From June 13 through June 17, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) is hosting its annual conference in St. Louis, Missouri. ASHP Pharmacy Futures 2026 brings together pharmacy professionals to explore the latest research, discuss strategies for improving patient care, and network with pharmacy professionals at every level of their careers.

Today’s preview of the ASHP annual meeting features a curated selection of key sessions. Dates and times are current as of Monday, May 11, 2026. Please note that Saturday, June 13, primary features House of Delegates sessions. Descriptions have been edited for clarity and brevity. For the most up-to-date schedule information, refer to the conference’s official schedule.

Sunday, June 14
  • ASHP Government Relations Update 2026
    • 8:00 AM – 9:30 AM
    • Description: Stay informed on the political, regulatory, and legislative developments shaping health-system pharmacy practice. This session examines the current political climate and key advocacy priorities impacting pharmacists and pharmacy technicians at both the state and federal levels.
  • AI Is Here—Now What? Reimagining the Pharmacy Workforce for the Age of Artificial Intelligence
    • 9:45 AM – 11:00 AM
    • Description: This opening summit session will provide a strategic, workforce-focused overview of how AI is transforming pharmacy practice across clinical, operational, and enterprise domains. Framed as a change agent rather than a replacement for human expertise, the session will explore how AI is redistributing tasks, augmenting professional judgment, and prompting redesign of pharmacy roles and workflows.
  • From Pilot to Practice: A Practical Framework for AI Use in Pharmacy
    • 11:15 AM – 12:30 PM
    • Description: This session provides a practical framework for transitioning AI from concept to practice across pharmacy services. Attendees will explore the infrastructure, data, and governance foundations required for AI readiness; identify medication-use workflows well suited for human–AI collaboration; and examine key design considerations that promote safe use.
  • Reimagining the Medication Safety Role in the AI Era
    • 11:15 AM – 12:30 PM
    • Description: This session examines how medication safety roles are evolving in the context of artificial intelligence-enabled workflows. Participants will review key data elements involved in medication safety events and explore AI integration strategies, deployment models, and limitations within patient safety programs.
  • Ethical Use of AI in Clinical Care and Operational Decision-Making
    • 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
    • Description: This session examines the role of pharmacists as AI governance leaders, with a focus on ensuring ethical, transparent, and patient-centered implementation of AI tools that influence both clinical care and operational decision-making.
  • Optimizing Ambulatory Care and Specialty Pharmacy Roles to Deliver High-Value Care
    • 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
    • Description: This session provides a practical operating playbook to optimize role design and workflows between ambulatory care and specialty pharmacy teams to reduce redundancy, improve therapy initiation and persistence, and strengthen continuity across settings.
  • The Great Safety Debate: Balancing AI Innovation with Patient and Medication Safety
    • 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
    • Description: Join a forward-thinking, interactive, debate-style session about the safety of AI in pharmacy workflows. Expert panelists will debate scenarios, and the learner attendees will shape the direction of the conversation with our polling system.
  • Managing Privacy, Consent, and Patient Data in AI-Enabled Systems
    • 2:45 PM – 3:45 PM
    • Description: This session will examine key ethical considerations when AI tools access and analyze patient health data, with a focus on consent and transparency. Participants will explore practical mitigation strategies to protect patient information while responsibly leveraging AI to support care delivery.
  • The 2025 National Survey of Hospital Pharmacy Practice: A Conversation About the State of Health-System Pharmacy
    • 2:45 PM – 3:45 PM
    • Description: This session explores findings from the 2025 ASHP National Survey of Hospital Pharmacy Practice to provide insight into the current state of health-system pharmacy. Participants will review key practice trends identified in the survey and examine how these trends align with broader changes reflected in PAI 2030, the Pharmacy Forecast, and other national reports.
  • The Infusion Access Hub: Building a Single Front Door for Infusion Access, Authorization, and Scheduling Across Sites of Care
    • 2:45 PM – 3:45 PM
    • Description: This session will explore a centralized “front door” approach to infusion services and the market forces driving more integrated intake models.
