EBME Forums Forums Management Medical Equipment Management EMAT - Teething Problems.

RE: EMAT

What's your opinion and what are your experiences of using this database? Any niggles or problems? What's the after-sales support like? Is this a database that requires full-time, in-house, expertise or what?

As one of a new and relatively frustrated (I speak only for myself) group of EMAT users, who're using this database application , I'd be interested in hearing about any issues you have - on or off forum.

Thanks.

Nobody using this database then?

Looks like your the pioneer Richard.

As you must be aware, Richard, there are many clues to the identity of happy users, not only on E-MAT threads on this forum, but also on Barwick's website!

Not really John - you've probably "been there and done that" on the database side of things - like many others in EBME/Medical Physics who move into database administration.

That's actually why I'm asking plus I hear good things about EMAT generally speaking. I'm trying to sort the "spin" from the facts. I notice you had nothing to say either way, good or bad.

I thought I'd get a better response from the happy customers to contradict my experiences working with a recently installed EMAT database, which are frustrating to me personally to say the least.

As an "bystander" where I work and a "layperson" when it comes to databases I'm trying to determine where the source of our problems are stemming from - the product, support, the way we're using it, or the way it's being implemented.

Hi

I'm the Account Manager for E-MAT and I'd be very interested in speaking to you about any concerns you have using our E-MAT system, please could you contact me.

Kind regards
Zoe

Any users who'd care to share their experiences? Off forum, off the record, if you prefer.

I am no expert on databses, but have experienced bad ones and consider E-Mat at the time of purchase to be the best of the bunch in terms of specification, flexibility of both the database and the company in supporting it. Our IT department were happy with the system and so far I do not believe it has fallen over yet.We have used E-Mat for over 18 months now and I am quite happy as an EBME manager with the product, I do not dabble with databases anymore, I just use them.

Moving to E-Mat was a very good move for us, data transfer was painless but as the old database was corrupt the old adage of "rubbish in, rubbish out" applied. We asked Barwick to include an extra box labelled "surveyed". This enabled the technician to check the data entry when they had the equipment infront of them and correct if necessary - if we then reviewed equipment details we knew if the surveyed field was completed the data was accurate. This is just one example of the flexibility of Barwick/Ascribe.

At a recent user meeting I met other E-Mat users and although there are always some issues I was quite impressed with the setup, certainly contact Zoe if you think you have a problem. Ascribe were genuinely asking users for direction on how they could improve their product for the users - how many others really do that? Also the message came loud and clear that one size does not fit all, individual bespoke changes will be considered and, providing they are reasonable can be implemented, sometimes at a cost, sometimes not.

We are also paperless. Each Technician has a laptop and accesses E-Mat via a wireless LAN.

If you want any more information please do contact me.

Regards

Mark Grimshaw

Thanks for that Mark - I'm actually looking for any feedback, good or bad, that allows me to get an idea of what's the probable cause of the issues that I personally have with this product and the way it's being implemented.

There's no chance of you giving away any clues as to the nature of these "frustrating issues", I suppose, Richard?