UCSF Pharmacy Experts Strategize on Shaping Health Care Through 2030

What health care opportunities, trends and challenges await the pharmacy profession in the next five years?

Department of Clinical Pharmacy Chair Jonathan H. Watanabe, PharmD, PhD, and 2015 Distinguished Alumnus Pamela Schweitzer, PharmD ’87, a former chief pharmacy officer and assistant surgeon general in the U.S. Public Health Service, are among the pharmacy leaders nationwide authoring The Pharmacy Forecast 2025.

Published annually in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy (AJHP), The Pharmacy Forecast is an influential resource designed to identify and contextualize the trends that will shape health care and the pharmacy profession over the next five years. The report provides strategic recommendations aimed at equipping health-system leaders and pharmacy professionals to proactively address future events.

UCSF expertise in focus

In the 2025 edition, Watanabe, a nationally recognized expert in geriatric pharmacy and pharmaceutical policy, weighed in on the critical issue of closing the primary care gap. The report stressed the increasing need for pharmacists to fill essential roles in primary care as the health care system faces persistent shortages of primary care providers.

“The pandemic highlighted the increasing role of pharmacists as primary care providers, so there will be more interest in pharmacists addressing the huge portion of the United States in primary care shortage areas,” Watanabe said. “This access crisis has disproportionately afflicted minorities, underserved populations and rural areas, and that’s only predicted to get more challenging to address effectively, especially with an aging population.”

Rear Admiral Schweitzer, whose career in public service and health leadership has included roles with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), co-authored a chapter on whole-person health in U.S. health care. The report emphasized individual care that considers biological, behavioral, societal and environmental factors while shifting from a reactive, disease-oriented medical care system to one that prioritizes disease prevention.

Navigating pharmacy’s future

The Forecast draws on survey responses from over 260 pharmacy leaders across the United States. Other themes that emerged include the business of health care and challenges specific to health-system pharmacy, managing ultra-high-cost drugs, and stabilizing the pharmacy workforce — along with the opportunities and risks of navigating generative AI.

“When it comes to AI, the genie is already out of the bottle. But if it's not used appropriately, it could exacerbate care gaps for those that are already left behind, because these things are only as good as their data, and there are concerns that the data is incomplete or biased,” Watanabe said. “We need to be even more meticulous — optimistic, yet scientifically skeptical. We have to make sure that when we use AI, we validate it, we test it, and we confirm to obtain the best outcomes.”

Pharmacy as a team sport

Intended more as a call to action rather than a predictive tool, the Forecast frames the thinking, discussion and planning that must take place in every health system, especially with big changes looming on the political horizon.

A central perspective in the survey’s discussion about access to health care is that pharmacists must continue to advocate for the profession, regardless of whether the government declares a crisis and takes federal action. Watanabe said it is crucial to acknowledge that the profession — and the technologies behind it — are changing rapidly. He added that those who don’t embrace change will ultimately be blindsided by it.

“We’re going to have to do what we should always be doing and find ways to get involved in advocacy and policy, and try to find a harmonized voice in what our goals should be,” Watanabe said. “Science is done with others, and if you do it alone there are things you will miss. We just need to make sure it’s more inclusive, which goes beyond any moral imperative, because it makes the outcomes and the science better.”