EBME Forums Forums Maintenance Biomed Databases Who has moved from MS Access?

Agreed, Abdulaziz.

Hopefully there can't be too many hospitals left in the world now without some sort of database. But in the past I have visited many hospitals and clinics (in your own country, as well, I might add) where no-one had any sort of accurate clue about what equipment they had. To be honest, the first inventories they ever saw were the ones I produced during my "surveys". Using notepads (ie, pen and paper) and then Lotus 1-2-3, by the way (those were the days)!

And don't forget that not everyone has the budget (or time, or other resources) to go for the "all singing, all dancing" (knobs and whistles) variety.

To my mind, there's nothing wrong with starting out with a simple list (even a written one, if that's the only option available) and building on that. It's making a start, then carrying it through, that are the essential points.

In many parts of the world, stuff like RFID, and "pager alerts" (about what?) are way down the list of priorities.

In my view, it's always best to:- "do something simple, rather than do nothing complicated"!

i totally agree with you, it better to start small than not to start at all. we started here from paper and pincel and kept moving; baby steps :P; and i dont think it have anything to do with budget, all you need is a good development team playing as the IT department coordinating with you. you just have to know what exactly you want.
in my openion, if you dont have a vision you will stay where you are.
regarding RFID, i wish we implemented this here but we didnt yet. i dont know about where you live, but how much time does it take a clinical engineer to find a pump for PPM. for us we waist alot of time to find them; simple nurses are nothing but pain.

We're straying from the topic here Abdulaziz ... but rather than waste time hunting down equipment for PM, why not arrange things a little differently:- get the policy changed so that the nursing staff are obliged to present the kit to you.

You just let them know when PM is due, and the onus is on them to have the pumps (for example) waiting for you at the nurses station. If you can get them to deliver to your workshop, even better.

In recent years I have taken the view that "the kit belongs to them; so they need to take responsibility for it". In other words, the days of "hand-holding" are well and truly over! LOL.

I have never been in a place where there were more biomeds than nurses!

The other method of course is the "Equipment Library" (the shared equipment pool). Infusion pumps are a prime candidate there. Have you throught about setting one up, Abdulaziz? There has been much discussion about them on here over the years.