Amany Farag, Ph.D., R.N., Associate Professor at the University of Iowa College of Nursing, is the recipient of an American Nurses Association 2025 Innovation Award, American Nurses Enterprise (ANE). The Innovation Awards highlight, recognize, and celebrate exemplary nurse innovators who improve patient safety and health outcomes within their communities.
The idea for Dr. Farag’s innovation was born after she learned about the chaotic nature of medication administration in schools from her colleague, College of Nursing Professor Ann Marie McCarthy, Ph.D., R.N., P.N.P, FAAN. Dr. McCarthy established connections with the Iowa School Nurse Association working together to learn about the issues the school nurses were facing and develop research projects to address those issues. Medication safety among students was one of the challenges identified as a major concern. Many schools have limited nursing resources resulting in the majority of medications in schools being administered by front office personnel. This has been associated with higher medication error rates. “I thought, ‘Why don’t I mimic what is in the hospital setting and modify it in a more user–friendly way to assist schools in medication administration?’” Dr. Farag recalled. “Medication safety technology has historically been developed for hospitals and acute care settings, leaving schools—particularly those in rural or low-resourced areas—without adequate solutions. The technology is there. It has been used in many areas, so why not the schools?”
Using her research background in medication safety, Dr. Farag modified best practices from the hospital environment and developed the electronic school medication administration record system known as eSMAR. This system uses fingerprint scanning and barcoding to verify both students and medication, alerts the administering professional of a discrepancy, and notifies the administering professional if the student misses the medication dose to facilitate prompt follow-up and communication. To put design into action, Dr. Farag received pilot funding from the UI Institute of Clinical and Translational Science to develop the system and found collaborators in the UI College of Engineering to help bring it to life. Building on the success of the pilot work, Dr. Farag was awarded a three-year, $1 million grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to implement and is currently pilot testing the eSMAR in four Iowa City area schools and collecting usability data to refine the system as needed. She will soon integrate the system with the electronic platform of Iowa City Community School District, which she anticipates will help with the sustainability and scalability efforts. The additional Innovation Award money will help cover expenses outside of the grant, such as marketing, communication and outreach activities, and additional system refinement after the grant ends.
“Winning this innovation award from a prestigious national nursing organization such as the ANE is an incredible honor and a testament to the importance of the work I am doing,” says Dr. Farag. “This recognition highlights the pressing need for solutions that ensure safe and efficient medication administration, empowering school nurses and staff to provide better care. It also underscores the impact of research-driven innovations in addressing real-world healthcare challenges.
This award is just the beginning. My goal is to provide a scalable solution that can be integrated into schools with minimal burden. Broader adoption will require policy support and funding to ensure equitable implementation across all school settings. I look forward to finding funding solutions to expand the system, train school staff, and ensure long-term adoption, as well as working with stakeholders to push for systemic changes that support school nurses and improve student health outcomes.”
Dr. Farag is grateful for the support from the National Center For Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institute of Health (UL1TR002537) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (R18HS029292-01) as well as her interdisciplinary research collaborators Dr. Ann Marie McCarthy, Dr. Hans Johnson, Dr. Heather Reisinger, Dr. Amber Goedken, Dr. Priyadarshini R and Dr. Yong Chen. She would like to thank her project coordinator Jill Colbert and Brandon Egger, graduate student in engineering, for all his work on the eSMAR system development.
