Abstract

Background: The risk of violence against doctors working in a government hospital is a known phenomenon. The duty rooms and doctors’ mess in hospital premises are the soft and easy targets for these incidences. To provide a stress- free work environment and better security and privacy, a fingerprint-based biometric access control system (BACS) was installed in the doctors’ mess at J.N. Medical College and Hospital, Aligarh.
Objective: To identify the preinstallation hurdles and postinstallation benefits of a BACS in the doctor’s mess.
Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in the J.N. Medical College and Hospital, A.M.U., Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India. The study population consisted of the members of the Resident Doctors Association (RDA) and the staff and members in charge of the RDA mess. The study was conducted in two phases through different questionnaires—phase A: to assess the main hurdles in the installation of BACS, and phase B: to assess the perception of benefits of BACS installation. Result: The main hurdle was organizational challenges (47%) including consensus building and affordability, followed by operational (29%), and user-based challenges (24%). The main benefits perceived by the members of the mess were restriction of entry of the patients and attendants (44.2%) and influential outsiders (37.2%), followed by a better sense of privacy and security (10.4%) and restriction in free flow of infections from wards through the attendants (8.2%). The staff workers reported a positive change in the work atmosphere with a reduction in rude and intimidating behavior against them and improvement in service, delivery time, and quality. Conclusion: The BACS is a cost-effective solution for security, although not a foolproof solution. Apart from security, it has other benefits, and if linked with attendance systems, it can find a solution to the problem of ghost doctors in medical colleges and rural health facilities.