Artificial intelligence can be a valuable support tool in certain pharmaceutical tasks, yet its growing presence also creates new challenges for pharmacists. They now need to help patients interpret and critically assess the advice they receive from AI systems. This was one of the key messages shared by Dr Amir Reza Ashraf, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Pécs, during the VISION.A conference in Berlin, which is dedicated to digital transformation and the future of pharmacy.
The conference, held for the tenth time, is one of Europe’s leading professional forums in pharmacy. The 30 September event titled “KI-Turbo für die Apotheke” (“AI Turbo for the Pharmacy”) focused on digital health and the evolving role of pharmacists, with special emphasis on e-prescriptions, telemedicine, and AI- and data-driven pharmaceutical solutions.
At the event, leading healthcare experts, technology developers, and pharmaceutical decision-makers shared their insights into how digitalisation is reshaping pharmacy practice and patient care. Key topics included current challenges such as medication safety, the effective use of health data, and the integration of new technologies into everyday pharmaceutical work.
Dr Ashraf gave a presentation on the role of artificial intelligence in pharmacy, speaking alongside prominent experts such as Dr Georg Kippels, Parliamentary State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Health, and Sylvia Thun, Professor of Digital Medicine and Interoperability at Charité, one of Europe’s most renowned medical centres.
He emphasised that we are living in the era of an AI revolution, with AI-supported systems already assisting both diagnosis and faster recovery across various fields of health sciences.
“In my presentation, I stressed that AI is not a miracle cure but a tool. Artificial intelligence is like a Swiss Army knife – extremely useful in certain situations, but it does not solve every problem,” he said. His research focuses on developing and evaluating human-centred AI solutions to improve medication safety.
“Today, AI can support pharmacists in certain tasks. As our previous studies have shown, automated medication-dispensing verification systems can perform well under specific conditions. In other areas, however—such as checking drug–drug interactions—AI systems can frequently make mistakes or hallucinate. This clearly shows that pharmacists’ professional expertise remains essential for accurately assessing and solving therapeutic problems,” he added.
According to him, the role of pharmacists is not diminishing in the age of AI—rather, it is transforming. “For years, healthcare professionals had to deal with the ‘Dr Google’ phenomenon, when patients attempted to self-diagnose. Today it is increasingly common for them to turn not to a search engine but to large language models, asking ChatGPT for recommendations. We must stress that experts are not AI systems but pharmacists and physicians, who are qualified to help patients. Our role now includes a new dimension: guiding patients to interpret AI-generated advice correctly and critically, and explaining why they should not rely on ChatGPT without professional judgement.”
Dr Amir Reza Ashraf’s presentation can be viewed here; it starts at 1:05:00.
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UP Faculty of Pharmacy, generated by ChatGPT
UP Faculty of Pharmacy, generated by ChatGPT