Monday, June 15
  • Ambulatory Care Gems 2026: Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology in Ambulatory Care
    • 9:30 AM – 11:00 AM
    • Description: This Pharmacy Gems session will highlight real-world applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in ambulatory care pharmacy, showcasing how AI is being used today to enhance clinical decision-making, documentation, and operational workflows.
  • Data Foundations for AI Success: Advancing Accuracy, Integrity & Governance in Specialty Pharmacy
    • 9:30 AM – 11:00 AM
    • Description: This session explores how standardized data structures improve AI accuracy, enable smarter workflows, and support meaningful clinical decision-making.
  • Evolving Our Approach: Proactive Safety from Theory to Practice
    • 9:30 AM – 11:00 AM
    • Description: Join a forward leaning session focused on proactive safety approaches that have the opportunity to augment traditional medication safety processes. Hear the progress of the Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS) network’s mission, structure, and role in advancing pediatric harm prevention.
  • Arching Across Practice Settings: Expanding Clinical Services with Ambulatory and Specialty Pharmacy
    • 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
    • Description: This session discusses key considerations for collaboration and expansion of Ambulatory and Specialty pharmacy clinical services in health systems.
  • Practical Strategies to Prepare Pharmacy Leaders for AI
    • 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
    • Description: This session provides practical strategies to help pharmacy leaders prepare their teams for AI implementation, navigate operational challenges, and assess the impact of AI on roles and workflows. Participants will also learn how to critically evaluate AI vendors to ensure solutions support staff engagement, patient safety, and sustainable care delivery.
  • Upskilling and Future Roles for the Pharmacy Workforce Incorporating AI Agents as Partners
    • 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
    • Description: This session explores how pharmacists and pharmacy technicians can effectively supervise, validate, and remain accountable for AI-driven clinical and operational decisions. Participants will consider how workforce roles may transform as AI systems increasingly contribute to prescribing, clinical decision-making, and operational tasks.
Tuesday, June 16
  • Pushing the Gas, Stuck in Neutral: Precepting the Stalled Learner
    • 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM
    • Description: This session will explore the challenges encountered when experiential learners aren’t progressing as expected. Attendees will review different approaches and tools to aid them in supporting complex learners’ growth and development.
  • When Hazardous Drugs are Sterile
    • 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM
    • Description: This engaging session clarifies how USP  <797> and USP  <800> intersect—highlighting where their requirements differ and why those differences matter in daily practice—while offering practical strategies to resolve common facility and workflow challenges.
  • From Reactive to Proactive: Human Factors + Practical Tools to Modernize Medication Safety
    • 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
    • Description: Join an interactive session planned to begin the conversation on reframing medication safety. Hear from pharmacists who authored the ASHP Pharmacy Forecast chapter on medication safety and connect with experts in human factors engineering as they challenge some conventional practices and demonstrate proactive possibilities to improve the safety strategies of how we care for our patients.
  • Legal Considerations in Specialty Pharmacy: 2026 Updates in 340B, IRA and PBM Reform
    • 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
    • Description: This session provides an update on the current pharmacy benefits environment, including the structure of the drug supply channel and the role of health-system pharmacies within it. Faculty will review key laws and regulations affecting PBM network access, benefit design, audit practices, and reimbursement, and will summarize recent legislative, regulatory, and judicial developments related to the 340B Drug Pricing Program, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and PBM reform at both the state and federal levels.
  • 483 Shades of Risk: Evaluating 503Bs for Health System Leaders
    • 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
    • Description: This session equips participants with the context behind why and how pharmacy leaders now evaluate 503Bs, unpacking the regulatory landscape that shapes these decisions. Learners will gain practical skills to interpret FDA inspection outcomes—including Form 483s, Warning Letters, FMD‑145s, and NAI/VAI/OAI classifications—and translate those findings into meaningful vendor risk assessments.
