilizing digital-health data and AI
b) Expanding patient accessibility to both regular and high sensitive care during their period of pregnancy by utilizing digital technology.
Function Of Artificial Intelligence In The Profession Of Pharmacy:
Enhancing the medication management:
One of the main areas where artificial intelligence can have an impact is medication management. A decision support system powered by artificial intelligence assists pharmacists in selecting the appropriate dosage of medications and in identifying potential drug interactions and side effects. In order to improve patient outcomes, artificial intelligence can impact personalised treatment by assisting in the development of a treatment plan that takes into account each patient's unique genetics, makeup, lifestyle, and medical background.
Improving patient safety and results:
By reducing adverse events and hospital readmissions, the use of artificial intelligence technology in pharmaceutical care can help with determining and preventing medication/prescription errors, such as incorrect dosages or possible drug interactions. Artificial intelligence keeps track of patient information and spots warning signals for unfavorable outcomes early on, enabling quick response and averting major repercussions.
Artificial Intelligence In Hospital Pharmacy:
Specifically in medical applications, it provides pharmacy technicians with an unmatched opportunity to improve their working relationship with physicians, by providing immediate information on patient medications, possible interactions between drugs, and dose recommendations based on combined patient data. AI-driven solutions facilitate interactions between pharmacists and clinicians. AI has the potential to provide proper pharmaceutical regimens, doses, and fixed dose drug combinations because to its huge understanding of patient data along with therapeutic guidance.
For example, IBM Watson for Oncology is an AI-powered application that helps physicians identify possible cancer drug treatments based on the unique characteristics of each patient. Watson presents treatment recommendations based on a patient's medical history, a review of the body of research, and data from clinical trials. This allows Watson to identify potential targets for certain cancer types. AI is essential for enhancing quality likewise. Artificial intelligence (AI) can shed light on potential systemic issues by seeing trends in medication/prescription errors and adverse drug reactions, therefore influencing plans for quality enhancement. In 2018, for instance, Google revealed a noteworthy advancement in research on cardiovascular disease (CVD). Using machine learning techniques, their researchers developed an AI framework that can determine a person's potential risk of heart disease based just on an examination of their retina. By simplifying technical medical guidance into languages that are simple to comprehend and absorb, artificial intelligence (AI) plays a crucial role in educating patients. When given AI capabilities, pharmacists can quickly produce evidence-based treatment suggestions during consultations by using the technology's quick analysis of guidelines, new research findings, and patient-specific data. This strengthens collaborative healthcare processes.
Artificial Intelligence In Community Pharmacy:
In a number of ways, artificial intelligence (AI) can be extremely helpful to community pharmacists as they expand their pharmacy operations. The following are some ways AI can help your independent pharmacy expand.
AI can track market trends and rival’s pricing tactics to give community pharmacists up-to-date information and insights. An artificial intelligence-powered pricing engine that provides patients with competitive price while maintaining pharmacy profitability, and EPIC Rx have collaborated. Community pharmacists can now reach a wider audience outside their physical location thanks to AI-powered telepharmacy platforms and online services(1). Artificial Intelligence has the potential to increase client base and income streams by enabling remote consultations, medication management, and online prescription processing. Pharmacists may devote more time to patient care and important business initiatives by having AI-powered technologies handle tedious administrative activities. Streamlining activities increases productivity overall, decreases errors, and boosts efficiency.
Community pharmacists can secure their business and avoid financial losses by using AI algorithms to monitor transactions and spot anomalies or possible fraud(13). AI can also identify possible mistakes in prescription distribution or billing, guaranteeing precision and compliance. AI bots and digital assistants can answer generalized customers questions, handle pharmaceutical queries, and handle general inquiries. This makes it possible for independent pharmacists to provide 24/7 assistance, improving client satisfaction and fostering confidence. AI can help with online presence optimization for independent pharmacies, including website and social media profile optimization. In order to increase search engine optimization (SEO) and online exposure and drive more organic traffic to their online platforms, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered applications can monitor website traffic, user activity, and search engine data. By tracking patient's medicine usage, providing individualized support, and sending automated reminders to patients, artificial intelligence (AI) can assist independent pharmacies in implementing medication adherence programs. Patients benefit from these programs, and happy consumers are more likely to tell others about the drugstore. Community pharmacists may improve their business operations, provide better customer service, and maintain their competitiveness in the quickly changing healthcare market by utilizing AI technologies efficiently.
Obstacles To Integrating Artificial Intelligence Into Pharmacy Practice:
Requirements for learning and making correct predictions from artificial intelligence algorithms include a large volume of patient data, for which data accessibility and quality are essential(2). In addition, more openness is required regarding the decision-making processes used by artificial intelligence systems when using insights produced by AI. The field of personalized medicine needs access to enormous amounts of patient data, including genealogy, aspects of lifestyle, and health records and medical/medication history in order to integrate AI. In order to safeguard patient data and enable artificial intelligence systems to acquire the required data, privacy considerations must also be taken into consideration.
