EBME Forums Forums Maintenance Biomed Databases Philips Optim

Dear Colleague's

We are considering buying the Philips Optim database.

Does anyone have any views/opinions on this system?

All views welcome - good or bad!

Regards

Alan

Yes, don't waste your money! Develop your own system for complete control and peace of mind!

I posted this question yesterday but seem to have been pushed off of the main board, we are looking at buying a new database and are going to take a look at Philips Optim, does anybody have an views on the product?

We WILL be purchasing a new database pretty soon to replace our obsolete MEMS system, and I have been asked to gauge the popular opinion.

Regards

Alan

Alan

We've used Optim for just over 12 months now and are getting used to it.

No it's not the cheapest in the world and it does have it's faults, but I've got to say it's worked for us and any problems we've encountered have mostly been of our own making when our old data was transferred - rubbish in = rubbish out etc.

You're fairly close to us if you want to come up and have a look.

Brian

Alan
Approximately how much you got/intending to spend (Cap and Rev).
I ask for my own purposes of doing the same, and as a comparison that's all.

"Develop your own system" - give over fella !

(for me - Alex is right !)

It's easy to spend other people's money, Steve. Some of us have to actually make our money before we can spend it. It tends to produce a certain mind-set. You know, the "can I do that myself?" mentality. Some of you guys should give it a try. You might find it refreshing, and (dare I say it), rewarding.

Been using Optim for about 4 years. generally it works ok though it does some very strange things at times. The support from Philips appears not to be very hot and if your IT support people are not up to scratch forget it. Us menial bench techs are not impressed, but i have to say i don't know how the competitors perform.

Have a word with Clinical Engineering in Liverpool. Their Equipment Management System is the most comprehensive I have ever used. Extremely tailorable (sic) to your own needs. Steve or Dave are the contact names.

As an end user of optim, I have rather mixed feelings. We have used optim here for the past 3 years and it is many many miles better than the old DOS based equipment database and the access based parts database that we had before. The fact that optim can keep track of parts as well as equipment is very welcome but there is rather a lot of keyboard and mouse work to enter anything ( no shortcuts available as far as I know )

But the one thing I really HATE about optim is that fact that time taken is entered as hours:CENTI-HOURS not hours:minutes!!! When I discovered that optim was developed by French programmers, I understood that they were trying to upkeep the full spirit of La Revolution!

Any decent system should be configurable up to a point, at least about basic things like date formats and the like. Centi-hours! Words fail me. Lack of keystroke short-cuts - is this really progress? (answer – No). How much does this wonderful thing cost, then?