In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has spiked the healthcare industry’s interest in AI to unprecedented heights, but that doesn’t mean the new suite of technologies hasn’t already been having an impact in specific sectors.
Writing recently at Pharmacy Times, for example, Doug Zurawski, PharmD, senior vice president at Clinical Strategy at Kit Check, an automated and intelligent medication management solutions provider, sings the numerous advances that have already begun, his view, to transform the pharma industry for the better.
First on Zurawski’s list is an issue that is currently front and center as providers battle the coronavirus: drug shortages. As he explains, however, “AI is aiding in addressing drug shortages by examining mass amounts of data on current medications and their applications, and then actually predicting how they can be coupled in new ways to create effective treatments.
“This could potentially address drug shortages by expanding the medications that are available and proven to treat a specific disease. The automation of this task is a major relief to researchers in the pharma industry, and it’s helping us get to life-sustaining—or even lifesaving—therapies more quickly.”
The flip side of that problem is another area where Zurawski says AI is already helping: drug recalls.
Calling them “another major pain point for the pharma industry (that) can have very serious consequences for providers and patients,” Zurawski notes that “through the use of AI, we have the potential to pinpoint exactly where any contamination or defect originated in the supply chain, (and) with AI-enabled item level visibility software solutions, the pharmaceutical supply chain can track every vial and syringe from manufacturer to patient, ensuring a recall is executed as quickly as possible and without creating cascading roadblocks to patient care.”
A specific, more acute problem that was prevalent in the news before the pandemic is the opioid epidemic which, in Zurawski’s views, has been “fueled by years of irresponsible oversight of distribution and a lapse in true medication intelligence.”
According to Zurawski, the advantage of AI-powered technology in the struggle with opioid abuse is that it “provides increased insight into prescribing habits, as well as visibility into the chain of custody of controlled substances. As AI is able to analyze huge data sets of provider behaviors, the technology can flag abnormalities in the management of these medications, making it easier for hospital personnel to investigate and confirm the root cause of any suspicious activity and/or behavior.”
The bottom line, says Zurawski, is that AI is clearly here to stay, and the use of AI gives pharmacists more of an opportunity to take an active role in patient care, which is becoming ever-more important as value-based care models continue to take center stage in healthcare.