As health care goes digital, School of Pharmacy alumni at the forefront explore how wearables, AI, remote monitoring, and more are revolutionizing pharmacy

By Jessica Steinhoff

From clinical tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to wearable health devices, pharmacists are leveraging digital advancements to enhance patient care and drive innovation across the health care system.

University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy alumni Paria Sanaty Zadeh (PharmD ’17), Dalia Saleh (PharmD ’14), and Megan Coder (PharmD ’09) are at the forefront of this transformation, integrating digital solutions into practice.

“The digital therapeutics market has shifted over the past five years, from prescribed devices to off-the-shelf, and will continue to evolve for many years to come,” says Coder, vice president of the Society for Digital Mental Health’s Board of Directors and former chief policy officer and founder of the Digital Therapeutics Alliance.

“I believe those who embrace these emerging technologies quickly will set themselves apart in the coming years.”
—Dalia Saleh

From helping patients navigate wearable technology, to expanding telehealth and remote patient monitoring, and incorporating AI into pharmacy workflows, these leaders see a wealth of opportunities for pharmacists.

“I believe those who embrace these emerging technologies quickly will set themselves apart in the coming years,” says Saleh, vice president of enterprise care transformation at Advocate Health.

Wearables and therapeutic apps

Wearable health devices and digital therapeutics are providing patients with new ways to manage their health, and pharmacists are increasingly involved in guiding their use.

Among the many wearables transforming health care, continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) stand out as a key tool where pharmacists play an active role. These small devices provide continuous blood glucose readings, empowering both patients and health care providers with real-time insights. Sanaty Zadeh, director of practice implementation at the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), helps pharmacists implement and deliver CGM services by providing guidance on clinical best practices, patient education, workflow integration, and proper billing for these services.

“CGMs enable better patient monitoring, personalized therapeutic interventions, and enhanced patient insights for diabetes management,” she says.

Beyond CGMs and other prescribed devices like smart inhalers, anticoagulation monitors, and wearable drug delivery devices, digital therapeutics are becoming increasingly available. Software-driven interventions for specific medical conditions, digital therapeutics include clinically-validated therapy apps for mental health, AI-powered therapeutic chatbots, and sensor-based biofeedback systems designed for medical intervention. Pharmacists can assess the clinical utility of these tools and ensure patients use them safely and effectively.

“Just as pharmacists ask patients about non-prescription medications or supplements, they can start conversations about what types of wearables, apps, or sensor-based technologies they are already using,” says Coder, including smart watches or stress-monitoring rings. “By understanding how patients are already benefiting from readily available digital health technologies, pharmacists can learn about patient-tracked outcomes and patients’ future desire and capacity to leverage digital therapeutics, diagnostics, or monitoring tools in their care.”

Telepharmacy and remote monitoring

The expansion of telepharmacy and remote monitoring is helping pharmacists provide care beyond the traditional pharmacy setting. Sanaty Zadeh highlights the importance of telepharmacy, which enables pharmacists to provide remote medication evaluations and patient consultations. As healthcare delivery models evolve, these technologies are redefining patient access to pharmacists’ expertise. Pharmacogenomic tools, which use genetic data to personalize medication therapy, are also gaining traction.

“Digital health records and pharmacogenomic tools are becoming increasingly important in personalizing medication therapy,” she says. “Tools that integrate pharmacogenomic data into everyday pharmacy practice will help pharmacists make data-driven decisions, improving both patient outcomes and pharmacists’ ability to provide personalized, evidence-based care.”

Meanwhile, Saleh is helping understand how to leverage digital solutions across Advocate Health, a not-for-profit health system known for LiveWell, a health and wellness app on which patients can not only manage prescriptions and appointments, but also practice guided meditation and find healthy recipes. Before becoming vice president of care transformation in 2021, Saleh ran the system’s Wisconsin-based telepharmacy hub along with retail, mail order, compounding and specialty pharmacy operations.

One of Saleh’s proudest achievements is helping some of the system’s most vulnerable patients receive drug therapies at home during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the years, her team has helped develop innovative ways to deliver care from a distance, including a virtual chronic condition management program.

“It leverages virtual and digital tools to remotely care for patients in the comfort of their homes,” she explains. “Those with more complex medication treatment needs are escalated to a pharmacist.”

Sanaty Zadeh sees a similar opportunity for patients taking biosimilars and other high-touch specialty medications — which typically require close monitoring and careful management.

“Digital platforms that track patient adherence, monitor side effects, and provide patient-specific data on potential drug interactions can help pharmacists manage these therapies more effectively,” says Sanaty Zadeh.

