Patient in your Pocket will enable care providers to use their BlackBerry smartphone to receive a schedule of appointments for the day ahead. Once with the patient, they can retrieve up-to-date information about the patient's condition and enter new data directly into the smartphone, dictating notes or filling in forms using a 'digital' pen. Patient confidentiality is protected through the use of smartcard log-on and strong data encryption.

The solution also provides a layer of personal safety protection for healthcare professionals working alone. An activity monitoring system enables staff to register expected times for lone-working tasks with a call centre. An alarm is raised if those activities exceed the expected duration without contact from the healthcare worker. In an instance like this, a healthcare worker may be in need of intervention, they may even be under personal threat. The alarm is sent to trained operators who will assess the situation and engage the appropriate services.

Commenting on the launch Andrew Spence, UK director of healthcare strategy at CSC, said: "Patient in your Pocket plays strongly to the Department of Health's agenda of 'doing more with less'. It will cut costs, improve the delivery of care and patient satisfaction. In addition, it reduces the cost of buying laptops and the associated risk of theft. With the NHS facing the challenges of an ageing UK population, and a higher incidence of chronic disease and long term conditions, the use of technology enabling collaborative care is going to be essential to managing this growing problem."

Dr Paul Shannon, CSC's UK medical director, also believes that introducing these new ways of utilising mobile technology is completely in line with the objectives of delivering patient-centric care as outlined in the recent white paper, 'Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS'.

"Healthcare professionals need to be able to capture and send information as part of the patient record, whether that is narrative, structured data or images, allowing rapid advice to be accessed to benefit the patient. This is as important in the community as it is in clinics or in hospitals. They need to be able to manage their diary, make patient related calls, raise alerts, contact team members, plan journeys and make home visits in an efficient manner, which this new solution will enable them to do," said Dr Shannon.

Daniel Morrison-Gardiner, UK Healthcare director at Research In Motion (RIM), comments: "Mobile technology can be incredibly helpful in improving healthcare delivery and making healthcare services more patient-centric. With CSC's extensive knowledge of the healthcare market, and the power of the BlackBerry solution, Patient in your Pocket can play an important part in transforming the way healthcare professionals work and provide patient care."

"When you are dealing with patient information, security is paramount," adds Morrison- Gardiner. "The CSC solution runs over the BlackBerry Enterprise Server so updates and upgrades can be centrally controlled and information, such as appointments and patient details, can be sent out and received within a secure environment."

CSC and RIM are currently working together with BigHand, Destiny, Guardian 24 and Inchware to bring the new service into operation.

The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited. RIM, Research In Motion and BlackBerry are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be pending or registered in other countries. RIM assumes no liability and makes no representation, warranty or guarantee in relation to third party products or services.

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• CSC's Profile

About CSC
CSC is a global leader in providing technology-enabled solutions and services through three primary lines of business. These include Business Solutions and Services, the Managed Services Sector and the North American Public Sector. CSC's advanced capabilities include system design and integration, information technology and business process outsourcing, applications software development, Web and application hosting, mission support and management consulting. Headquartered in Falls Church, Va., CSC has approximately 95,000 employees and reported revenue of $16.2 billion for the 12 months ended July 2, 2010. For more information, visit the company's website at www.csc.com.

Although best known as the Local Service Provider delivering the NHS National Programme for IT - now covering 60% of England - CSC is about more than just IT. Because of its breadth and depth of transformational experience, CSC not only helps healthcare providers to apply its solutions intelligently, but also can help them manage the process of change. This is critical for ensuring that trusts can meet their long-term objectives - and immediate challenges - around productivity and quality enhancements, whilst meeting government targets too. For further information regarding CSC healthcare solutions in the UK visit www.csc.com/cscalliance.