At this meeting, we introduce a new resource to our community: The MyDispense USA Collaborative Site. During this meeting, Dr. Lisa Holle shared how she and a group of faculty from several institutions are working using the site as a resource for group research project. Additionally, we shared how the site is organized and how MyDispense USA Community members can gain access to this resource. You can watch the recording of the video and read below to find out more.
Dr. Lisa M. Holle, PharmD, BCOP, FHOPA, FISOPP, FCPA, FCCP
Associate Professor (CHS)
Clinical Practice, Innovation, and Research Division
University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacylis
The featured speaker was Dr. Lisa Holle, who played an important role in helping establish the original MyDispense USA instance. Her early work helped create a foundation for institutions across the United States to adopt and expand MyDispense as a teaching tool for pharmacy education. Over the years, that shared foundation has supported the development of countless exercises, simulations, and scholarly collaborations.
Dr. Holle and her collaborative group have been actively using the new MyDispense USA Collaborate site as part of a multi-institution scholarly project and were invited to share their experiences during the webinar. The collaboration began following discussions at the 2025 MyDispense Symposium among faculty interested in incorporating EHR-based exercises into their curricula while also pursuing collaborative research opportunities.
During her presentation, Dr. Holle described how the Collaborate site allows institutions to work within the same MyDispense environment to share activities, import exercises from other schools, and support both teaching and scholarly initiatives. She also demonstrated how exercises can be organized, uploaded, tagged, and shared to make collaboration easier across institutions.
As part of their project, the group worked to identify the primary ways EHR exercises are currently being used in pharmacy education. Six major categories emerged:
- Adverse Event Reporting
- SOAP Note Writing
- Clinical Decision Making
- Verification of Inpatient Orders
- Vancomycin Therapeutic Drug Monitoring
- Medication History
Be sure to watch the full video to learn more about Dr. Holle’s experiences with the MyDispense USA Collaborate site and the opportunities it creates for future collaboration and scholarship.
The site was developed to provide a centralized location where faculty collaborators can share, organize, and develop MyDispense activities together. Rather than relying on informal file sharing or isolated institutional repositories, the Collaborate site creates a shared community space.
The site is organized into REPOSITORY and SANDBOX units that allow users to contribute and access exercises by topic and activity type. Repositories include spaces to upload/download dispense exercises, OTC exercises, validation activities, EHR exercises, and scenarios. Sandbox areas allow collaborators to work together on exercises that are still in development before they are finalized and shared more broadly.
Faculty involvement in the Collaborate site is continuing to expand. Institutional administrators within the United States can request access, while additional faculty and staff may be considered on a case-by-case basis. Working groups can also create their own collaborative sub-spaces to support focused projects or research initiatives.
As MyDispense continues to evolve, the new MyDispense USA Collaborate site represents an exciting step forward in shared educational innovation. By making it easier for faculty to exchange ideas, co-develop activities, and support scholarship, the community is creating stronger learning experiences for pharmacy students nationwide.
Signing Up for Access for MyDispense USA Collaborate Site
To request access, use the following link. After your account has been set up, you will receive an email. Please allow 1-2 weeks for use to set up your account as this a manual process.
Importing Exercises
If you would like to upload exercises, we ask that you provide enough information to allow others to get an idea of what the exercise is about. If possible, please add keywords including medication used in the exercise and the date added. You can see an example below. You can find more information on importing exercises in our blog post here.
Expectations (‘Rules’) for Faculty Collaborators
When you log in to the Collaborative website there is a pop up that will give the details of the “Expectations (‘Rules’) for Faculty Collaborators” (below) that we ask everyone to follow. These expectations were developed by a group of faculty with varying levels of experience with MyDispense in Fall 2025.
Rationale
Having rules in an open source community helps establish clear expectations for collaboration, ensures respectful and productive interactions, and protects the integrity of the work. Below are our community rules.
Expectations
These expectation will show up as a “pop up” the first time you log into the Collaborate Site. You will be asked to agree to abide by these expectations and then the pop up will not show up again.
- Institutional administrators within the U.S. will be granted access to the MyDispense Collaborate site.
- Other faculty and staff will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
- Trainees are not eligible for accounts.
- Refrain from sharing your login information with others, including trainees.
- Respect each other’s work.
- Do not modify or delete cases on the shared site without prior discussion.
- It is acceptable to download cases and edit them on the home institution’s site.
- Modifying is acceptable in the sandbox (in-progress) when collaborating with others.
- Working groups may develop their own rules for their collaborative sub-space.
- Give credit for shared materials (e.g., acknowledgment of the collaborate site in publications). An example of an acknowledgment is “Educational activities for this study were [obtained/adapted] from the MyDispense USA Collaborate Site.”
- Use consistent formatting, naming conventions, and tagging.
- Required elements in the description include the uploader’s name and institution, the purpose of the exercise, and the intended student level.
- Required keywords include the date added and, if applicable, the medications included.
☐ I agree to abide by these expectations when using the collaboration site and acknowledge content created on the collaboration site can be used freely on other MyDispense instances.
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