The innovation of modern medical equipment with wide diversity has contributed immensely in improving the quality of healthcare and state of health profile of nations. For effective and efficient control on procurement of medical equipment, it is required to control the lead time (internal) as limited scope exists in case of external lead time.

The study was conducted to analyze the lead time with an aim to identify the issues/bottlenecks and to suggest the appropriate remedial measures in a public sector Tertiary care Hospital.

A retrospective exploratory study was undertaken. A total of 50 such capital equipment was procured in this hospital during March 2007 to 2010 (3 years) were included in this study.

It was observed that the procurement procedure in public sector tertiary care hospital is as per the standard guidelines prescribed by Government of India in General Financial Rules and guidelines issued by MOHFW and DGHS in this regard. The lead time analysis showed that there is a variation in the total lead time, internal lead time (ILT), external lead time (ELT) and their components. It was observed that ILT2 and ILT4 component constituted around 70% of the total ILT for almost all the equipments under study. In case of ELT, 75% time was consumed by ELT1, i.e. the delivery time and receipt of equipment.

Since activities in both ILT2 and ILT4, i.e. laying down the technical specification and bid evaluation are the responsibility of the individual department, the overall delay can also be attributed to the individual departments. This is in contrast to the general impression that there is delay on the part of purchase department. On an analysis of lead time as per VED category, it has been concluded that no concept of VED analysis is applied in the procurement of equipment. On further analysis of lead time analysis, it was concluded that the shortest time was taken by proprietary purchase followed by open tender and maximum time in open tender where approval from higher authority was required.

Prabhakar S, Singhal AK, Vardhan S. Technical Specification and Bid Evaluation: Major Bottlenecks in Equipment Procurement in a Public Sector Tertiary Care Hospital. Int J Res Foundation Hosp Healthc Adm 2014;2(2): 103-110.