From sterile skin adhesives and suture materials to specialized collagen and bone substitutes for dental and facial surgery, the Advanced Medical Solutions Group (AMS) stands as a global leader in the wound care sector. Beyond their flagship brands like LiquiBand, ActivHeal, and RESORBA, AMS also develops and manufactures products for other companies on an OEM basis. With around 500 employees across seven locations, this powerhouse distributes its innovative materials to 65 countries, all managed from its headquarters in Winsford, Northern England.

Streamlining Email Retention Across Borders

In the wake of several acquisitions, the company group faced the challenge of optimizing its email management across different countries. The primary goal was to ensure a uniform and compliance-friendly storage and archiving of all email communications. This move was designed to meet all regulatory requirements while, more importantly, ensuring instant access to information contained in older email messages whenever it was needed. Jonathan Orme, IS Support Manager at Advanced Medical Solutions Group, shares his insight:

At our headquarters in the United Kingdom, we rely on Lotus Notes for our email communication, which has proven reliable and functions well, As the company structure has changed through acquisitions, we have been looking for a uniform email archiving and management solution that can store contents for a long period of time and in a legally compliant manner.

Archiving That Meets Compliance and Legal Standards

When it came time to choose the right system, the IT leaders at AMS Group benefited greatly from the expertise within their own ranks. The German subsidiary in Nuremberg, acquired in 2011 and now known as RESORBA Medical GmbH, had already had very positive experiences with the EMA email archiving solution from ARTEC IT Solutions, in use for several years. EMA is designed not only to ensure archiving that complies with all legal requirements but also to provide speedy access to all email messages through an integrated full-text search.

While the legal guidelines for retaining business email are not as stringent in the UK as they are in Germany, and the processes are less regulated, we saw it as a significant advantage to implement a solution capable of meeting much stricter compliance regulations and legal requirements. This foresight is especially crucial considering the cross-border, long-term security and safe implementation we aim for, even more so given the highly sensitive nature of the medical technology field we operate in. Another feature of EMA that impressed us was its ability to connect to virtually any external storage media and configurations. This flexibility allows us to scale and expand as needed easily.

A major plus for AMS Group was the high level of security and traceability offered by EMA through numerous security features like a self-contained appliance system, integrated TPM technology, secure encryption of all data, and the assignment of unique, electronic time and date stamps. In the medical sector, particularly in the UK and the US, the GAMP guide (Good Automated Manufacturing Practice Supplier Guide for Validation of Automated Systems in Pharmaceutical Manufacture) plays a crucial role in ensuring safety. AMS aimed to maintain this high standard of quality and security across borders, even in email archiving and information management.

Streamlined Implementation

Setting up EMA at AMS's headquarters in Winsford, England, was a breeze, thanks to its configuration as a ready-to-go appliance. The system was up and running after just one weekend, requiring only minor tweaks to the existing Lotus Notes infrastructure. Since its implementation, EMA has been automatically archiving all incoming and outgoing email messages, ensuring a comprehensive and legally compliant email archive at all times. While the employees continued to use their familiar Notes system for sending and receiving email messages without any transition period or learning curve, the EMA live archive was always running in the background, accessible by the IT department staff as needed.

In daily use, there are a number of scenarios where access to the archive has been very helpful for us. We can look up customer information by searching through several years of email messages within seconds, even if the employee handling the customer no longer works at the company. Tasks like this were extremely long-winding and cumbersome before we introduced EMA. The system has also proven itself as a useful way for external auditors to access information that they require for their work.

Given the high level of satisfaction at AMS, plans are already underway to expand the use of EMA. The solution is set to be rolled out at the new branch in Plymouth, Southwest England, in the near future.