  • ASHP Foundation 2025 Pharmacy Residency Excellence Preceptor Award: Precepting Practice—Progress, not Perfection
    • 9:15 AM – 10:00 AM
    • Description: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Pharmacist and the 2025 Residency Excellence Preceptor Award recipient, Ted Morton, will share his experiences, practice evolutions, and processes he has used for innovating and enhancing residency programs.
  • The Invisible Shield: Aseptic Practices in Sterile Compounding
    • 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
    • Description: This session brings aseptic principles to life by connecting foundational concepts to real‑world sterile compounding practice, helping learners recognize how seemingly small actions can have a major impact on product sterility and patient safety. Participants will identify common sources of contamination, assess why and how breaches occur, and explore effective prevention strategies within their own workflows.
  • Next-Generation Therapeutics for Complex Disease States
    • 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
    • Description: This session reviews emerging next-generation therapeutics, with a focus on mechanisms of action, dosing and administration considerations, monitoring requirements, and key safety profiles. Participants will also examine the clinical, operational, and administrative factors that influence appropriate use, including care coordination, site-of-care considerations, and resource utilization.
  • Precepting Gems 2026
    • 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
    • Description: In ten-minute intervals, presenters will share their thoughts and ideas for addressing how [new social norms and challenges] affect precepting, and what can be done, as well as bring forth unique and inspired learning and professional development opportunities.
  • Cool Under Pressure: Storage and Temperature Management in Sterile Compounding
    • 3:00 PM – 3:30 PM
    • Description: In this focused 30‑minute session, learners will review key storage, packaging, and environmental expectations from USP  <659> and gain practical insight into temperature management and excursion handling principles outlined in USP  <1079.2>.
  • Hazardous Drug Wipe Sampling
    • 3:45 PM – 4:15 PM
    • Description: In this focused 30‑minute session, learners will review best practices for planning and conducting hazardous drug wipe sampling, including when and where sampling is most effective. Participants will also walk through proper wipe sampling techniques to ensure results are accurate, meaningful, and defensible.
  • Hot Topics in Accreditation: Focus on Acute Care Hospitals
    • 3:45 PM – 5:00 PM
    • Description: Join a dynamic discussion and panel for up-to-date information directly from the experts in accreditation for acute care hospitals. Participate in an interactive game to check your mastery of the content.
  • Return of the Efficiency: AI Strikes Back in Precepting
    • 3:45 PM – 5:00 PM
    • Description: Discover practical strategies to integrate AI into precepting workflows.
  • Media Fills Unlocked: Practical Insights for Success
    • 4:15 PM – 5:15 PM
    • Description: This session demystifies media fill requirements by breaking down the essential elements outlined in USP standards and translating them into clear, workable processes. Learners will gain practical guidance on designing and administering media fill procedures that reliably assess staff competency while fitting real‑world operations.
Wednesday, June 17
  • Physical Examination Essentials: A Workshop for Contemporary Pharmacy Practice Part 1
    • 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
    • Description: This hands‑on workshop provides pharmacists with practical, scope‑appropriate physical exam skills. Participants will practice focused assessment techniques, point‑of‑care testing, and learn to identify red‑flag findings that require referral.
  • Can AI Teach Us Empathy: How AI Simulations Could Support Workforce Behavioral Skill Development
    • 9:30 AM – 10:45 AM
    • Description: [This session] will examine how AI simulations may support scalable opportunities to practice empathy, communication, and other social and behavioral skills essential in pharmacy practice. Participants will review available resources, practice with sample scenarios, and develop a better understanding of how AI tools might strengthen workforce readiness and patient-centered care in their organizations.
  • Physical Examination Essentials: A Workshop for Contemporary Pharmacy Practice Part 2
    • 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
    • Description: This hands‑on workshop provides pharmacists with practical, scope‑appropriate physical exam skills. Participants will practice focused assessment techniques, point‑of‑care testing, and learn to identify red‑flag findings that require referral.

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