Introduction
Pharmaceutical learning has three separate stages: “The Empirical Era” (up to 1940), “The Scientific Era” (1940-1970), and “The Patient Safety Era” (after 1970), all of which were based on clinical pharmacy. Baldoni et al. (2019) also asserted that economic and social values, as well as technology (such as computers, treatments, communications, and robots), will provide substantial obstacles in the future. McCarthy et al. (2021) advocated the development of detailed information, attitudes, abilities, and habits to promote pharmacist responsibilities in the healthcare system in an article entitled “Getting ready the subsequent pharmacist: curricular development.” The “future pharmacists,” according to this statement, must be instructors, critical thinkers, judgment calls, communicators, leaders, and managers. The utilization of digital technology in pharmacy practice and the coronavirus illness outbreak provides one of the most significant difficulties in the profession’s history for these “future pharmacists,” who are not now practicing pharmacists.
Discussion
Community pharmacies have become an increasingly significant initial point of interaction with the healthcare system for people with health issues or who need trustworthy information and guidance during the COVID-19 epidemic. Despite the pandemic’s continuous face-to-face interactions at neighborhood pharmacies, the necessity for social exclusion has expedited unsettling developments in patient care procedures. As a result, teleconsultations using the internet service and other communication tools like phones and computers have become more popular for treating geographically separated patients.
Other digital technologies, such as barcode drug dispensing and robotic, patient electronic health records, computer-based decision-support systems, and the use of artificial intelligence and big data, are also increasingly being incorporated into pharmacy practice in addition to the use of teleconsultations (McCarthy et al., 2021). Designing thorough studies that pursue adopting evidence-based strategies in deploying and assessing digital interventions from differing viewpoints is a matter of essential importance and necessity concerning this theme. By doing so, high-quality evidence may benefit various stakeholders, including directors, senior managers, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, doctors, nurses, other medical practitioners, and patients. To promote substantial proof approaches in deploying and assessing pharmaceutical interventions (with or without using digital technologies), application science, and cognitive theories. Various stakeholders’ perspectives are utilized in pharmacy practice.
The curricula should encourage the development of particular competencies for the cognitive, mindful, and efficient use of digital instruments in this new era of pharmacy practice. The growth of social, ethical, and behavioral skills, clinical competencies, and digital expertise will be necessary due to the intensive and widespread use of technologies while offering pharmaceutical care to patients (Le et al., 2020). It is crucial to remember, though, that a lack of humanistic skills in digital literacy, such as the capacity to care for others and communicate in a confusing environment, might worsen technocratic traits. Future pharmacists must therefore learn non-binary benefit-risk judgment in unpredictable circumstances, empathy, and a culture of caring. Technology should replace mechanical and repetitive tasks so pharmacists can operate more effectively and intellectually.
The influence of the Fourth Industrial Age on the pharmaceutical profession has been covered in recent studies (commentaries). These investigations, however, emphasized professional practice over pharmacological education. According to McCarthy et al. (2021), the latest era in pharmaceutical training is not the “final word” in terms of preparing aspiring pharmacists for the issues confronted by academic institutions and professionals in the field of patient care. The new wave in pharmacy practice and education necessitates the training of disruptive educators who can use teaching methods tailored to the digital environment. Educational processes suitable for incorporating and encouraging the use of efficient emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, big data, and virtual environments for digital natives.
After the COVID-19 epidemic started, the usage of digital technology in pharmacy education grew. Many pharmacy programs have shifted their teaching methods to a virtual style (without face-to-face contact) as a result of the pandemic’s health restrictions (McCarthy et al., 2021). Despite this, there were certain obstacles to the adoption of digital technologies in teaching and learning, including access, infrastructure, a lack of technological proficiency, and opposition to change. Additionally, there are obstacles in the evaluation process, such as shifting evaluation weighting and evaluation techniques (such as using timed exams or open-book exams), distractions at home during the assessment process, educators’ inability to provide a reasonable analysis among students, and confined communication and evaluation from teachers with learners, respectively, when planning assessments and providing feedback on their performance (Ibrahim et al., 2020). On the other hand, during the COVID-19 epidemic, the assistance provided to instructors by the institution, their respective departments, senior instructors, professors, and learners with prior remote online teaching-learning experience was a facilitator.
The “new reality” of pharmacy programs after the pandemic will be defined by the continuing advancement of technology via new methods (face-to-face, virtual, or combined) of instructing, supervising, and assessing learning (Le et al., 2020). The advantages of both in-person and online learning are combined in a hybrid setting. This teaching-learning environment is practical for pharmacy education; nevertheless, it needs careful development, facilitation, and improvement in response to student input, as well as recognition of the larger units of this educational technique.
Improved educator preparation has been emphasized in American publications for more than ten years (Le et al., 2020) as a prerequisite for teaching future pharmacists. It is also important to emphasize that future professionals are not just trained by new or retrained instructors. Additionally, it is essential to have instructors that are involved in the process of supervising students during clinical care and who emphasize all the opportunities for utilizing technology to improve patient health outcomes. Additionally, it is crucial to provide native digital students internships to foster the initiative, empathetic nature, and shared accountability needed to create patient care models and respond to emerging societal demands.
Another aspect to be considered while training the new generation of digital-native pharmacists is their greater capacity for self-directed learning with a focus on using technologies aimed at care practice, such as serious digital games, virtual patient software, and virtual or augmented reality. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have shown that these technologies are effective in developing knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to the patient (Le et al., 2020; Baldoni et al., 2019). During this generational transition, it is necessary to recognize the numerous advantages of these tools in professional development, because these tools allow the simulation of clinical practice situations in safe and controlled environments for learning, with no risk of patient harm, but with the possibility of students’ reflection as well as continuous feedback on learning and performance.
Moreover, the utilization of technology with no explicit pedagogical aims does not ensure that the desired educational objectives are met. To ensure the success of the suggested learning aim, teaching technologies must be created, assessed, and verified in real-time. Technology must also be gradually included in the syllabus and other conventional teaching techniques or tools at progressively higher degrees of complexity (Dat et al., 2022). To develop qualifications for patient care via learning, lectures, case discussions, automated serious games, virtual patient applications, computer-simulated reality, controlled patients, and providing care to actual patients, the era in pharmacy education may therefore entail both analog and electronic technologies.
Conclusion
Pessimists contend that the 4th Industrial Revolution, which places a focus on automated and artificial intelligence, might result in the abolition of conventional, mechanized, and repetitive professional activity, which would diminish the significance and societal demands of pharmacists. (Baldoni et al., 2019) assert that automated and artificial intelligence has steadily been incorporated into everyday practice, maximizing the time and accessibility of numerous healthcare professionals for patient care. The development of activities linked to healthcare management and the defense of patient rights, according to these authors, are the primary challenges for the profession’s future when taking into account that the pharmacist’s role in healthcare is founded on caring for the community. Therefore, digital pharmacists must be compassionate and respect patients as humankind in the new generation of pharmacy professionals and learning. Because of this, the field of pharmacy cannot wait for the gradual use of digital technology in practice and education. The present has turned into the past while we were talking about it, and the future is now the present. In actuality, tomorrow is today!
References
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Le, T., Toscani, M., & Colaizzi, J. (2020). Telepharmacy: A new paradigm for our profession. Journal of Pharmacy Practice, 33(2), 176–182.
McCarthy, C., Bateman, M. T., Jr, Henderson, T., Jean, R., & Evans, R. (2021). Adoption of telepharmacy within a community health center: A focus on clinical pharmacy services. Journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy : JAACP, 4(8), 924–933.