ASHP and ASHP Foundation Pharmacy Forecast 2025: Strategic Planning Guidance for Pharmacy Departments in Hospitals and Health Systems

Abstract

Purpose: The 2025 ASHP Pharmacy Forecast report is written to identify and contextualize emerging trends that will influence healthcare, health systems, and the pharmacy profession. It provides recommendations to inform strategic planning that should prompt action by pharmacists and health-system leaders. Methods: Drawing on the “wisdom of crowds” concept, a survey was constructed by an advisory committee with 6 themes, each with 7 focused statements and a seventh theme on preparedness (54 survey items in total). A survey panel of 321 pharmacy leaders was purposefully designed to capture opinions from a wide range of pharmacists across the United States. Panelists were asked to consider the likelihood of the statements occurring in the next 5 years as being likely, somewhat likely, somewhat unlikely, or very unlikely to occur. Forecast panelists also assessed health systems’ preparedness (from very unprepared to very prepared) for 12 of the statements. Results: The 6 survey themes identified were The Business of Healthcare: Challenges in Health-System Pharmacy, Managing Ultra-High-Cost Drugs, Addressing the Gap in Primary Care, Whole Person Health, Navigating Generative Artificial Intelligence: Opportunity and Risk, and Stabilizing the Pharmacy Workforce. The survey was completed by 269 respondents, yielding an 84% response rate. Descriptive statistics of the survey results were provided to chapter authors to inform commentary and strategic recommendations for each theme. Conclusion: The Pharmacy Forecast provides insights on large-scale, long-term trends that will influence healthcare and the pharmacy profession over the years ahead. Insight from the report can stimulate strategic thinking and provides a starting point to proactively position leaders, their teams, and departments for potential future trends.