KYAMBOGO UNIVERSITY

Faculty of Engineering
Department of Electrical and Electronics
Engineering
SEMESTER 1, 2021/22
TEMB 3108B HEALTHCARE ENGINEERING

ASSIGNMENT 1

NAMES REG NO

KINENE IAN GARVIN 18/U/BIO/339/GV

SSEKITTO JOEL 18/U/BIO/6416/PD

MUKISA FAITH PATIENCE 18/U/BIO/6387/PD

 Question 1.1
There have been a lot of strikes across various Healthcare Sectors in Uganda. What
Compensation are Ugandan Healthcare Workers currently seeking?
SOLUTION
A strike refers to a curtailment of work due to collective refusal of workers to work which occurs
as a response to employ grievances. It involves dropping out of work by any number workers
employed in a particular industry with an aim of creating pressure on the employers to accept
their demands relating to pay, working conditions among others.
The Ugandan Healthcare workers are currently seeking the following compensations

 Increment in payment. A person in Doctor or Physician in Uganda typically earns

between 2.26 and 10.4 million which is the average monthly salary including
housing, transport, and other benefits salaries. This is literally a low payment to them
given the low value of Ugandan money and low costs of living.
 Delayed payment. Most health workers in public hospitals are always faced with
delayed payments of both the salaries and allowances which discourage the workers
and draws them to strike.
 Provision of advancement opportunities. Fifty-one percent of healthcare workers said
lack of advancement opportunities such as in-house skills training, education
reimbursement, opportunity for innovation and technology training has posed a
significant challenge in their current positions.
 Reduction of work overload. According to the career builder survey the provider
shortage is hitting every health care organization in the country especially when it
comes to nurses. The survey identified a key turnover issue in healthcare workers
taking additional responsibilities above their comfort level. The provider shortage
means fewer staff members must divide a significant workload pushing some
employs to the blink of exhaustion and decreasing job satisfaction considerably.
 Increment in staff. The challenge of too few staff is unsurprising considering the
provider shortage. Career builders labor pressure analysis rates shortages around a
value of one which indicates an equal number of job seekers to new postings.
 Improved organization culture. Factors that contribute to culture such as opportunity
for innovation, autonomy in an employee’s position and flexible work schedules were
listed.
 Improved access to technology. As health care organizations struggle to implement
technology while maintaining sufficient operations, their workers may be suffering.
 Question 1.2
When you are a Biomedical Engineering Manager, what will you do to motivate your
departmental employees for maximum productivity?
Solution
 Recognize the job well done. Recognition creates an emotional connection between
employer and employee, a critical piece of employee engagement and fulfills employees’
basic needs of esteem and belonging with in a group.
 Take your culture virtual. Whether or not your team is completely remote, it’s pretty fair
bet that a significant amount of collaboration happens virtually. It only makes sense that
the culture and core values that define your organization should extend to the virtual
realm as well.
 Create stretch goals. Stretch goals are ones that are set just beyond your teams’ current
capability. Dangling these goals will motivate them to push beyond their perceived
limitations and make major breakthrough that will help to achieve department goals.
 Break big goals into more manageable chunks. Even if everyone on your team can’t wait
to tackle a massive new project, by the time it gets to work, motivation can faultier. This
doesn’t mean employees don’t care about the project; it might just seem to aspiration so
big that employees can’t imagine completing it.
 Focus on the why. Challenge employees to identify the why behind their most important
tasks. This exercise helps to clarify the reasoning behind the day to day activities and
helps separate essential tasks from essential ones.
 Focus on the intrinsic rewards.it is more motivating to provide the employees with basic
needs such as food, rent and medical care than money although money is also needed.
 Give your team autonomy. Human beings value autonomy. We all want to feel in control
of our time and energy and lack of agency is a surefire way to torpedo your team’s
motivation.
 Question 1.3
Would you train your BME [Biomedical Engineer] or BMET [Biomedical Equipment
Technicians]? If so what training would you give them?
Solution
Yes, I would train a biomedical engineer or a biomedical technician.
I would offer these kinds of training to the Biomedical Equipment Technician (BMET) as
follows;

