Pharmacist’s Perspective on Artificial Intelligence and Barriers towards its Adoption in Community Pharmacy

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is remarkably changing pharmacy practice by improving patient-care, clinical decision-making, and medication management. Even though AI has a lot of potential, it is still not widely adopted in community pharmacies, especially in developing countries like Pakistan, because of knowledge gaps, lack of training, and various technological, organizational, and ethical barriers. The aim of this study is to explore the knowledge, attitude, and willingness of community pharmacists (CPs) in Punjab, Pakistan, toward the adoption of AI, and it will also look for barriers that might make it hard to integrate into pharmacy practice. A cross-sectional study was conducted using a structured questionnaire in several cities of Punjab. Most CPs reported having heard of the term AI (95.2%), but most of them have a moderate level of knowledge of AI applications (35.2%). The CPs were very open; their attitude towards adopting AI applications in community pharmacy was strong and positive, but with concerns about the effect of AI on job security. The perceived barriers reported by the majority of CPs were a lack of AI information, difficulty to apply AI, a lack of training, a lack of time, and high running cost. In general, CPs demonstrated that most of them are willing to implement AI and have a positive attitude towards the adoption of AI, but there are still significant barriers limiting its adoption in community pharmacy practice. The findings suggest that there is an urgent need to design training programs, update the curriculum, and conduct seminars to address the challenges and potential of AI applications.