‘Dropbox-like’ system in South Devon

South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has implemented a secure “Dropbox-like” system to allow its staff to share documents on mobile devices.

The trust started a trial of the Accellion system about a year ago, and ultimately purchased the system which lets staff share and access documents, use NHSMail and other applications securely on iPads.

IT operation manager at South Devon Health Informatics Service, David Hayes, told EHI that as the trust is investing in mobile devices, primarily iPads, being able to use these securely is important.

“To be able to let people use the iPad and leave behind the laptops, we needed two things: the ability to access documents securely, both online and offline; and the other is access to email,” he said.

“We wanted something that was “Dropbox-like”, but hosted in Europe or the UK, possibly in our own site. We were able to start a small pilot and got a few people using it. It gave people exactly what they required. ”

The system is being used by board members, managers and clinicians. It means they can access the same documents across different devices, for instance both on their desktop and on the iPad, and across care settings.

“We have a transformation team that’s working with a number of parties across the trust. This allows them to have a number of documents to share. We’re looking to share information with care homes as well,” said Hayes.

He added that the sharing functionality can be customised, so you can give one person read and write access, and another read-only access.

South Devon has 300 registered Apple devices, with 100 of them using Accellion.

Hayes said that work is ongoing to open up the use of iPads further and the trust is also using VitalPAC, a clinical system for monitoring and analysing patients’ vital signs, on iPads.

“There are a number of developments that are going to open this up. We’re working on a clinical portal and a key element of that will be iPads,” he said.

“We just rolled out a new picture, archiving and communications system, so we’re looking at a PACS viewing system that can be used on the iPad.”