Rising costs and increased regulation have created exceptional challenges across the NHS and cater the need of an effective healthcare solution. The challenges include:

Medical Technicians/Administrators endeavoring to provide a high-quality, cost-efficient service, juggling demands on their time and attention from government regulators, staff, and patients.

Hospitals are under unprecedented pressures to improve the health of their patients, improve the quality of care and customer experience, and control rising medical costs. Medical device manufacturers are being increasingly constrained by higher research and development costs and more stringent regulations.

Infomatrix has developed a healthcare solution in collaboration with Infohealth Solutions, the OneView Medical Device Asset Management (f2), which is a post-modern healthcare solution to managing information needs in the healthcare sector.

What is f2

f2 is a general equipment management package which has been developed to replace existing legacy equipment management systems within the NHS.

f2 has been specified, developed and based on our experience of working within the NHS and we consider our understanding of the required business processes and the issues associated with systems are met within f2 to support the needs of the modern Clinical/Medical Engineering department.

f2 is built using industry standard technologies such as Microsoft .Net and the Microsoft SQL Server database.

f2 differs from its competitors in that it takes a user/role centric view of the data.  This includes:

Medical Technician

Customer Service

Contracts Management

Administration views and contexts.

This gives the benefit of providing specific system users with access to their specific information with minimum screen navigation.

f2 has also been designed to have wider applicability than medical electronics departments alone. It will be possible for the product to be adopted by associated departments within the organisation, thereby enabling better integration and access to shared information across the organisation as whole. This contrasts with more traditional offerings that tend to be very equipment focused.

The f2 Legacy Database Migration function will initially provide the automated migration of data from the following source database systems:

Packages: - SEMS, Optim, HECS and EMAT systems, etc.

Bespoke database systems: - Oracle, SQL Server, DataEase, Paradox, Excel, Access and C-ISAM.

f2 is based on a customer focused developement led approach.New user-defined screens can be generated by the system developers and attached to a key system entity (e.g. medical devices). A menu panel will also be created as part of this process and seamlessly integrated into the overall f2 menu architecture. This allows the users to define additional data items that they would like to capture. In addition, due to the component based software approach used in the developement of the f2 system, new user views and reports can be readily included.

f2 is currently being marketed through our partner company Infohealth.

"InfoHealth in partnership with Infomatrix have migrated 100% of our legacy SEMS system data into f2 and fully customised features for us.  A pure web-based application fullfield the strategy of the Trust to distribute information within the organisation without having to install software and maintain indvidual PC's.

The pricing model was attractive because it had no hidden costs - meaning no additional licence payments were required for new software modules.

f2 differs fundamentally from its competitors by taking a user/role centric approach to data which benefits the users directly, providing an easy system to navigate with instant access to the infomation they need.  This in turn provides a better ROI for the organisation; an accessible information network increases the effectiveness of operational workflow by reducing time, effort and pain points to run a medical engineering environment."

Mike Webber, (Formerly) Head of Engineering

Derriford Hospital, Plymouth Hospital NHS Trust