Health serviced by IT mobility

Firms partner to create managed service to cut NHS paperwork

Three channel players have teamed up to create a managed service to save NHS workers from drowning in a sea of paperwork.

Toshiba, integrator SCC and software vendor Extended Systems have devised a mobile information retrieval system known as the Clinician eHealth Mobile Access (CeMAS), based on broadband IP, 3G and Wi-Fi.

The firms said the service, which is running as a pilot scheme at one NHS site, is designed for mobile devices such as tablet PCs and can be used by clinicians to retrieve information while they are face-to-face with patients.

The service also includes an offline status for when staff are out of network range.

John Allen, head of mobile solutions at SCC, said the service acts like middleware. "CeMAS is a series of applications provided online and centrally derived. It can access any information, from any device, from any source and securely. All of the applications [the system] uses will change over time so we need to be application-independent," he said.

Nigel Doust, vice-president for EMEA at Extended Systems, said: "The savings in time to the NHS will be measured in hours per day per care provider. It has up-to-date information and patient history at the point of care."

Application providers and developers have been invited to work with CeMAS, and it has already received qualified attention from Microsoft.

Andy Brown, an analyst at IDC, said: "Mobility has often given real benefits in specific vertical markets, such as healthcare. CeMAS could lead to a working environment with less paper. Such services predominantly have benefits for system integrators because roll-outs typically involve a number of partners."