Recently we had an opportunity to speak with Adam Train, the Clinical Administrator at GAMA Healthcare about Clinell Training Package

Please share with us the backstory of what motivated you to create this app.

Training and support has always been key for us. We've also got a strong history of using innovation to solve problems in infection prevention - our products are some of the market leaders in environmental decontamination - but even the best product in the world isn't going to protect patients if it's not used correctly.

We provide free training to our customers in the UK, given by our team of senior infection prevention and control nurses, but unfortunately they can't be everywhere at once. We created the Clinell Training Package to fill that niche: all of the apps in the software suite make life easier for local infection prevention teams by helping automate some of their more time-consuming jobs.

Instead of spending hours creating slides for staff training, they can use the Training app to create an entire presentation in minutes. Evaluclean takes the process of auditing cleaning and makes it totally paperless - even performing analytics and generating reports can be done with the tap of a button. So I guess that was the motivation, to offer more support to local infection prevention teams - though the ultimate aim of the game is preventing healthcare associated infections!

How did you decide which platforms to release your app on and do you plan on releasing your app to other platforms?

Our development team are experienced primarily with Android so that makes the most sense. We provide the Training Package applications pre-loaded onto a Clinell tablet that is delivered to local infection control teams so we're able to source Android tablets easily to provide to hospitals and healthcare organisations,

How is your app different than the rest of the market? Which unique need does it fill?

There's actually nothing else on the market the compares to the Clinell Training Package. The Training app, for example, took an entire team of infection prevention experts and Android developers to create. It's essentially like PowerPoint or Keynote, only the slides have already been created for you. All the slides cover a huge breadth of knowledge of infection prevention and are hyperlinked to the supporting studies; it's part presentation app, part literature review.

Evaluclean isn't the only UV auditing tool on the market. However, the tablet-based software enables users to record raw data and automates the entire process of performing analytics and generating reports. You can go from finishing your audit, to emailing a PDF report to your boss within about 5 minutes - that sets it apart pretty far from the competition. There's no complicated menus and settings to work through, just some tick boxes about what you'd like to include and you're away.

There's also the fact that our entire Training Package is free for Clinell customers as part of our after sales support. No standalone app developer could afford to create and market anything similar to this without charging thousands for it. We're able to offer it free to customers because best-practice infection prevention and control training forms a core part of our business.

What features do you hope to roll out to your app in the future?

We're currently working on a 3.0 update for Evaluclean. It'll introduce new analytics, new visuals and, most excitingly, an online sync feature. The online sync will allow users to login and track audit data from various linked tablets across their organisation. It's going to make life so much easier for big hospitals and organisations with multiple sites, as well as providing a secure backup for data from the average user. It's taken a huge amount of work but it's going to be worth every bead of sweat!

What has been the most rewarding aspect of the creation of this app?

The whole process is so intrinsically rewarding, you know? We're working on this series of apps that will help stop someone catching a healthcare associate infection. It's incredibly rewarding to think that something you've helped create will help stop someone catching MRSA or C. diff. Anything we can do in the fight against superbugs is rewarding enough.

What is the coolest or most innovative feature of your app?

That's a hard one!

I'd have to say the session creator in the Training app. It's amazing to be able to build an hour-long presentation in the space of about 5 minutes. All you have to do is pick the topics you want to cover - and pick how long you want to talk about each one - and the Training app generates this presentation for you. Not only that but, because it features hyperlinks to all the relevant studies, you can use it as a sort of interactive textbook to make sure you're up to date with the latest evidence!

What surprised you most in your journey to create this app?

How much work goes into it! It's taken so much input from so many phenomenally talented people. From the software developers and the designers, to the clinical experts and our nurse trainers providing content and expert feedback. It's amazing how many people have had their hand in crafting both the user experience and the nuts and bolts underneath. Winning in the best education app category was such a fantastic bit of recognition for all their hard work.

Which other mobile apps or technology have inspired you?

There's a huge array of amazing audit and training tools out there, but very little covering specifically the field of environmental cleaning and infection control. There are so many applications that inspired our vision of making things as quick and user-friendly as possible, whilst still remaining flexible enough to be useful in an organisation as complex as an NHS trust, for example.

Do you have any recommendations or advice for others wanting to create a mobile app?

There are no dumb users!

I know that might be a bit trite but it's absolutely true. No one has ever used an app wrong - it's just that there are apps out there that are able to be used incorrectly. If a user does something wrong, it's not their fault, you need to figure out a way to make sure it doesn't happen again.

At the end of the day, it's all about what the user expects to achieve with the app and what their experience is doing so. If you can identify what they are and align their goals with yours, you're off to a great start!

You can view Clinell Training Package here