[b]$GROV[/b] .38 GroveWare Technologies Announces the Launch of a State-Wide Project With New York State's Center for Environmental Health
TORONTO, ONTARIO, [b][color=blue]Aug 20, 2012[/color] [/b](MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- GroveWare Technologies Ltd. (OTCQB: GROV) has just successfully concluded a 12 month pilot project with the New York State Department of Health's Center for Environmental Health (CEH) during which many state wide environmental health inspection processes, which are currently performed on paper, can be replaced with wireless tablet devices using GroveWare`s MobiTask(TM) inspection solution which utilizes the eXFORMA(TM) Suite of products. More than 20 local health departments have contacted CEH to evaluate the mobile inspection and licensing tools developed by GroveWare. These solutions are expected to appeal to more than 500 local health inspectors within New York State who work in tandem with the Center. The Center applies scientific, medical, engineering and public health expertise to identify, understand, prevent and mitigate risks to human health from New York State's living and working environments. The MobiTask application will provide the state's Department of Health, and all the county health units within the state, with the necessary tools to collect environmental health data from the field and to manage and report the results of the inspections using the latest wireless technologies in real time. In addition, the project successfully meets all the legislated privacy and security requirements under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), with significant improvement in process efficiency and cost savings to the Center and the county health units, as well as a large reduction in paper consumption.
The introduction to the Center was facilitated by the government sales team at Verizon Wireless which will benefit from the corresponding sale of wireless devices and data lines and from the enhanced client relationship that derives from bringing a valued solution and solving a customer problem.
The opportunity was introduced to GroveWare in late 2011. A series of webinars, a few days of rapid prototype development and a presentation by GroveWare to the management team at CEH's Information Systems and Technology Unit in Troy, NY rapidly led to the conclusion that MobiTask(TM) was vastly superior to other solutions being considered. Working together with CEH and Department of Health staff, GroveWare developed and launched a prototype which was field tested and certified by the state and has now been approved for fast-track implementation across New York State.
MobiTask(TM) will initially be used to collect data for 7 of the 52 inspection functions routinely administered by the Center using data collected by the approximately 500 inspectors employed by state and county governments. Inspections will include visiting state-sponsored housing facilities under the "Healthy Neighbourhood" program, food service facilities including restaurants, cafeterias and mobile food service vehicles, public swimming pools and public beaches, tanning and beauty salons, tobacco sales outlets, temporary food facilities at county fairs and public events and private homes as part of the home monitoring intended to improve environmental conditions in the homes of asthmatic children. The field data is collected by county inspectors on their tablets and then transmitted in real time directly to the Center's centralized database where it is used to monitor living and working environmental conditions and to identify problem areas that require a response or corrective activity by the Center or by the county.
John Bintz, Director of the CEH Information Systems and Technology Unit has been the champion of the project and is confident that the use of Mobitask will permit a much more cost-effective and time efficient collection of a wide variety of data replacing antiquated and costly paper-based processes. He anticipates that adoption of Mobitask(TM) by the Department of Health will be replicated in the near term by other New York State agencies and by various county and municipal agencies as they recognize the cost and productivity enhancements available from GroveWare's out-of-the-box Mobitask(TM) solutions.
"With Mobitask and eXFORMA, GroveWare offers a unique suite of tools and services to develop intelligent electronic forms for use on handheld devices and submit data to a central system in real time" says Blintz. "In many cases, GroveWare will design and host forms to client specifications, providing the client with data access or extracts. Our situation was different. We wanted to host our own environment and learn to develop our own forms. GroveWare showed us the ropes, made modifications and enhancements to the design tools for us and worked with us to migrate across different operating platforms. Their technical people are excellent. We are excited about this project and believe this can revolutionize the way our people work in the field, providing better information in a much more efficient manner."
About GroveWare Technologies Ltd.
GroveWare is one of North America's leading providers of mobile solutions to enterprise, connecting workforces by mobile device to a wide selection of ERP systems and helping American businesses and institutions to enhance productivity and improve profitability by mobilizing and automating business processes. GroveWare's showcase software, MobiTask, is a wireless client application compatible with all smartphones and tablets including: iPhone(R), iPad(R), BlackBerry(R), PlayBook(TM), and all devices using the Android(TM) or Windows Mobile(R) wireless platforms. MobiTask mobilizes employee tasks in the field and connects them directly to the organization's enterprise software systems. MobiTask allows organizations to rapidly and cost-effectively deploy mobile solutions for workers on the go. MobiTask provides the convenience of using dynamic electronic forms created using GroveWare's eXFORMA(TM) middleware to collect field data, manage workflow, HR and CRM tasks wirelessly, store documents locally and integrates quickly with most ERP systems and back-end databases on any application such as Oracle(R) e-Business Suite(TM), PeopleSoft(TM), SharePoint(TM), Kronos(R) Workforce Central(TM), MS Dynamics(TM) or SAP(R). Users can remotely and wirelessly clock-in/out, approve and initiate workflow tasks, or use dynamic e-Forms for inspections, licensing and data collection all from their smartphones. GroveWare is especially targeting the government, construction, healthcare, and law enforcement sectors and its successes to-date and rapidly growing interest from these and other quarters of business, provide exciting growth challenges and opportunities for the company.
