Welcome to the September edition of thepulse, Gael Ltd's quarterly Q-Pulse e-mail newsletter.

This issue we are in the midst of the User Groups with the final chance still remaining to sign up for some locations. We will be launching our new quarterly Customer Spotlight, taking a look at the Q-Pulse online knowledge base and introducing Gael’s brand new training academy.

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If you have still to upgrade to Q-Pulse V5 and would like to learn more about the upgrade process from people who have already experienced it, then now’s the time to take advantage of our series of User Groups. You will become more informed about Q-Pulse V5 and understand why it’s worth upgrading and although the events are now underway, there are still a few spaces remaining at Croke Park, Dublin on Tuesday 25th September.

During the User Groups there will be a chance to network with compliance peers. Members of the Q-Pulse team will also be on site at each location and available to offer advice and further information on Q-Pulse V5, upgrading and where next for Q-Pulse.

Existing users of Q-Pulse with a valid support agreement can reserve one place at the User Group free of charge. Additional attendees may be purchased at a cost of £125 per attendee, up to a maximum of 3 attendees per organisation.

As expected, the Q-Pulse User Groups have been very popular. Contact www.gaelquality.com/usergroups.asp or call +44 (0) 1355 593400 to find out if there are still places available at the Dublin event.

If you were unable to attend, presentations from the User Groups will be available in the Customer Zone of the website.

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Parker Domnick Hunter sought to increase ownership of their QA processes and procedures, but managing their quality management system (QMS) with paper-based systems resulted in a lack of ownership and increased workload for the QA department in attempting to roll out processes and procedures throughout the organisation.

Prior to the implementation of Q-Pulse, QA personnel had been using paper-driven systems to manage QA processes and procedures; despite having Q-Pulse within the organisation, QA personnel had not previously set up the system, but had used it as a portal to control documentation.

Robert Thompson, QA Manager: ‘With Q-Pulse V5 now in place, all of the functionality from V4.2 has been retained, but our main focus has been on the use of the CA/PA module to increase ownership of non-conformances and to drive a culture of continual improvement.'

At Parker Domnick Hunter, Q-Pulse V5 is now a key business system, and users – not QA – are driving the development of several templates and associated functionality; however, QA still administer the system.

To find out more on using Q-Pulse to increase ownership within your organisation and implement new processes and procedures, contact info@gaelquality.com

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Sharing knowledge and benchmarking are becoming buzzwords in many industries. However, pathology is one area where it is vital that workers are up to speed with the very latest information in quality management due to the impact any flaws or lack of knowledge here can have on laboratory safety and integrity. To help achieve this knowledge share, Gael has been pleased to sponsor Pathology Quality Management Forums in England and Wales.

We sponsored this year’s North West Regional Pathology Quality Management Forum, which was held at Wrightington Hospital on June 28, as well as the South West Regional Pathology Quality Management Forum at Taunton Racecourse on July 5. In addition to assisting with the share of knowledge amongst industry professionals, the events were also an opportunity for laboratories to find out how Q-Pulse V5 can help achieve best practice in pathology quality management.

Gregor McCall, Gael’s Upgrade Manager attended the events and said:
‘In pathology quality management, the quality manager’s role is increasingly important in achieving best practice, and events like the Forums, where quality managers can share knowledge and benchmark systems are vital. Q-Pulse V5 can offer assistance to the quality manager as it now includes improved tracking and maintenance for equipment, training and competences, and helps pathology quality professionals to measure the effectiveness of their quality management system.’

There are more sponsored events in the pipeline. Keep an eye on our website at www.gaelquality.com for more information.

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Release date revealed for Q-Pulse V5.2

As part of our ongoing Q-Pulse development strategy, we are delighted to announce that Q-Pulse V5.2 will be available for implementation as of December 2007. V5.2 represents the first in a series of Q-Pulse enhancement releases that will follow throughout 2008, all of which are aimed at improving and enhancing the general operation of V5.

New functional enhancements to be found in V5.2 include:

• Goto Messaging – the ability to access a Q-Pulse record directly from its associated email in MS Outlook.
• Workload Escalation – the ability to create activity control points with associated business alerts when exceeded.
• Conditional Messaging – the ability to define message recipients based on specific conditions being met.
  
  

The Goto Messaging function will enhance Q-Pulse’s ability to promote ownership and interaction across the management system, as it will be even easier for your users to access the tasks and actions assigned to them. We would strongly suggest using this exciting new function in conjunction with the existing “single sign-on” functionality where Q-Pulse users do not need to enter a password to access the system, as combined it will make task completion and record accessing so much simpler.