Barriers to adoption:
Barriers to function:
Barriers to improvements:
METHODOLOGY:
In order to find relevant publications for this narrative review, a search was conducted throughout PubMed, Google Scholar, NCBI and Scopus databases to discover subjects of interest. The relevant literature was found using a variety of search phrases, such as "artificial intelligence," "AI," "AI in Pharmaceutical care," "Machine learning in pharmacy," "deep learning," "patient safety," and "clinical decision support systems," "Artificial intelligence’s application," “Patient care ", "clinical pharmacy," "pharmacy practice," "Functions of AI," "pharmacy," "pharmacist," "medication management," "barriers," "obstacle to adoption," "optimization of medication," and "pharmaceutical care." A review of the relevant article’s references was conducted in order to find possibly significant papers related to the subject matter.
Inclusion And Exclusion:
Out of total of 32 articles, we have removed roughly 5 articles for retrieval purposes. The analysis of reported outcomes had been conducted using the 27 remaining publications that have been included (shown in Fig. 1).
Fig. 1: Prisma framework-based Inclusion and Exclusion criteria.
RESULTS:
Based on the PRISMA framework, 16 articles were chosen for our study. Among the 16 articles, 88% (n=14) of them discussed about the positive and helpful use of artificial intelligence in pharmaceutical care. They also discussed about the effects of AI on patient safety, medication adherence, and patient counselling, patient monitoring as well as the use of artificial intelligence in guidance of the patients with regard to medication usage and medication administration. However, 6% (n=1) of the articles discuss about the challenges in artificial intelligence, barriers for the implantation of artificial intelligence, economical issues and challenges in data management. Remaining 6% (n=1) of the articles discuss about how pharmacist have to adapt with AI and how they are ignorant of it, lack of awareness about artificial intelligence, developmental issues, lack of social acceptance for the implantation of artificial intelligence and job displacement (as shown in Fig. 2).
Fig. 2: Result based on Prisma framework.
DISCUSSION:
Applications of AI in pharmaceutical care seek to examine the connection between patient outcomes and methods of treatment or prevention. Artificial intelligence (AI) has applications in drug monitoring, dispensing, treatment protocol development, personalized medicine, and patient monitoring. By providing individualized services including counselling, patient safety, etc., Pharmacists can monitor patients who are at danger by using real-time data from wearables and health trackers. This data can be analyzed by AI, saving time, money, and human labour. AI is lowering hospital readmission rates, preventing medical errors, and maximizing the effectiveness of the workflow. AI is already utilized in pharmacy management systems and will soon be able to use patient data to identify drug-related issues in a timely manner. Pharmacists will have less work thanks to this technology, which will free them up to concentrate on important drug-related issue. Massive amounts of data, including those from EHRs (Electronic Health Records), insurance claims, prescription drugs or user-generated content like fitness trackers or purchase histories are necessary for AI systems to be trained. The availability of healthcare data is a complex matter. Health data is costly for organizations overall, and there is a built-in reluctance to share data between hospitals because each patient's data is seen as hospital property. Economically, every patient cannot afford the devices which are used for tracking the individual health data. Additionally, a single patient may see several different doctors and insurance companies over time, which could result in the data being separated into several formats. This could result in inaccurate or missing data, a higher chance of mistakes, and higher costs associated with data collection.
CONCLUSION:
In conclusion, there are possibilities and problems associated with integrating artificial intelligence into pharmacy practice. Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the practice of pharmacy, while there are several obstacles to overcome before artificial intelligence can be used and improved. It has the potential to simplify tasks and increase operational efficiency. Artificial intelligence is changing the way pharmacists provide their services, from enhancing patient safety and treatment outcomes to optimizing workflows and providing individualized care. To maximize artificial intelligence's potential to improve patient care and pharmacy practice, it is imperative to address the issues, offer the required training, and collaborate. Hence, we conclude that the artificial intelligence can be deliberately applied in the field of pharmaceutical care to reduce the amount of work done by pharmacist and for the well being of patients.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Not applicable
Conflict of Interest:
The authors declare no conflict of interest. This review was conducted independently, without any financial, professional, or personal relationships that could influence or bias the findings presented. All perspectives and conclusions are based solely on a critical assessment of the current literature on the applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in pharmaceutical care.
REFERENCES
Lokesh Kumar Boopathi*, Nandhini Raja, Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Pharmaceutical Care: A Systematic Review, Int. J. of Pharm. Sci., 2024, Vol 2, Issue 12, 425-432. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14274341
10.5281/zenodo.14274341
