Technology: Software will help replace traditional paper-based prescriptions

B3

QUENTIN CASEY
FOR THE TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL

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A budding New Brunswick tech firm was one of 14 companies to receive a financial boost in Ottawa on Monday.

Saint John-based MedRunner Health Solutions Inc. received just over $60,000 to help test its medical software. The firm hopes its creation will change the way patients have their medical prescriptions ordered and filled.

MedRunner software, when up and running, will allow doctors to fill out prescriptions electronically - and send them directly to pharmacists.

According to company co-founder Todd Murphy, the software will help replace traditional paper-based prescriptions. Gone will be handwriting errors due to physician hen scratch, as well as the potential for adverse drug reactions.

The technology will also link directly to a patient's electronic health record - when that system is eventually up and running - and reduce prescription abuse and fraud.

Funding for MedRunner was announced by Ottawa-based Precarn Incorporated, a not-for-profit outfit that supports budding technologies that need a push to market.

"We're ecstatic because they are the first agency to come in and support us," said Murphy, who recently completed his MBA at the University of New Brunswick.

"It has enabled us to jumpstart and get ahead of the competition."

Murphy, 33, said the funds will allow MedRunner to launch trials linking a number of doctors' offices and pharmacies in Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John.

In development since June, the software needs real world testing to reveal any bugs. Murphy expects the test trials, to be run in partnership with the New Brunswick Pharmaceutical Society, to start Feb. 1 and last for three or four months.

Following the trials, he hopes to take the technology to every corner of the province - and then across Canada.

Murphy said he is optimistic about the technology's chances of success, particularly because the firm has sought advice and insight from local physicians, including Saint John doctors Stephen Willis and Brian Craig.

MedRunner received just over $60,000 out of the $2.1 million announced on Monday. The funds are intended to help the selected firms test and push their "first-of-a-kind technologies" to the market.

MedRunner joined 14 other firms from across the country in receiving money. The other technologies cover a wide spectrum, including technology to help with energy efficiency in buildings, and educational software to boost the brain development of children.