Background: It is essential for any health-care facility, regardless of its size, to implement a maintenance programme for medical equipment. The maintenance not only has a positive impact on the safety and effectiveness of healthcare technology, but also increases the lifetime of equipment and thus helps to save scarce investment resources. It also enhances the demand for health services. Demand for services availability is crucial of functioning healthcare technology.Methods: A comprehensive descriptive study of the maintenance of equipment at a tertiary care corporate hospital in India from January 2012 to May 2012. A convenient sampling method was used to capture data from Key Participants which included two categories of staff viz technicians and managers/administrators. There were 40 technicians and 10 managers who responded to the questionnaire. Both the primary and secondary sources of data were used.Results: Breakdown data analysis showed that the major cause of breakdown was human errors. About 40% of breakdown that occurred in the hospital was mainly because of manual errors followed by electrical and mechanical issues.  Average down time for the time period of 5 months came to around 19 hours, which was quite high. Analysis of KAP questionnaire showed that about 55% technicians were not having the educational qualification required for handling the medical equipment, about 15% were not given training at the time of purchase of the equipment. Similarly, few managers were not aware about maintenance practices and importance of maintenance management for smooth and efficient functioning.Conclusions: Good and effective maintenance practices can reduce the cost of maintenance of equipment that arises due to breakdown. The training of equipment users and maintenance managers reduces the equipment downtime. To reduce the possibility of equipment malfunction following service or repair, all personnel involved in maintaining and servicing equipment should be trained.

Background: Employee recognition has been linked to such positive outcomes as job satisfaction, organizational and career commitment, cohesion and collaboration, and perceived organizational support. A lack of meaningful recognition has been linked to negative outcomes such as absenteeism and turnover, stress and burnout, and decreased quality of patient care.Methods: A comprehensive descriptive and comparative cross-sectional study on employee recognition policies and programs for medical and non-medical staff in a public and a private hospital in India was conducted from April 2012 to October 2012. A 200 bedded public hospital with the staff strength of 140 and a 110 bedded private hospital with total staff strength of 160 participated in the study.Results: There were no doctors or technicians who did not enjoy their job. There were small number of nurses who didn’t enjoy the job (8% and 10% in public and private hospital respectively). For housekeeping staff, there was much variability in the option for, “Somewhat Enjoy” from 14% to 45% in public and private hospital respectively. Majority of doctors (87.5% and 80%) in public and private hospital respectively, were unhappy with the workload of their job. Also, significant number of nurses (44% and 27.5%) and technicians (20% and 20%) in public and private hospital respectively, were unhappy with the workload of their job.Conclusions: It is well established that good salary structure, good promotion opportunities and good training is important for employee satisfaction, but employee recognition also plays an important role.

Today there has been growing global emphasis on the need for Hospital Management Information Systems (HMIS). Plethora of studies have shown the benefits of implementing HMIS. The RIS is a subset of HIS which is smaller in scale. Method:A comprehensive descriptive qualitative study was undertaken from April 2012 to December 2012. The study setting involved two tertiary care public hospitals (main hospital and an associated hospital) located at different and distant locations in the same city. All the consultants in the department of radiology (11) were interviewed except one who was not available during the period of study and Convenience sampling was used to select other Key Informants. A Structured questionnaire was used to evaluate various aspects of RIS & PACS from the end user's perspective.Results: Overall performance of RIS at main hospital was rated as Satisfactory by 55 percent, neutral by 35 percent and very satisfactory by another 10 percent of the respondents.Overall performance of RIS at associated hospital was rated as Dissatisfactory by 25 percent, neutral by 70 percent and satisfactory by rest i.e., 5 percent. Discussion and Conclusion:The user feedback is very important for the success of Hospital Management Information Systems, Radiology Information and PACS. The end user should be involved in the decision to introduce technology at the hospital