PGEU acknowledges the valuable role that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can play as a support tool for community pharmacists to meet patient needs. AI has the potential to contribute to the transformation of the pharmacy sector, among others, by automating administrative and logistic tasks, optimizing supply chains, improving communication with patients or enhancing pharmaceutical care. By offering clinical decision support and increasing medication adherence, supporting preventive health campaigns, and predicting potential medicine shortages, AI can also contribute significantly to improving public health outcomes. However, the use of AI in community pharmacy should always complement, rather than replace, pharmacists’ professional expertise and oversight.

To promote a responsible use of AI in community pharmacy and realize its full potential, PGEU advocates for:

1. Establishing clear regulations and guidelines on AI use in community pharmacy, while addressing organizational challenges and responsibility concerns about the responsibility of the pharmacist in case of errors or adverse patient outcomes.


2. Clarifying the role of national authorities in evaluating and supervising AI systems deployed in community pharmacies.


3. Ensuring compliance with ethical and professional standards and the General Data Protection Regulation, particularly safeguarding patient confidentiality, informed consent, accountability of the pharmacy staff and transparency, as well as implementing access control mechanisms, and monitoring for unauthorized access.


4. Educating patients on AI’s role in community pharmacy to build trust and ensure informed consent, emphasizing that AI serves as a support and assisting tool and never as a replacement of the essential professional experience of the community pharmacist.


5. Promoting AI solutions and tools that enhance pharmacist-patient relationship without replacing in any way their direct interactions, in order to assist the pharmacist in providing personalized, high-quality patient-centered care.


6. Supporting system interoperability between AI applications and existing pharmacy and healthcare IT software.


7. Equipping community pharmacists with the necessary skills to work effectively with AI technologies, by updating pharmacy curricula and establishing continuous professional development programs.

Read the Position Paper below.