 Analytical skills; Biomedical technician must analyze the needs of patients and customers
to design appropriate solutions.
 Communication skills; Because biomedical technicians sometimes work with patients
and frequently work on teams, they must express themselves early. They must seek
others’ ideas and incorporate those ideas into the problem solving process
 Creativity; biomedical technician must be creative to come up with innovative and
integrative advances in healthcare equipment and devices
 Installing, maintaining and repairing medical equipment.
 Cleaning and adjusting medical equipment
 Testing and calibrating equipment parts to determine what needs repair or replacement
 Approving new equipment by guaranteeing it meets regulations
 Demonstrating bio-medical equipment and teaching others how to use it.
 Preparing reports by analyzing and collecting data and trends.
 Providing technical information on how to operate medical equipment.
 Replacing medical equipment when necessary
 Evaluating service contracts.
 Updating skills through medical journals and professional networks.
 Keeping a healthy and safe work environment through safety tests, code compliance and
training others.
 Keeping patient’s information confidential.
Question 1.4
How would you appraise/measure the performance of your employees?
Solution
Performance appraisal refers to the systematic, periodic and an impartial rating of an employee’s
excellence in matters pertaining to his present job and his potential for a better job.
The performance of the employees can be measured in the following ways:
 360-degree feedback. This system takes into account the feedback, opinions and
assessments of an employee’s performance from the circle of people in the company with
whom they work. It can include coworkers, supervisors and others. As you evaluate the
input from different sources you can note positive and negative similarities and trends.
 Self-evaluation. Asking an employ to evaluate his own efficiency can very effective.
Often employees may be more critical on their performance than you may be. A
questionnaire that contains multiple choice questions or essay question or both can be
used. Comparing self-evaluation with your own objective appraisal can help identify the
similarities and discrepancies of employee’s performance.
 Graphic rating scales. A typical graphic scale uses sequential numbers such as 1-5 or 1-
10 to rate an employee’s relative performance in specific areas. Scales are usually used to
rate behavioral elements such as “understands job tasks” “participates in decision
making” or they could note the frequency an employ performs a certain work or behavior
such as frequently, occasionally or never.
 Management by objectives. It is also known as management by results. This is the
process in which the employees and managers form objectives together. They jointly
determine the individual objectives, how they align with company goals and how
performance will be measured and evaluated.
 Checklists. Using a simple “yes-no” checklist is a quick and easy way to identify
employees that have deficiencies in various performance areas. It will also identify those
that need additional training and knowledge to become efficient.
 Question 2.1
Why is Human Resource Management important in Healthcare Sectors?
Solution
Human Resource Management refers to the leadership of people within an organization using
systems, methods, processes and procedures that enable employees to optimize their
performance and in turn their contribution to the organization and its goals.
Human Resource Management is important in the healthcare sector due to the following reasons;
 Recruitment. Finding the right people to work in the health care sector can be difficult
and getting it wrong can be costly. Finding a good fit when it comes to talent is one of the
most important aspects of the Human Resource Manager.
 Onboarding. This refers to the whole experience of hiring, welcoming, orienting and
engaging a new recruit and making them adapt to the organization’s culture. Good
onboarding of the Human Resource manager maximizes employee engagement and
increases retention whereas poor onboarding can have hugely negative impact and leave
talented new employees unengaged.
 Performance management, training and development. These are a big part of the Human
Resource Managers. Almost all employees have skills gaps which are addressed by
performance management. An effective performance management system enables
managers to offers support to employees who need it and identify future superstars.
Training and development help strengthen any weak links in the health sector.
 Proper communication. So often the way of communication is determined by the Human
Resource Manager. Good communication mitigates misunderstandings, increases
employee engagement, forms the basis for better client relationships, encourages
innovation and creativity and helps build a positive culture.
 Legal and regulatory compliance. Human Resource professionals have a full
understanding of employment law and the regulatory requirements of the health sector
associated with staff. This area is so critical since an unfair dismissal claim can be an
expensive mistake.
 Question 2.2
How is Human Resource Planning done in Healthcare Sectors?
Solution
Human Resource Planning refers to the process by which the healthcare sector determines how
to properly staff to meet the health needs.
Human Resource planning is done in the following ways:
 Assess current Human Resource capacity. The first step in Human Resource planning is
to assess your current staff. Before making any moves to employ new employees, there is
need to know the talent you already have at your disposal and develop skills and
inventory for your current employees. You can do this in a number of ways such as
asking employees to self-evaluate with a questionnaire, looking over past performance
reviews or using an approach that combines the two.
 Forecast Human Resource requirements. Once you have a full inventory of the resources
you already have at hand, it’s time to begin forecasting future needs. You can then
determine whether you need to employ new staff or to maintain the current staff and
improve their productivity through efficiency or new skills training and identify whether
there are potential employees available in the market place. It is important to assess both
the health sectors’ demand for qualified employees and supply of those employees either
with in the sector or outside of it.
 Develop talent strategies. After determining the sector’s staffing needs by assessing your
current Human Resource capacity and forecasting supply and demand, it’s time to begin
the process of developing and adding talent. Talent development is a crucial part of the
strategic human resources management process. Talent strategies can be developed
through recruitment, selection, hiring, training and development, performance
management and employee relations respectively.
 Review and evaluate. Once your Human Resource Management process plan has been in
place for a set amount of time, you can evaluate whether the plan has helped the sector to
achieve its goals in factors of employee satisfaction, employ retention and profit. If
everything is running smoothly continue with the plan, but if there are road blocks along
the way you can always change different aspects to better suit your sectors needs.
 Question 2.3

