EBME Forums Forums Management Medical Equipment Management FM software package

Our Hospital in Gibraltar is looking at introducing an FM software package that would take care of the Asset management and PPM as well as the HelpDesk.
We have tried the SHIRE package but not really what we require.
Any advise from hospitals and NHS trusts users?
Thanks

Joe

FM? Facilities Management (Maintenance)? What would be the scope of such a system, Joe? M&E services? Including biomed?

Geoff,

The scope is everything, biomed, electrical, mechanical.

everything within the hospital.

Not recommended, Joe, in my opinion! I've never seen a case where the requirements of biomed, M&E and building services peacefully co-existed!

Far better, I would suggest, to have two systems. One for Facilities ("Estates", or whatever it's called where you are), and one for biomed. Different mind-sets, different approaches.

Generally speaking, Facilities are orientated towards calendar-based PM (or, perhaps, hours-run), with the asset being the focus. Whilst biomed is primarily about providing technical services to the clinical equipment user (rather than the equipment itself per se), and orientated towards PM based on risk.

I could go on ... but I'll spare you the lecture (unless, that is, you want more). Meanwhile, this topic has been touched on a few times before, if you'd like to do a search. For instance, there was a thread that seemed to be saying that Help desks often don't (as it were)! It all needs a great deal of thought!

Thanks Geoff

Being a small hospital, clinical engineering ( as its called here) is part of the Facilities & Estates although it's staffed separately.

So for Biomed what is used whithin NHS hospitals? We have been looking at 'big' facilities management software packages.

Any advise will be welcomed as we don't have much experience with this type of products.

Thanks again

Hopefully others will make their posts here later ... but, there are a number of well-known biomed packages in place in various NHS hospitals, and all have their aficionados, as it were.

But (whilst we're waiting for others to chip in), I can't help but wonder what your own biomeds are saying on this issue?

Guys

BACKTRAQ FM would be suitable.

This was originally designed as an FM system, but with some cooperation from NHS Lothian, a subsystem was developed to incorporate device management.
They have also worked on systems for portering and transport.

company is Integrated Handheld Solutions

My advice to Joe (and anyone else thinking about embarking on such a system) is to sit down and really think through what it is you're actually aiming to do.

No doubt we have all heard about (or, even had first hand experience of) lots of effort, time and money being expended, only to discover that the end result was not what had been hoped for. There have been umpteen cases where the first system introduced actually ended up being an educational process, highlighting points to be avoided when the second system came along!

Situations such as this may be an area where it would actually pay to obtain impartial advice. Something that is hard to give, Joe, without visiting your site and gaining all the facts pertaining.

For instance, what do you have at the moment? A "manual" system? A "home-grown" database (or spreadsheet)? How good is your Asset Register (do you have an Asset Register)? ...

Well, We have an asset register in excel format at the moment.

We have tried the SHIRE FM package and have worked hard to get it going. We have inputed most of the database into SHIRE , but now we found that this is not ( as you say) what we expected.
The Biomed here feel that we should have a more easier and quicker way to search for information and create reports on various aspects of equipment management and also have most of our PPM established and scheduled within the package that would help us in keeping track and history of all our med equipment in the database.
Also the helpdesk module in some of these FM package seem at first glance appealing as are the control and management of the critical equipment spares we need to stock.

My first intention for posting here was to find out what is ,in general, used within NHS hospitals and have feed back on their suitability.

Thanks for your advises, keep them coming..

Joe
The problem in general with FM packages is that they're designed for fixed assets (buildings, wiring, plumbing) that can't move. The small portable stuff we deal with is a problem for them. All the kit has to be entered as physicaly being part of a room in a building within the facility. Say you get a call, Ward A have a problem with a pump they've borrowed from Ward B. You try to bring the pump up on the FM system. The system says it cannot be in Ward A because it's an asset on Ward B and assets cant walk. You can either:
1. Book the work to Ward B, the location the pump is registered as being physicaly part of, then ignore the IT system and go and do the pump for Ward A anyway.
2. Tell the system to relocate the pump to Ward A, after which it will henceforward be convinced the pump is a fixed asset screwed to the wall in Ward A.
Its a fundemantaly different way of regarding assets. There are numerous repercussions to this. I will only mention one here.
If you have your EBME assets labelled under a previous system you will want to transfer the numbers into the new one.
However a facilities system will use building codes to describe all items, since it believes everything is screwed to the wall of a room in a building. If you are fortunate you will be able to transfer your numbers into the new system somewhere (but check before you leap).
The MHRA recently recommended Trusts use off the peg database software such as Access to keep records of EBME work and use them stand alone (off the hospital network). I think they have seen the cost and complexity of bespoke systems grow and ease of use diminish. There are tremendous cost and time implications to making the wrong choice or being forced down the wrong path.

Good Luck.
Marc