When we think about healthcare, hospitals and primary care physicians often come to mind. But this picture is missing one important piece: pharmacies.
Today, pharmacies are at the front line of patient care. Yet the number of pharmacies nationwide is being reduced, and staff are feeling the pain of these reductions. Couple that with the routine and repetitive tasks that many pharmacy staff spend hours completing, and it adds up to a workforce overloaded and on the edge of burnout.
This isn’t just a problem for staff. It’s a problem for all of us. Job satisfaction is a key factor not only in pharmacists’ performance but in patient trust. Research has shown higher job satisfaction correlates with better staff engagement and improved patient outcomes. The negative effects of burnout among pharmacy staff don’t just affect the people behind the counter. In today’s healthcare environment, patient experience is a proven driver of performance, and pharmacies play a critical role in shaping that experience.
Agentic AI can help. This technology can improve patient satisfaction while reducing staff burnout in hospitals. It relieves the burden of important-yet-repetitive tasks from pharmacy staff, letting them focus on the patients that most need their help and expertise.
Agentic AI can reshape pharmacy engagement, improving patient satisfaction and outcomes while addressing staff well-being.
Why Burnout?
Pharmacy staff are feeling a double crunch. Pharmacies are seeing an increase in patient need, as they often act as places of primacy care for those lacking access to care. Shane Jerominski, PharmD, explained that customers often go first to pharmacies with questions about over-the-counter medicine or when deciding to seek urgent care or go to the emergency room. Pharmacy staff are on the front line of healthcare in a way they weren’t a few decades ago.
But pharmacies are closing nationwide, creating pharmacy deserts in many communities, leading to staffing issues and worse patient service and outcomes. Researchers estimate that there are roughly 7,000 fewer pharmacies in the U.S. today than there were in 2019. Pharmacy staff are having to do more work with fewer employees and resources.
Much of this strain is compounded by legacy systems and outdated technology stacks that simply weren’t designed for the pace, volume, or regulatory complexity pharmacies face today. What’s more, consumer expectations have evolved, and patients now expect the same seamless, personalized experiences from healthcare that they receive in other parts of their lives.
Because of these factors, pharmacy staff stress is at an all-time high. More than three-fourths of community pharmacists say that their workload is high or extremely high. Pharmacies are seeing increases in vaccination requests and point-of-care testing. They are struggling to keep up with the number of phone calls with patients, providers, and insurance companies, which lead to errors. They are also facing excessive nonclinical duties and administrative tasks that take them away from their core work.
The squeeze in staffing combined with the increasing demand for service is causing burned out staff to resign, creating a feedback loop of burnout.
How Agentic AI Can Help Pharmacy Staff
AI tools are nothing new to healthcare. But agentic AI, an intelligence system that needs limited supervision, can help reshape pharmacy engagement to relieve burnout and improve patient outcomes and satisfaction.
AI agents use machine learning to mimic human decision making, which allows agents to solve problems in real time. Agents can communicate with patients through voice calls, text message, and email in the language of the patient’s choice. Unlike other AI models, agentic AI has a degree of autonomy that allows it to act independently and adapt to new information. But autonomy must be paired with responsibility. Any AI used in healthcare must operate within strict ethical, regulatory, and safety standards to ensure accuracy and maintain patient trust.
In pharmacies, agentic AI automates the routine inquiries that, because of their repetitiveness, take up so much staff time. Rather than having a person make and answer calls and messages about refills, prescription status updates, and other FAQs (often while doing other tasks), agentic AI can handle these routine-yet-important interactions. By removing friction from high-volume tasks, agentic AI helps staff focus on the human moments that define quality care—turning technology into an enabler rather than a replacement.
Beyond these basic interactions, agentic AI can also tailor outreach to specific customers based on their history and needs. AI agents can communicate with patients in their preferred language, reducing misunderstandings and mistakes when it comes to important information about medication.
Automating these tasks makes pharmacies’ workflows more streamlined and efficient. It simplifies pickups, payments, and cuts down on patients’ wait times. Agentic AI’s embedded analytics and optimization drive higher ROI for pharmacies.
Benefits for Patients and Pharmacies
Both patients and pharmacies benefit from stronger, clearer connections. AI-powered communications tools can tailor outreach to individual customers based on their behavior and context, improving outcomes and satisfaction. These individually tailored interactions increase patient trust in their pharmacies, which in turn drives customer loyalty.
AI-enabled tools provide clear information to patients and customers also leads to better outcomes. At WestCX, we’ve seen agentic AI automate up to 80% of standard interactions, meaning higher medication adherence and higher completed vaccine series.
Agentic AI’s ability to customize responses to patient communications also removes an enormous burden from pharmacy staff. AI empowers pharmacies to automate prescription refills, reminders, and vaccine outreach, scheduling and customizing messages to individual patients. Instead of answering repetitive inbound calls, staff are freed up for more complex problems and interactions that require their expertise. This freedom from repetitive, routine tasks helps reduce employee burnout and staff turnover.
Staff, too, play a critical role in helping patients use their prescribed medications, safely receiving vaccines, and preventing potentially catastrophic errors with medications. Reducing staff workload can lead to fewer medication errors and an improved adherence to medication directions.
Creating Capacity for Better Care
Pharmacies are facing increasing pressure due to shrinking numbers and patient demands grow, leaving staff to absorb the strain. Responsibly deployed agentic AI can help ease that burden—reducing burnout, improving patient satisfaction, and supporting the well-being of both employees and the people they serve. Because connection is central to effective care, agentic AI strengthens those human relationships by enabling more meaningful interactions at the moments that matter most.
Matt Whitmer
Matt Whitmer is Chief Revenue Officer and Senior Vice President of Marketing of WestCX, overseeing the Mosaicx and Televox brands within West Technology Group. In his role, Whitmer leads a team focused on serving enterprise clients as they embrace and implement Mosaicx' cloud-based solutions to revolutionize client engagement with conversational AI. He also sets healthcare leaders up for success with Televox's solutions, connecting them with the industry’s most powerful AI-enabled patient relationship management platform. Throughout his work, Whitmer plays a central role in fostering strong partnerships that generate high-quality leads and ultimately increase revenue.
He has over 15 years of senior leadership experience focused on helping enterprise clients embrace and implement cloud-based engagement solutions. Before joining WestCX, Whitmer established and guided enterprise sales teams at multiple brands in the AI and customer contact industries, successfully raising their profile and value.
