How AI Is Reshaping Specialty Pharmacy Workflows in 2026

In an interview with Pharmacy Times, Mark Makhinson, PharmD, MBA, senior director of outpatient and specialty pharmacy at Mount Sinai Health System, discussed what he sees as the biggest shift in specialty pharmacy in 2026 and how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing pharmacy workflows.

According to Makhinson, the field is working to refocus pharmacists, technicians, and liaisons away from manual work and toward patient experience and clinical encounters. He described using AI tools now coming to market to automate tasks such as patient outreach, manual calls, and financial assistance, allowing staff to concentrate on helping patients navigate the access process, get to care, and stay on it. A secondary priority, he said, is tracking those efforts and ensuring outcomes are appropriate.

Makhinson explained that AI is reshaping workflows by taking manual tasks off the plates of technicians and pharmacists. He pointed to AI scribes as one example: when an AI tool documents clinical notes during a patient encounter, the pharmacist can devote more time to the conversation itself, which he suggested could improve both the quality of that discussion and the patient’s outcome. He described a similar opportunity for liaisons and technicians who previously spent much of their time completing prior authorizations manually. With that process automated, he said, those team members can talk with patients about their therapy, discuss financial toxicity, and work through the barriers that may stand in the way of treatment.

Taken together, Makhinson’s comments frame AI as a way to shift specialty pharmacy team time toward patient-facing work centered on access, staying on therapy, and outcomes.