AI-powered clinical tools

Beyond telepharmacy and remote monitoring, AI-powered clinical tools further enhance digital health by supporting pharmacists’ decision-making. As pharmacists take on expanded clinical responsibilities — including prescribing, disease state management, vaccine administration, and point-of-care testing — AI has the potential to alleviate time constraints and clinician paperwork     .

“Artificial intelligence can help free pharmacist time from non-clinical activities to focus on enhanced patient care, while also improving the way in which we deliver the care itself,” says Saleh.

According to Saleh, AI may also be useful for informing predictive analytics, guiding business decisions, and supercharging non-clinical aspects of pharmacy operations.

“We are looking into how advanced automation and large language models can help streamline our medication prior authorization processes,” she says, noting how these tools could help prevent staff burnout while improving medication access for patients.

Coder echoes the sentiment, saying that as AI is increasingly embedded into digital health tools, pharmacists need to be prepared for the possibilities.

“AI and machine learning will not only introduce new product functionalities, but also the ability to better ascertain predictions and outcomes from the myriad data points generated by digital health tools,” she says.

It could also have a role in patient safety. Sanaty Zadeh recently participated in a research study exploring how AI could verify medications by comparing the physical product to its digital records. This could help pharmacists identify discrepancies before dispensing medications.

“AI could serve as a safety net in the medication verification process, as this technology could be integrated into pharmacy practice to further reduce the risk of medication errors and improve workflow efficiency,” she says.

Integrating pharmacists into digital health ecosystems

As health systems adopt new digital tools, pharmacists must remain active participants to ensure that technologies are designed with pharmacy practice in mind.

Sanaty Zadeh’s work with Doximity, the leading digital platform for U.S. medical professionals, is an example of how pharmacists can advocate for the profession in this evolving tech environment. As the only pharmacist in the company’s Digital Health Fellowship, which gives clinicians more say in the development of clinical workflow tools for their practices, she’s testing and sharing feedback on various digital health tools. One example is Doximity GPT, a HIPAA-compliant AI writing assistant designed to speed up clinicians’ creation of written content in their practice.          

“By integrating AI into routine workflows, pharmacists can quickly draft consultation summaries and patient letters, reducing administrative burdens and allowing more time for clinical management and direct patient care,” she says.

She’s also eager to explore AI-driven medication management platforms that distill patient data from electronic health records to support treatment planning and aid clinical decision-making.    

“These platforms use machine learning to identify risks for medication non-adherence and potential medication-related problems before they arise,” Sanaty Zadeh explains. “I’m excited by their capabilities to improve patient outcomes by equipping pharmacists with actionable insights to optimize therapy regimens.”

In addition to Doximity GPT, she’s also provided feedback on Doximity Dialer, a HIPAA-compliant telemedicine tool that lets medical professionals make secure voice and video calls from their personal smartphones without revealing their personal phone numbers.

“I’m examining the tools through the lens of pharmacy practice, ensuring that pharmacists have access to the same level of digital tools as other health care providers,” says Sanaty Zadeh. “This work is critical to integrating pharmacists into telehealth, digital health ecosystems, and interdisciplinary care models.”

Exploring the horizon of digital medicine

Even 30 years ago, an FDA-approved smartphone app to treat substance use disorder or AI to streamline clinician workflows would have seemed pure science fiction. But as this new technology rapidly advances, pharmacists are on the leading edge, poised to leverage the new tools to enhance practice and patient care.

Looking ahead, Sanaty Zadeh hopes to see data interoperability advances that facilitate cross-platform sharing of patient information. She expects health information exchange networks to play a major part by giving pharmacists access to patients’ full medication histories, lab results, and clinical notes from across care settings.

“Pharmacists are in a prime position to be the experts patients turn to with their questions and curiosities related to this rapidly evolving ecosystem.”
—Megan Coder

“This improved data sharing will help pharmacists identify medication-related concerns, prevent duplicate or interacting therapies, and enhance care coordination,” she says. “As pharmacists become more integrated into interdisciplinary care teams, having access to real-time, standardized patient data will better inform clinical decision-making.”

As patients themselves delve into the world of digital health and are inundated with new data about themselves, pharmacist awareness is critical to providing informed guidance.

“There’s an entire ecosystem of wellness, medication management apps, remote monitoring products, and digital biomarkers that patients can leverage in their care,” says Coder. “Pharmacists are in a prime position to be the experts patients turn to with their questions and curiosities related to this rapidly evolving ecosystem.”