Datapharm Puts Safety First With Numara FootPrints

Published 13th October 2008

• Numara Software helps to ensure that accurate and up-to-date information on medicines is provided to healthcare professionals and the general public

Reading, UK, 10th October 2008: Numara Software, Inc., a leader in service desk management solutions, today announced that Datapharm Communications Ltd has recently implemented Numara FootPrints 8.

Numara FootPrints was selected over and above seven other service desk solutions and today it supports Datapharm’s online data management systems, as well as three public facing websites providing online medicines information to healthcare professionals and the general public.

Pharmaceutical companies are required by law to provide regulated information about their products to healthcare professionals and to patients when they have been prescribed a medicine. Datapharm, a not-for-profit organisation funded by the pharmaceutical industry provides online services which provide the pharmaceutical industry with a channel through which to provide this information.

Pharmaceutical companies publish and update the information about their products on Datapharm’s public facing web sites, and the Numara FootPrints Service Desk has enabled Datapharm to provide efficient and timely support to both pharmaceutical companies managing their information, as well as users of the web sites.

Prior to deploying Numara FootPrints, Datapharm was using an internally developed service desk system. However, as the needs of the business grew Datapharm needed a more robust and advanced solution to better support the evolving business. Providing a wealth of electronic medicines information services, Datapharm were looking for a web-based, adaptive architecture that could be changed quickly without incurring costly professional services fees.
According to Paul Stack, Software Developer for Datapharm: “Our aim is to improve public health and safety by giving information on medicines that is up to date, accurate and comprehensive. Our service desk is extremely busy and in any given month Numara FootPrints deals with thousands of queries - getting information back to our pharmaceutical industry colleagues and users of our web sites quickly and efficiently is of critical importance to us.”
Following a rigorous selection process which involved eight competitive service desk solutions, Datapharm chose Numara FootPrints.

Paul Stack continues: “Numara FootPrints really stood out. It did everything that the product claimed to do and more! The customisable templates, flexibility and easy to use interface were all very impressive and we realised how quick and easy this product would be to deploy.

As a not-for-profit organisation it was important that we found a product that had all the functionality we needed, but was also competitively priced. Numara FootPrints was the right solution for our business.

We completed phase one of the Numara FootPrints implementation in less than five days and the product was so intuitive and easy to install that we actually needed very little help from the Numara Software professional services team to configure it to go live”

Today, Numara FootPrints is not only used as a service desk solution for pharmaceutical industry colleagues managing the information about their products, and users of the public facing web sites but it is also being utilised in-house for software tracking and asset management. Additionally, Datapharm is in the process of implementing a best practice framework.

“When dealing with information that needs to be accurate and up-toate, it is clearly important that Datapharm can respond quickly to queries,” said Andy White, Managing Director for EMEA and APAC at Numara Software. Numara FootPrints helps Datapharm to respond to issues efficiently because everything is automated and the management reports provide all the information necessary to ensure Datapharm is meeting customer commitments. Additionally Numara FootPrints has been developed in line with ITIL and offers a range of best practice features that allow our customers to increase operational efficiencies and analyse statistics closely, giving them an overall improved level of control across the business.”

For more information please visit www.numarasoftware.co.uk.
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About Datapharm
Datapharm is a leading provider of online information about prescribed medicines. Our mission is to improve public health and safety by providing, on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry, comprehensive, accurate and up to date information about prescribed medicines to health professionals, patients, and the general public. We are a not for profit company funded by subscriptions from over 150 UK pharmaceutical companies.

Datapharm provides a range of medicines information web sites and services:

• electronic Medicines Compendium (eMC)
The largest and most comprehensive source of summaries of product characteristics (SPCs) and patient information leaflets (PILs) for UK licensed medicines
www.emc.medicines.org.uk

• X-PIL
PILs available for blind and partially sighted people. The X-PIL web site has large print and screen reader-friendly PILs. We also work with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) who provide Braille and audio versions using medicines information content supplied by Datapharm www.xpil.medicines.org.uk

• Medicine Guides
Medicine Guides are written for patients, to give more information about medicines. Medicine Guides are linked to the treatments section of the Health Encyclopaedia on the NHS Direct web site www.medguides.medicines.org.uk

In addition to our online services we also provide:
• The Medicines Compendium
The Medicines Compendium is a book containing SPCs for many of the medicines that are licensed in the UK. This book is published every year and is free for healthcare professionals working in the NHS

And for the pharmaceutical industry:

• In-Demand
Datapharm in partnership with the NHS Business Services Authority’s (NHSBSA) Prescription Pricing Division has developed ‘In-Demand’. This service enables companies to submit new and updated product information directly to the NHS’ dictionary of medicines and devices (dm+d) - the database which is used to populate prescribing systems in England http://indemand.medicines.org.uk

About Numara Software, Inc.
Serving over 50,000 customer sites worldwide, Numara Software is a global leader in providing practical software solutions for service management to IT professionals. From a single technician running a help desk to 1000 technicians managing a complex service desk, IT organizations of all sizes trust our award-winning solutions, featuring Numara Track-It! and Numara FootPrints, to track requests, automate workflows and support internal and external customers.

Unlike other complex, difficult-to-implement, and costly products, we offer robust, affordable and easy-to-use solutions that can be quickly deployed without disruption to your business. Our flexible solutions can be implemented right out of the box or configured to match your unique IT environment and business processes. They can also be leveraged to support non-IT operations, such as human resources and facilities, allowing you to optimize your investments in licensing, maintenance, training, and support.

We’re passionate about helping people successfully manage their IT environments. To register for a one-on-one guided walkthrough, attend a webinar or download a trial, please contact the UK sales team on: + 44 (0) 800 1952373 or visit: www.numarasoftware.co.uk.