Six Practical Tests for AI Recommendation Review in Pharmacy

Evaluating AI recommendation review for pharmacists means looking beyond the first suggested action. Follow one example through inspection, correction, documentation and handoff. A demonstration becomes more useful when it shows what happens to a suggestion after the pharmacist disagrees, asks for more information or records a decision.

These six tests turn responsible decision support into something a team can examine. Use a fictional resident record or an appropriately authorized test case, and write down what the product actually demonstrates.

Test 1: Establish the role of the output

Begin by asking the vendor to identify each stage of the example: source information, generated suggestion, pharmacist review and final communication. Look for a clear distinction between material awaiting assessment and work the pharmacist has completed.

Then leave a suggestion untouched and move to another screen. Ask whether it appears anywhere as a completed recommendation. This simple test helps establish whether opening a record, reading an output and approving a communication have separate meanings in the workflow.

Test 2: Follow the suggestion back to its basis

Ask to inspect the resident information and reference material used in the example. Record which parts are available in the product and which require another system. Introduce a missing or conflicting document and observe whether the limitation remains visible.

Independent review of a recommendation's basis is discussed in the FDA's current clinical decision support guidance. For a purchasing team, the practical exercise is to ask the pharmacist to explain the example using the available evidence, including any uncertainty. A vendor explanation alone does not complete that exercise.

Test 3: Edit, decline and defer

Change the generated wording, decline a suggestion and leave another item awaiting clarification. Follow each action to the final report. Check that the edited version appears where expected and that pending work remains identifiable.

Also ask what happens if the reviewer corrects an input after the suggestion was generated. Can the team tell which output used the earlier information? This is a useful test of how the product represents changes over time, without assuming that every correction automatically updates every document.

Test 4: Separate demonstrated capability from future work

For each step you have tested, record whether it is available to your organization now, limited to a trial or still planned. Include the input formats, permissions and exports you would use in practice. A workflow can look complete in a demonstration while a dependency remains outside the proposed deployment.

Ask for a plain explanation of those dependencies. Treat a roadmap as planning information. Base the current evaluation on the functions and conditions the team can actually examine.

Test 5: Follow the communication to its next owner

Continue after the pharmacist completes the recommendation. Ask how the intended recipient receives it, how a response comes back and who can see unresolved work. Then reopen the fictional case as a second authorized team member.

Can that person distinguish an item sent for response from one resolved with a documented outcome? Can they find the pharmacist's reasoning without relying on the demonstrator's memory? The handoff is part of the evaluation, even when it uses a separate facility process.

Test 6: Report a problem and inspect the feedback path

Ask how a pharmacist reports an incorrect suggestion or a source-document problem. Find out what information is needed, who receives the report and how the organization is told about a resolution.

Do not use acceptance rate alone as a measure of usefulness. In a trial, consider reviewing examples of edits, declined suggestions and unresolved questions together. Decide in advance how the team will assess relevance and documentation quality. This makes the evaluation about the work performed, rather than a single favorable number.

Keep a record of what the tests establish

Finish with a short record of demonstrated behavior, unanswered questions and deployment dependencies. The same case and test sequence can make later demonstrations easier to compare. You can bring these six tests to a Pharmacore conversation or explore related workflow thinking in Resources.