Explain how Human Resource is motivated.

Solutions
Motivation is the desire or drive that an individual has to get the work done.
Human Resource is motivated in the following ways:
 Develop a philosophy of performance. A performance driven culture demands a
performance philosophy. Make a commitment to align individual goals to the sector’s
overall strategy and have more frequent performance related conversations with the
Human Resource managers that focus on career development. Share this philosophy
plainly and clear with everyone. Motivation comes from continuously nurturing a sense
of purpose that unifies managers, employees and the entire sector.
 Make the performance discussion valuable for employees. Motivated team members have
a clear understanding of how their work impacts the sector’s performance. It’s essential
that employees can link their individual objective to the monthly, quarterly and annual
priorities set by the sector. Critical to this is giving Human Resource Managers and
employees the tools to allow everyone see the sector’s key objectives, connect these with
our own objectives and track our progress towards achieving them. This transparency
gives everyone a stake in the process and tangible evidence to prove that what they are
working on is what really matters.
 Have proper and continuous communication. Once you have linked each individual’s
goals to the wider sector objectives the impact of one person falling behind becomes
obvious. You can’t hang around for that end of year performance review to see how
everyone has done. Instead of those time consuming, weighty annual reviews where
feedback and assistance often come too late to useful, encourage more frequent light
weight conversations.
8
Question 2.4
How is Human Resource Performance carried out in Healthcare Sectors?
Solution
A Human Resource performance management is the mechanism of tracking the performance of
employees consistently and measurably. It allows the healthcare sector to ensure that employees
and departments across the sector are working effectively towards achieving the sector’s
strategic goals.
Human resource performance can be carried out as follows.
 Planning. The performance management process begins with planning stage. Planning
stage includes the defining stage, feedback stage and approval stage.
Under the defining stage, the Human Resource and management need to define the job
itself including a comprehensive description, long and short term goals, identify key
objectives and develop a clear metric for how those objectives and goals will be
assessed. Goals should be clearly done in the SMART format (Specific, Measurable,
Attainable, Relevant and Time based).
The feedback stage. Once the management has completed the defining stage,
employees should have the opportunity to give input on this material. They will have a
key inside into what skills, competences and goals that will best assist the sector to
achieve its goals.
The approval stage. Management and employees both agree to the definition of the
role, goals and objectives.
 Coaching. Once the parameters and objectives for the future have been set, the next
step of the performance management process begins. The coaching process is
extremely important and must be done on a regular basis. Meetings should be at least
quarterly although monthly meetings are ideal. These meetings should focus on
solution and coaching opportunities rather than punitive measures for lackluster
performance.
 Reviewing. At the end of the yearly performance management cycle, there should be
and employee review which is also called performance appraisal. Typically these are
held once a year to look at how well the employ performed over that span of time.
There should be a clear record from previous check-ins to show the employee’s
progress throughout the year. This performance review is the only step that looks
backward to assess the behavior of the past year.
 Action. The last step in performance management is action. This includes reward and
recognition to motivate employees. This does not necessarily have to be monetary
although it likely will include monetary compensation and other rewards like new
projects, company wide recognition, time off or leadership opportunities. It also
includes setting stage for next year’s performance management cycle. The end of
performance management cycle gives management and employees one last chance to
offer feedback on the process as a whole and asks for thoughts and feedback for the
planning stage for the next year’s cycle.