A world in which offices — and entire companies — coordinate all their functions off a single database system. A world in which everyone logs on in the morning and knows what they're expected to do for the rest of the day. A world in which nobody complains about lost memos, misfiled contracts, overwhelming paperwork. And for Medsafe — that world's already here, thanks to FileMaker Pro, the award winning database software application from FileMaker Inc.!

Business Challenge

Medsafe has a complicated mission — it helps companies ensure they are in compliance with an ever–changing mass of Federal health and safety regulations. Medsafe representatives are constantly on the road, traveling from client to client, inspecting workplaces, reporting the results, pointing out deficiencies and recommending corrections. You'd be hard pressed to come up with a more challenging, more complicated task. And yet every element of Medsafe's operations — from inspections to invoices, from contracts to payroll — is controlled by a single easy–to–learn, easy–to–use FileMaker Pro database.

Bernadette Downey put it all together. She's Medsafe's Chief Information Officer, and joined the company back when it was starting out. In those days, Medsafe was running on a tight budget: it had selected the Macintosh operating system because it was affordable, and it had selected FileMaker for its database needs because it was the most cost–effective system available for the Mac platform. Before Bernadette arrived, the company was using basic FileMaker applications around the office, but the field inspectors were keeping track of their assignments in little black books — which were easily mis–marked and often misplaced.

Successful Solution

FileMaker Pro changed all that. Bernadette had had considerable experience in dealing with relational databases — and she could see the potential for a central FileMaker system, linking together all the varied functions at Medsafe. Before long, the field representatives were being scheduled directly through FileMaker. Now, those field reps keep in touch with the main office using FileMaker's web–access feature — they know their assignments by clicking a tab, the status of past assignments with another click, and where they'll need to be in a week's time with yet another click. All their notes go directly into FileMaker — providing a detailed history of each inspection, each recommendation. And back home, the supervisors have access to this same information — they know what's happening with every representative and every client — every hour of every day.

Everything is brought into one place through FileMaker. Everyone is able to speak the same language, to read off the same page, to get exactly the information they need to get their jobs done.

— Bernadette Downey, Chief Information Officer, Medsafe

Soon, the expanded FileMaker Pro system had a name — 'New World.' And the New World took root at Medsafe, influencing every aspect of company culture. 'Everything is brought into one place through FileMaker,' says Bernadette. 'Everyone is able to speak the same language, to read off the same page, to get exactly the information they need to get their jobs done.' And it's essential — Bernadette says simply that the bottom line is the company could not exist without it — FileMaker Pro is absolutely central to every single function of the organization.