By Megan McCaskill, RPh, President of Compliance and Strategy at Horizon Pharmacy

AI is quickly reshaping pharmacy operations. It can now help pharmacy teams work smarter by taking on repetitive, time-consuming tasks, freeing employees to focus on work that requires human judgment and meaningful communication.

At Horizon Pharmacy, AI has moved from concept to practice with the introduction of an AI-powered bot from TJM Labs, designed to assist with prescription entry and other repetitive workflow tasks.

As someone who helped train the bot, which we named “Hal” after the computer in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” I’ve had a front-row seat to both the opportunities and the challenges of bringing AI into pharmacy operations. I wouldn’t consider myself particularly tech-savvy, and I’ll admit I approached the project with a fair amount of skepticism at first.

The first 90 days

We began training Hal in March 2026 and went live in mid-April. The initial training process lasted 6 weeks and involved documenting the pharmacy’s specific procedures, from entering a new patient into the system to processing prescriptions and locating insurance information.

The training required this level of detail because Hal operates literally. Unlike an experienced technician who may recognize that two slightly different situations call for essentially the same response, Hal follows the instructions it has been given, and that characteristic is both a limitation and a strength.

When Hal encounters a situation it doesn’t understand, it doesn’t improvise. Instead, it stops and flags the prescription as a “Bot Skip.” We then review the case, identify the source of the confusion, and determine whether the scenario should be incorporated into Hal’s training. Over time, we’ve found those exceptions become opportunities to improve the system.

For example, Hal initially ran into problems when an NDC change created a hard stop in the pharmacy’s system. Once our team identified the issue, we were able to teach Hal the appropriate steps to follow the next time it encountered the same situation.

The same process applies to slightly less common prescribing scenarios, such as a physician ordering a brand-name product when the pharmacy typically fills the generic equivalent. Once the team identifies and documents the appropriate response, that information can be incorporated into Hal’s workflow. 

We’ve quickly found that AI implementation isn’t a one-time project. It’s an ongoing process of training, monitoring, and refinement.

Humans still matter

One of the most important lessons from our first 90 days with Hal is that automation doesn’t eliminate the need for people. Human oversight is central to how Hal operates.

Every prescription entered by Hal goes through the same pharmacist verification process as prescriptions entered by human technicians. The pharmacist remains responsible for reviewing the work before it moves forward. That human layer matters because Hal doesn’t possess the contextual judgment of an experienced pharmacy professional.

A technician might recognize that something doesn’t quite make sense and find an alternative solution, while a pharmacist can weigh multiple factors and determine the best course of action. Team members across the pharmacy also bring relationships and communication skills that a data-entry bot can’t replicate.

In the end, the goal isn’t to make AI more human. It’s to make AI better at tasks where automation makes sense, so people can focus on the work that delivers the greatest value and on caring for patients.

From automation to workflow redesign

That distinction has also changed how we think about staffing. We’re using automation to redesign how work gets done. By shifting repetitive data-entry responsibilities to Hal, we’ve moved approximately 1 to 1.5 full-time-equivalent (FTE) hours of staff capacity toward customer-facing and service-oriented work.

That means more time answering phones, responding to messages, communicating with facilities, and working one-on-one with nurses and physicians. It also creates greater flexibility when staffing levels fluctuate. Vacations, sick days, and busy periods can quickly put pressure on our team. Automating repetitive processes provides additional capacity without requiring employees to simply work faster.

At Horizon Pharmacy, we’re already looking at the next opportunities for Hal, including other repetitive electronic workflows such as processing automatic-refill reports. More broadly, the lesson is that AI adoption isn’t simply about adding a new technology to our existing operations. It’s about rethinking how work can be divided between people and technology.

The most meaningful change has been how the team thinks about Hal. What was once an unfamiliar technology met with understandable skepticism has become a valued part of our daily workflow. From the beginning, the goal was never to replace people or automate them out of our processes. Instead, it was to systematize repetitive work that doesn’t require human expertise, so pharmacy professionals have more time for the work that does.