EBME Forums Forums Management Medical Equipment Management Asset management systems

Garrith

I think the 'main' range of products available to you are listed below, I'll offer a fairly unbiased comment on each.

[RAM]
I've recently evaluated this and was impressed. Runs on SQL Server (or Oracle) with a .net web based front end. One of the quite clever sub-components to this is some form of 'local process' which acts as a worker thread to undertake various event based activities from the server machine rather than as a web task. I've got a further demonstration and evaluation tomorrow.
What I would say about this is that the software is fairly universal and powerful. This can be built to meet your design requirements (this in my own opinion can be both amazingly great yet in some ways bad i.e. diversity vs rationalisation). The software is fairly revolutionary in some ways in that they will design a front-end around your data structures (via the developers). The only possible (potential) weaknesses I can see for this product is that a) You are receiving a bespoke system and you may not therefore receive the benefit of the 'BORG Collective' knowledge from other sites or features that you wouldn't necessarily cook up yourself. This is almost a universal platform for a database system and I'd never seen anything like this before - this opens up to a wide market audience, much wider than just the NHS (this is a commercial product).

[F2 (Infohealth)]
I've recently evaluated this. Runes on SQL server with a .net web based front end. Product is distinctly a 'Medical Engineering Management' system with all the timmings, they understand how hospitals are organised. Configuration of the application feels intuitive and familiar with what would be expected. Support from the company is excellent and the team are keen to develop new ideas to expand their product. You are buying a developing product rather than being left on the shelf

EMAT (Ascribe) - I currently use this system and have done for the past 5 years. Runs on Advantage server with an application front end written in Delphi. Product is distinctly a 'Medical Engineering Management' system with all the timmings, they understand how hospitals are organised. Configuration of the application feels intuitive and familiar with what would be expected. Support from the company is excellent and the team are keen to develop new ideas through the use of a 'user Product Development Group'. You are buying a developing product rather than being left on the shelf. The strongest point of this software is the levels of automation that can be achieved due to the fact that it is a 'true application' rather than a web applet (Read right-click functionality).

Backtraq - I've not recently evaluated this but feedback from a few sites has suggested that this works well for ESTATES DEPARTMENTS.

[Medusa]
I've recently evaluated this. Runes on SQL server with a .net web based front end. Product is distinctly a 'Medical Engineering Management' system with all the timmings, they understand how hospitals are organised. Configuration of the application feels intuitive and familiar with what would be expected. Unsure about support/speed of implementation of functions from the company as their main drive has been via Sweden. Its good to see however that as a non uk company they have been regularly demonstrating at regional forums and national groups. This product is international in nature, supporting multiple languages. Its well polished, I do hope that its developing quickly though.


Summary, Having seen them both recently, I'd agree with the comments about F2 and Medusa (with my skimmed overview) there is not a lot to separate them out.

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Happy to share views with anyone, I will continue evaluating these products over the next 4-6 weeks.

Joe

Time! don't have enough of it? Which is more time-consuming a) Build your own or b) adapt an 'off the shelf' system. Which one, in the end gives you what you want, when you want it and the knowledge that you can adapt it to any unforeseen circumstances?

Thanks Joe

Just the kind of feedback I was hoping for , hopefully more users will provide additional (pertinent) comments.

Hi Garrith,

We have been using a database from Real Asset Management (RAM)for the past 3 years now. We use a system called Series4000 which is a client based system to manage our equipment inventory as well as the maintenance system. It is a very powerful system, scaleable and you can configure it to suit your maintenance system. Besides it interacts well other modules (i.e. from Finance, Estates) seamlessly.
If you need a further chat on this please contact me, we have a working system at Wigan Royal Infirmary in Lancashire, UK.

Hello all,
We've used Medusa for well over three years having gone through a long process evaluating all the databases around at that time. Our final choice was between f2 and Medusa.

We found the folk at Infohealth very positive and the product looked good, but felt that f2 lagged Medusa by a couple of years development.

Medusa is developed by SoftPro Medical, a Swedish company who have a huge market share in the Scandanavian countries and also Iceland. We've certainly been happy with our decision to purchase Medusa and never had any issues with being either side of the North Sea!

As ever, happy to have anyone visit for a look and a coffee.
Regards to all, Paul

We have tried to use RAM in our department for over 2 years and are definitely not satisfied users and would advise against using this product.

Care to offer a few clues as to in which way this particular product may fail to meet expectations, Charlie?

The main problem with RAM is that it appears to have been designed by an accountant or bean counter type who has as much comprehension of a maintenance management system as a Kalahari Bushman has of the working of the large hadron collider. Using it is very reminicient to playing The Hobbit on the ZX Spectrum. You know what you have to do but unless you format your request in a very precise manner the computer response is to do nothing. We were sold a powerful fully cofigurable system which has led us to changing our method of working in order to accommodate the short comings of the system.
As a department firmly rooted in the ethos of the 1970s we print out each completed job in order to be able to sign said report to evidence its copletion for any potential future eventuality.
The Ram system has a generic job sheet but the user has no capability to adjust or alter the layout or content of said report and in order to enable the department to produce a satisfactory document neccesitated the purchase of a separate stand alone report programme.

Thank you for being so candid there, Charlie.

"... which has led us to changing our method of working in order to accommodate the short comings of the system". The same old story, then, by the sound of it.

But someone at your end must have thought (or perhaps, hoped) it was wonderful before forking out £££'s (thousands, we presume).

"As a department firmly rooted in the ethos of the 1970s ..." nothing wrong with that, Mate, as far as I'm concerned. We did the job properly back then, and I can't see any excuse for that mind-set not continuing into the present day. Never mind "lessons shall be learned" and all that BS. Lessons were learned (many of them), and then acted upon.

If you feel like replying again, I can't help but wonder what system you had in place before. Was it "home grown", by any chance? Anyhow, now I'm wondering how your department plans to proceed ...

Hi All,

Avensys have continued down the route of developing our own system a MYSQL with a PHP front end using JQUERY (whatever that means), using a hired in programmer. To date it’s taken over a year to build and is only just going live. It works and importantly we own it (no license fees) and we have just begun to develop the next phase. "Avensys Database 3" 
Issues: Through life support maybe an issue if our resident "Geek" (said in the nicest possible way) disappears. So it’s important we have a backup team who can also support what I believe is a fairly standard programming language.
Off the shelf packages can be expensive particularly when it comes to license fees.
Quite happy to share info and let you trial a copy? Gives you an idea as to what can be achieved for less than £5k. would be nice to get some feedback?
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