FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NHS body turns to XM SendSecure to address information governance issues
with existing infrastructures
National Artificial Eye
Service aims to ensure secure transmission of patient data
- Service
becomes fully compliant with GDPR and NHS Information Governance Regulations
for transfer of confidential or sensitive data
- User-friendly
authentication with files of up to 5TB transferred easily and securely
- Full
audit trail with real-time monitoring enabling termination of any suspect activity
- Highlights
that a modern secure communications strategy requires more than encrypted
email and a ban on fax machines
Henley-on-Thames (UK),
January 8, 2019 —The National Artificial Eye Service (NAES) is
currently piloting the use of XM SendSecure in order to address potential information
governance issues around the transfer of sensitive patient information that had
been identified by the IT team. As a national body covering England, it is
important to be able to exchange sensitive information securely with people
inside and outside the organisation.
“Communication with patients,
consultants and other stakeholders involves the transmission of sensitive
personal data, which falls under the regulatory umbrella of the GDPR, ICO and
the NHS Information Governance regulations,” said Paul Aspden, Technical ICT
Lead at the National Artificial Eye Service. “In order to be fully compliant,
it’s important that file transfers are encrypted during transmission and at
rest. As an added benefit, we also have an increased file size limit of up to
5TB.”
“With XM SendSecure, information
exchange meets the highest compliance requirements, not just because the files
are encrypted at rest and in transit, but also because of the use of two-factor
authentication to restrict access to the intended recipients only,” said
Sébastien Boire-Lavigne, Executive Vice President and CTO at XMedius. “Additionally,
a comprehensive audit trail records every access to the data in the ephemeral
SendSecure SafeBox. Together, these tick all the boxes for ‘privacy by design’
and ‘privacy by default’ as demanded by the GDPR.”
With a database of over
48,000 patients, the NAES, hosted within the Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS
Foundation Trust, is part of the NHS and provides a manufacturing and fitting
service for the supply of ocular prostheses to all eligible patients throughout
England.
It is when communicating
with external stakeholders that existing systems are either most exposed or cumbersome
to use. Encrypted email systems typically require that all users are on the
same system, or on the same domain in the case of nhs.net. Transmissions
outside of the NHS domain are not fully encrypted and hence potentially
insecure. They also suffer from file size limitations.
While the NAES was already
fully compliant with all the data protection legislation, the team identified
XM SendSecure as a viable approach of addressing all of these issues. When
communicating with anyone outside the NHS or anyone that does not have expensive
encrypted systems as standard, it offers a secure solution that is quick and easy
to both use and to implement.
XM SendSecure will also
form an integral part of the NAES Disaster Recovery Policy (DR), ensuring business
as usual without security concerns when sending data externally to clinics and
other stakeholders. With simple recipient two-factor authentication for access
to a fully encrypted SafeBox, it provides the added benefit of a full,
real-time audit trail.
The NAES has a track
record of leading the way in the NHS with early adoption of technologies to
save money and improve workflows. The organisation removed all fax machines
four years ago and replaced them with their own electronic fax over IP solution,
saving on dedicated fax lines and maintenance costs.
The Service is again
blazing a trail with the pilot adoption of XM SendSecure for secure file transfers,
which sits alongside fax over IP and NHS Mail as part of an integrated end-to-end
communications strategy.
About XMedius
XMedius is a global
leader in the field of enterprise communications solutions. Its suite of
enterprise-grade on-premises and cloud communications solutions enable
businesses to benefit from secure and unified communication, as well as to
exchange sensitive and confidential data that meets and exceeds industry
regulatory compliance requirements. Based in Montreal (Canada), with offices in
Seattle (USA) and Paris (France), the company serves businesses, enterprises
and service providers through a global team of customer focused employees. Its
solutions are deployed worldwide across a number of sectors, including
education, finance, government, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and legal
services. For more information about XMedius and its solutions, visit www.xmedius.com, and connect on LinkedIn and Twitter.
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XMedius UK Media Contact:
Chris
Ritchie
Sine Qua Non International Ltd
01491 845420
chris.ritchie@sinequanon-intl.com