No abstract

Equipment procurement is a necessity of any multi/super speciality hospital. It is often associated with tedious and laborious procedures the following of which is mandatory in any purchase. This is especially important in a public sector institute where every purchase is scrutinized. These procedures often lead to delayed procurement which ultimately compromises the care provided to the patients. This study lists the various steps that need to be followed in procurement of equipment taking the example of MRI machine procurement at a tertiary care teaching hospital. It lists the delays that were encountered in the procurement of the MRI machine and also the ways in which these delays could be overcome by application of PERT in the procurement process. www.iosrjournals.org 103 | Page  The three lowest bids are taken as L1, L2 and L3.  Negotiations are done with L1 before a final price is decided and the contract is signed. MRI ProcurementNIMS being a tertiary care hospital requires round the clock investigation facilities of which MRI is also a part. Majority of cases requiring MRI are from the Neurology and Neurosurgery Departments with other departments requiring MRI based on the need of the patient.The following procedure occurred in the procurement of MRI in NIMS:- The decision to purchase MRI was taken on 6546813  After 1 week the specification committee was constituted to list out the specifications required in the MRI machine to be procured.  It took 1month for the specification committee to convene and come out with the tender notification.  Six weeks time was given for tender applicants.  It took 10 weeks for the constitution of technical committee and evaluation of the bids received.  It took 2 weeks for the opening of price bids and further 4 weeks for the conduct of negotiations with the lowest bidder to finalize the tender recipient.  The purchase order was received further after 2 weeks.  It took 4 months for the receiving of equipment. However on arrival it was found that the entry was too small for the passage of equipment.  The equipment had to be put in storage and the wall of the room housing the equipment had to be brought down, the equipment taken inside and later closed again. Also the electrical wiring had to be redone to suit the equipment. This took another 10 weeks.  No manpower to run the MRI machine was trained during the period of installation of the equipment and it took further 10 weeks to recruit and train the manpower required to man the equipment. Overall it took around 65 weeks for the procurement, installation and running of the MRI machine. Application of PERTThe program (or project) evaluation and review technique, commonly abbreviated PERT, is a statistical tool, used in project management, is designed to analyze and represent the tasks involved in completing a given project.The various steps employed in application of PERT to a project are:- Identification of specific activities and milestones.  Determine the proper sequence of activities.  Construct a network...