In this interview, Pharmacy Technology & Management Review’s Will Lockwood talks with Anwar Kazmi, President of DAA Enterprises, and Karen Davis, CPhT, a seasoned pharmacy technician, instructor, and textbook author, and owner of SEPhT, a pharmacy technician educational company. Davis is also a pharmacy solutions consultant for KbPort, a software and hardware development company focused on improving educational outcomes.

What You Can Read About In This Interview

* Revolutionizing Pharmacy Technician Training

* Cloud-Based Training: A Game Changer for Pharmacy Techs

* Essential Skills for Pharmacy Technician Certification

* Mastering Insurance Claim Adjudication in Pharmacy Technician Training

* Advanced Modules for Comprehensive Pharmacy Technician Training

We’ll take a look at how DAA Enterprises is revolutionizing the training landscape for certified pharmacy technicians (CPhT) programs through DAA’s Visual SuperScript Cloud Edition pharmacy management software, designed to provide aspiring pharmacy technicians with an unparalleled, realistic training environment and practical experience.

Find out how the system bridges the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application, offering students individual "pharmacies" to manage with robust simulation of complex workflows that provide crucial experience with tasks like insurance claim adjudication and medication synchronization — all vital for success in today's demanding pharmacy settings and for meeting rigorous certification standards.

Revolutionizing Pharmacy Technician Training

PTMReview: We're going to be talking with Anwar Kazmi and Karen Davis about DAA Enterprise's efforts to provide training solutions for certified pharmacy technician programs. Anwar, do you want to start off by introducing yourself?

Anwar Kazmi: Sure. Thank you, Will. I am the president of DAA Enterprises. We have been in the business of pharmacy management software systems for a little over 40 years now. We were asked by the president-elect of what was then called the National Association of Retail Drug to develop a computerized system for their members. And it was referred to or described as a “smart typewriter” in those days. Of course, pharmacy management software has come a long way since then. And DAA has been part of that evolution at every step of the way. In the year, around 2005, 2006, we partnered with one of the nation's leading publishers of educational materials to adapt our pharmacy software to the educational environment for pharmacy technicians.

And our most recent offering in this area, both in the commercial as well as in the educational environment, is a cloud-based system, which is very sophisticated and has many benefits for pharmacists, for instructors and for students. And we can go into the details of that when you think it's appropriate, Will.

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PTMReview: Okay. Wonderful. Thank you for that background. And before we jump into talking about that cloud-based system and how it supports training pharmacy technicians, we also have Karen Davis with us today. And Karen, would you just introduce yourself?

Karen Davis: Sure. I've been working with DAA for a long time, about 17 years I think at this point. I am a pharmacy technician. practicing since 1983 and I have been certified since 1995, which was the first test. I write textbooks for several publishers. I have served as a guest surveyor for ASHP for about five years.

I'm an instructor as well, and I own my own business now that sells TeachMEDS and aligns with different companies to provide software for training. I know this is an area that is needed in technician training programs because they need real world experience.

This program allows them to basically use and demonstrate techniques before they get to be out in the workforce that is actually dealing with patients. Been working with DAA for a long time. The software has been a long time coming and I think it's great for the programs.

Cloud-Based Training: A Game Changer for Pharmacy Techs

PTMReview: Okay. Thank you so much for that. So we'll jump into talking about this pharmacy software that DAA offers and how it's used in a pharmacy technician training program. And in particular how it can represent the workflow of a pharmacy in a realistic way that allows the students to develop practical skills.

"This program allows them to basically use and demonstrate techniques before they get to be out in the workforce that is actually dealing with patients."

So Anwar, if we can, let's start with you and let's talk a little bit about that. The way that the software, your cloud-based software, offers the ability to create a real world pharmacy workflow in the training environment with all the various queues and dashboards. And tell me how you've designed this to create the optimal learning experience.

Kazmi: Yes. It would be a pleasure to do that. First of all let me also just add here that we are very fortunate to have Karen Davis as a partner. Her knowledge, her experience in this business. And she is just a joy to work with and we feel blessed to have her as a partner.

Now coming back to your question. Let me first mention that the system is designed in such a way that for each student it's like they're operating their own pharmacy. The whole database is replicated as soon as a student's record is created, a student is added to the institution.

All the different files and patients, doctors, drugs, and so on and so forth are replicated for that student and it's as if they are operating their own full fledged pharmacy. I think that's a unique feature of our system and it's very different from other systems. Even for the educational environment where it may be like a demo version of a company's software and it's installed on the school network, for example, with maybe one or two terminals.

"For each student, it's like they're operating their own pharmacy. The whole database is replicated... it's as if they are operating their own full-fledged pharmacy."

Only one or two students can work with it at a time. And then a big disadvantage is that if there are some exercises that are either prescribed by the instructor, or that are in the accompanying workbook, as soon as one student performs that exercise, it preempts others from being able to do that. The others just basically stand there and watch. So I think this one is completely different in its approach. Each student has their own independent pharmacy. They can add patients, doctors, drugs, fill prescriptions and not have any impact on their fellow students.

So I think that's something which is unique. The other advantage, from having this cloud based architecture, is the fact that the students can use it or can access it from anywhere at any time. All they need is some sort of a device capable of running a browser.

It could be a laptop. It could be a PC. It could even be a tablet. Just a device that is capable of running a browser, that's all that they need. And they can access the system from anywhere, teachers as well as students. And so that's also a major advantage of this.

Another one, which I should mention here, is something that saves the IT people of that institution from a big headache. They don't have to give access to anybody to their computer network, because the system is not installed on their network.

The students do not access anything on the school’s computer network. And so that's a big relief to the administrators, as well as the IT personnel. So these are some of the advantages. Now, as I said, once the student is operating like their own pharmacy. They can go through all the tasks that have to be performed in a real pharmacy.

We also have what we call a mock service for adjudicating claims. We obviously don't actually send these claims to a private third party, but these claims, whatever claim they submit, are intercepted by our software. Based on the adequacy of the data submitted, the students get either a “paid” response, or a “rejected” response. Then they have the opportunity to correct things and resubmit the claim. This gives the student a good feel for what happens in the real world.

And we can talk about that in greater detail as well.

PTMReview: Okay, wonderful. And so the real key difference I'm hearing is that clearly in a real world pharmacy environment you do not want more than one person doing the same thing at the same time or working on the same record, changing records in a serial manner or whatever.

PTMReview: But in an educational environment, it's really important, like you said, for each student to essentially be able to run and manage his or her own pharmacy. And you've been able to set the system, your system, so that it is offering that capability. And, but at the same time, this is the same pharmacy management software that is available for a live pharmacy environment.

Kazmi: Absolutely. Yes, exactly. And this is as close as one can get to an experience of working in a real life pharmacy.

PTMReview: Got it. But it recognizes those student specific needs and some other needs of an educational environment.

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