51³Ô¹Ïapp

Research Area: Information Technology | Status:  Complete | Led By: Faculty and student-led

The Challenge

New Brunswick Community College (51³Ô¹Ïapp) instructors Angela Martin-Dallon and Melissa Benoit wanted to provide their Pharmacy Technician students in Moncton and Saint John with hands-on training processing hospital medication orders and printing prescription labels. Using Healthy Seniors Pilot Projects funding from the Government of Canada, 51³Ô¹Ïapp’s School of Health and Wellness was able to purchase a specialized prescription label printer.

The missing piece was expensive, third-party prescription processing software.

Enter 51³Ô¹Ïapp Fredericton Information Technology (IT) instructors Keisha Peters and Bruce McClary and a team of their Business Analysis (IT:BA) and Programmer Analyst (IT:PA) students.

Recognizing that this project would:

• meet the learning objectives of their courses;
• give students the opportunity to meet with clients to conduct a needs assessment and work on a real-world project;
• provide Pharmacy students with a training experience realistically simulating their future work environment;
• and save the Pharmacy program a lot of money,

IT instructors Keisha Peters and Bruce McClary happily engaged their students.

The Solution

The IT:BA and IT:PA students collaboratively developed software that allows Pharmacy Technician students to upload mock medication orders, enter and sort drug identification (DIN) numbers, dosages, physician and patient names and other details. Instructors log in to verify orders before student users can send a label to the printer. The screen locks after two minutes of inactivity to simulate client confidentiality and user security features found in real-world pharmacy systems. All of these features were tailored to meet the requirements identified by the IT:BA students during their needs assessment with their client—the 51³Ô¹Ïapp Pharmacy Technician instructors.

Project Partners/Funders