The Irish Medicines Board

System Dynamics helped the Irish Medicines Board to significantly reduce paper volumes in the veterinary medicines area over the past two years through the introduction of a document management system which integrates paperwork into the business process flow.

The Challenge

Irish Medicines Board (IMB) is a Public body set up to ensure the quality, safety and efficacy of human and veterinary medicines available in Ireland and to participate in systems designed to license medicines throughout the European Union.

The Irish Medicines Board invited System Dynamics to evaluate the potential of document management systems within the organisation. Due to the nature of the work carried out by the IMB significant volumes of paperwork are retained for many years. It was concluded that the organisation could greatly benefit from a web based application that could address the following:

• Legacy documentation.
• Ongoing scanning of business documentation.
• Electronic filing from desktop applications such as MS-Office.
• Robust retrieval tools to support the licensing processes.

System Dynamics developed the necessary tools and a fully functional document management system was implemented in the veterinary area. The new system was designed to handle a variety of information formats, including various file types, emails and paper correspondence.

The new system was also required to have sufficient flexibility to handle all of the various licensing functions of the IMB. Each function, such as licensing or monitoring, had varying requirements and each had to be accommodated.

Workflow technology was introduced at the IMB in the human medicines area. The System Dynamics solution was capable of integrating seamlessly with this new application thereby allowing the extension of the document management solution across new business units. This approach has minimised development costs and reduced training time for staff.

The Solution

The project encompassed the following key steps:

• The first step in System Dynamics' solution was to install a core document management system based on the Lotus Domino framework. Domino allows multiple users to work in collaboration on documents from different sources.
• System Dynamics then extended this core system to allow personnel access to other documents such as Microsoft Word and Outlook email, both of which were essential applications used within the IMB.
• The third phase of the new system allowed the IMB to upload scanned paper documents and associated information onto the system. This was done by development of an API (Application Program Interface) between a third party scanning system and the new document management system. With so much of the IMB's correspondence originating in paper format, the inclusion of this element of the system was vital to the creation of a genuine electronic document management system.
• Each paper document is scanned to create an exact image of it, which can be stored on the system. Each scanned document has an associated index file that contains all of the vital information that relates to the document.
• The inclusion of index files allows for the integration of these records into the system and allows users to search index files for key words and then retrieve and view the original scanned document if required.

The Benefits

The creation of the new document management system had an immediate effect on the work processes of the IMB:

• Staff at the IMB can now handle all veterinary licensing functions through one integrated electronic system.
• The system is now being fully extended to the human medicines area and is integrated with other essential business applications e.g. workflow.
• Now users can access all appropriate information and all records from their desktop, without the need to revert to paper based files. This approach saves time and effort across the organisation.

Client Testimonial

"Our new document management system has made a significant contribution towards our operations, especially in the veterinary medicines area. Now staff can access essential information directly from their desktops. Manual document handling has traditionally been a resource intensive operation for the organisation and this new approach has introduced time and cost savings through improved access and the reduction in storage costs". – Suzanne McDonald – IT Director.