Conditional messaging is also a powerful new addition to Q-Pulse that will enable improved compliance information communication across the organisation. An example of a condition and how it could be used is as follows:

“If a new non-conformance is raised where the source is EQUAL TO “customer compliant” and the severity is EQUAL TO “major” and the customer is EQUAL TO “Gael Quality” THEN automatically alert X, Y and Z.”

This condition would then ensure that all those with an interest in the customer account are automatically informed of any major issues with their client. Such functionality is especially important when your organisation has key customers or suppliers.

V5.2 also sees some major enhancements for our Q-Pulse Enterprise Edition users including:

• Enhanced web interfaces for the CAPA and Audit modules
• 21 CFR Part 11 functionality
  

The CA/PA and Audit web interfaces will allow Enterprise Edition users to easily deploy their incident management and audit management processes across both their organisation and its associated supply chain. The 21 CFR Part 11 functionality will enable Enterprise Edition users within the Life Sciences sector to meet their regulatory requirements to the US Food and Drugs Administration Agency. If you are a Life Science organisation and wish to discuss upgrading to the Part 11 compliant Enterprise Edition then contact us on info@gaelquality.com. Likewise, if you can see the value in extending your CA/PA and Audit processes throughout the organisation via a secure web interface then contact us to discuss upgrading to Enterprise Edition.

Invitations to attend preview WebEx presentations on V5.2 will be sent over the following weeks so keep an eye out for them.

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Q-Pulse knowledge at your fingertips

Online knowledge transfer is now a part of everyday life. In fact, it can be difficult to remember the days before we could instantly find out anything we want to whether it’s the capital city of Mongolia (Ulaanbaatar) or who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1997 (United Kingdom). As useful as this is for pub quizzes, the main advantage it offers is the reduction in time required to find out the answers to everyday questions. Now, in order, to reduce the time spent by Q-Pulse customers searching for help using Q-Pulse, the answers to the most frequently asked questions about Q-Pulse V5 will be available on our website from October.

With step-by-step instructions on how to resolve the most common Q-Pulse issues, our new online knowledge base offers a one-stop shop for your Q-Pulse questions, reducing the time spent looking for information online or through Support and complementing both the product help and Support services.

In addition, we’ll be updating the knowledge base regularly with new questions and answers, to ensure that the information you need is available at a click of your mouse.

Mark Gahagan, Customer Services Manager said, “The new Q-Pulse knowledge base has been compiled from the most asked customer queries. It should dramatically reduce the time spent searching for product help online for our customers and enable them to access the knowledge whenever they require it.”

Keep an eye on our website for details on the release of the knowledge bank. Of course, it will be your knowledge bank, so if you think there’s anything we’ve missed, please contact us at info@gaelquality.com with ideas for inclusion.

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We have recently re-developed and re-structured our on-site training and support offering to ensure that customers gain maximum benefit from the service.

Instead of running two consecutive days, we have now split the customisation process in two. On the first day we’ll make sure that you’re ready to put V5 in place, and we’ll give full consideration to six key customisable areas of the system:

The first day also gives you the chance to map your existing processes – as well as any processes that you want to put into place – to make sure that you’re getting the most out of V5.

The second day will now take place at a convenient later date and lets you evaluate the day and its outcome in order to fully prepare for the rest of the customisation process. This enables more focus and time spent considering what you want to achieve on subsequent days.

Working closely with one of our consultants, you’ll put together a plan to roll Q-Pulse out within your company, as well as consider any barriers that you’ll need to overcome to successfully put Q-Pulse in place, at the point-of-need.

If you want to find out more about the services available, please contact info@gaelquality.com.


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Back to school with the Q-Pulse academy

Facilitating training on new or updated applications can be a major headache for many organisations. Logistics and time issues mean it can be months, if not years, before all staff are up to speed and confidently using the applications in the way they are meant to be used. In order to address this problem with regards to Q-Pulse, Gael is delighted to announce they are currently developing a new online training academy that brings the knowledge of how to use Q-Pulse direct to your desktop.

Together with our extensive suite of on-site Professional Services, the training academy will help reduce the barriers to adoption for Q-Pulse, especially within companies in which the system has been implemented but not rolled out beyond the initial project team.

The academy will encompass a whole series of interactive training courses that can be undertaken at a time that’s convenient to both organisation and individual learner and will also help ensure that a knowledge and skills framework can be set up to enable the roll out of Q-Pulse throughout organisations, with the minimum of time, effort and cost.

The academy will be launched in January 2008. In the meantime, if you wish to find out more, please contact Gael’s Director of Professional Services, Ashley Marron, ashleym@gaelquality.com.

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That's it for this edition of thepulse.

The next edition will be with you in December but if you can't wait til then, you can check out our regular news, forums and information on Gael Ltd and on compliance issues at our website at www.gaelquality.com.

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