Much of the letter is an endorsement of Pharmac’s ongoing work programmes, especially its efforts to display the long-term financial benefits of medicines, which Seymour believed proved why governments should fund the entity better.
However, Seymour did include a recommendation for Pharmac to consider “the use of artificial intelligence to support analytics, reporting and decision support across core functions”.
Pharmac’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) was confined to Microsoft’s Co-Pilot, which can draft documents and analyse data.
Speaking to the Herald, Seymour said Pharmac held 20 Co-Pilot licences.
“They can do an awful lot of work to crunch down that data and store it and manipulate it and come to recommendations faster with the use of AI than they can without it,” he said.
“Obviously, this is in its infancy, but it’s critical if New Zealand is going to remain a leading country in the world that we are rapid adopters of the technology that’s available.”
Pharmac chairwoman Paula Bennett received the letter earlier this month. Photo / Mark Mitchell
He said he expected Pharmac to utilise AI further in “horizon-scanning”, in which the entity explored what new medicines could be beneficial to New Zealand.
“You can imagine taking all of the challenges that New Zealand has based on our health data and working out what the impacts of funding a medication might be on overall health … you can see how they can do the kind of manual processing that they’ve had to do for a long time much more efficiently.”
Seymour acknowledged the use of AI had instilled “anxiety” in some people, but argued that was due to a lack of understanding.
“It always creates fear and anxiety when something unfamiliar and seemingly powerful comes along.
“However, this is a multiplier for people’s time and talents; humans will still be at the centre of the system and if anything, if you free up time from doing menial tasks, it actually creates more time for the human touch.
“This may well make Pharmac a more humane organisation because the nerd work, for want of a better term, can be done by machines, while the human touch is there to be given by the people.”
In a statement, Pharmac corporate services director Maria Robertson said patient-identifiable data was not used within Pharmac’s AI tools.
She said the entity’s approach was to “start small and build over time”.
“We are looking at areas where AI might be of practical use. For example, how to use it to further improve personal productivity, knowledge retrieval, analytics, forecasting and operational decision support.”
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald’s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei and the Herald in Auckland.