LWC President's Annual Report 2019

Two Lindsey Wilson Alums
Recognized On the National
Stage For Innovative Business
Plan That Solves an Age-Old
Pharmacy Problem
Kailyn Conner, left, and John Brown, middle,
are joined by fellow teammate Noor Naffakh.
The trio won first place in a national business
plan competition.
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Two LWC alumni were part of a three-person team that
took home first place in a national business plan competition
for graduate and professional students in May.
Kailyn Conner and John Brown, who are students in the
University of Kentucky pharmaceutical sciences doctoral
program following the pharmaceutical outcomes and policy
track, were joined by fellow pharmacy student Noor Naffakh
to develop a business plan for the Pharmacy Quality Alliance’s
Healthcare Quality and Innovation Challenge.
“We got an email just randomly from the director of our
graduate program, and we immediately became really interested
in competing,” said Conner, who earned a mathematics
degree from LWC in 2014. “So we recruited Noor, who is a
current UK pharmacy student, as our third teammate, and she
made tremendous contributions to the competition.”
The trio presented a business plan for a technology-driven
solution to a real-world pharmacy quality issue -- patients
who fail to pick up their prescribed medications and how
pharmacists communicate that information back to the prescriber.
“Primary medication nonadherence is the technical term
for it,” said Brown. “There isn’t an efficient way for pharmacists
to communicate with prescribers in instances where a
prescription doesn’t get picked up. We tried to think of a solution
to mitigate that issue.”
Conner said their solution would include the development
of a software plugin that will enable pharmacies to customize
their existing software systems.
“There were a lot of pieces that John was able to contribute
because he has worked in the field,” says Conner. “He
understood the workflow of a pharmacy and Noor contributed
to that knowledge as well. They knew the functionality
of the systems that were already in place, and we played
off those. We really tried to utilize everyone’s strengths in the
solution.”
The team learned in early spring they had made it into the
top three. In May, they presented their idea at the annual
Pharmacy Quality Alliance meeting in Baltimore, Md.
“We presented our business proposal in ‘Shark Tank’ fashion,”
said Brown, who earned a biology degree from LWC in
2013. “Noor began by restating the problematic issue, and
Kailyn and I presented the implementation plan and the business
proposal.”
The UK team beat out teams from the pharmacy schools at
the University of Arizona and the University of California at
San Francisco.
“I think for all three of us, it was a testament to taking a
risk and putting something out there and not being afraid to
take a leap into unfamiliar territory,” says Conner. “Seeing
what became of it was one of those things where if we submitted
and it did well then it was fantastic and an amazing
experience. But, if it didn’t go anywhere, there was no harm
because we tried.”
Conner and Brown, both of whom grew up in Albany, Ky.,
often joke about following one another to different institutions.
They have been partners in their educational pursuits
since before their days at LWC.
“It’s fun to think back over the years to all of the times
Kailyn and I have traveled and competed together,” said
Brown. “From academic team to LWC Singers to our current
endeavors, we’ve found success as teammates many times.”
Brown is currently a second year student in the doctoral
program. He continues to work part-time as a pharmacist and
hopes to blend his clinical and research training in future
roles.
And Conner is in her third year in the doctoral program
and has finished all but the dissertation. She said she looks
forward to completing her degree and entering academia fulltime.
“I am really interested in contributing to students’ lives in
the same way that my life has been fed by teachers, just encouraging
me and mentoring me along,” she said.