Harnessing ChatGPT for digital tools in pharmacy practice

Large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT (OpenAI), represent a paradigm shift in the application of artificial intelligence (AI) across various fields, including healthcare. In pharmacy research, LLMs have demonstrated potential utility, though challenges regarding response reproducibility, inconsistent accuracy, and information privacy persist. While LLMs can generate functional code, the usefulness of this capability for pharmacists remains underexplored. This commentary presents a practical example of how a pharmacist, drawing on digital competency, engaged with ChatGPT to create tools that support specific practice tasks, by requesting code. These include a calculator for pharmacokinetic parameters, volume and weight-based calculators, drug-drug interaction checks from a custom data table, and a hyperlink webpage tool to support multilingual translation of consumer medicines information documents. The tools were created through iterative prompting and are presented as functional prototypes, each of which passed a pilot functionality test. This commentary encourages pharmacists to enhance their digital competence to explore practice-relevant innovation through engagement with generative AI. It also highlights the value clinicians may gain through initiating such explorations as a foundation for potential collaboration with technology experts. Finally, the commentary discusses regulatory considerations related to pharmacists' tool creation using AI, including issues on information privacy and task responsibility. Clinicians who actively leverage their digital competency to engage with AI may contribute to shaping the future of digital support tools within pharmacy practice while advancing their professional roles in the evolving landscape of healthcare technology.