not a pharmacist, but i've witnessed the process going from data entry to completely integrated CPOE. when i first started CPOE was in place, but our pharmacy dispensing system was not integrated with it, so we were still doing manual data entry, just with orders that weren't handwritten. A year or two later POE was interfaced with pharmacy system, thus theoretically creating less work.
However, (for my hospital's system) even though POE orders directly go to the pharmacy system and some info directly populates into the fields, the pharmacist still has to pick the correct dosage form and quantity and other things. While MDs can be idiots and will always freetext stupid orders, even pharamcists will pick totally ******* dosage forms that require splitting a capsule/patch/etc. It's still way safer compared to directly entering orders off paper, nowadays most issues with order entry errors are just wrong quantity or form, but correct drug.
In terms of jobs, data entry techs got moved to other areas, and they actually increased the number of pharmacists; every RPHs has to cover floors and process orders now, as opposed to the 4 RPhs in the basement who's sole job was to enter, so the individual workload was sorta increased. Initially it sucked because while everyone theoretically would rotate thru data entry, a lot of people were clueless when they were entering orders on the floor instead of the dedicated order entry people in the basement.
i don't think hospitals will need less Rphs. But they are needed not only to verify but to make sure that order was written correctly and there is no adverse events between different medications the patients are on.
Until people start getting used to all the automatic warnings like "your patient will go into rhabdo with simvastatin and xxxx drug" and automatically override with stuff like "will monitor as needed"
