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Higher education institutions understand the importance of the quality of work life (QoWL) since it directly impacts faculty members’ involvement in providing high-quality teaching. The purpose of this paper is to compare the QoWL of faculty members in undergraduate medical and undergraduate engineering programs offered at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia.

An exploratory study design was adopted and 100 faculty members from each program were selected. A pretested QoWL questionnaire was distributed among faculty members using the Questionpro online survey portal.

Results showed that there is no significant difference between the two programs with regard to the overall QoWL (p>0.05). However, a significant difference was observed with respect to dimensions such as “working condition/environment,” “psychosocial factors at work place” and “job satisfaction and job security.” Also, there is a positive relationship observed between all the dimensions of QoWL (p<0.05).

This study will help educational policy planners to understand the differences in QoWL of faculty members in different programs so as to develop appropriate strategies for its improvement.

The purpose of this project was to determine the validity and reliability of the Healthcare Quality Perception (HQP) questionnaire tool designed to capture employees' perceptions of healthcare quality in Indian hospitals.

Two hundred employees in private and public sector hospitals in India were randomly selected and given the HQP tool. It consisted of 38 Likert-scale items and six different subscales: (1) Planning and Documentation (n = 7); (2) Employee Participation in Quality Management Activities (n = 5); (3) Existence of Policies/Procedures/Guidelines (n = 5); (4) Quality and Patient Safety Management (n = 9); (5) Perceived Effect of Quality Improvement (n = 7) and (6) Training and Development Opportunities (n = 5). 156 completed questionnaires were received, demonstrating a 78% response rate. HQP tool subjected to statistical analysis to measure its reliability and validity. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered as “significant.”

Factor analysis pulled out six factors that conjointly demonstrated 66.4 % of the variance in healthcare professionals' (HCPs') perception of healthcare service quality in selected Indian hospitals. The overall Cronbach's alpha coefficient was measured at 0.959 for internal consistency reliability. This study demonstrates that the identified six critical factors are important determinants influencing HCPs' perception of the quality of healthcare services in private and public sector hospitals in India.

This study provides evidence for the reliability and validity of the newly developed HCP Scale for the assessment of employee perception of the quality of services offered in selected hospitals in India, with potential applications in other contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of adopting the Six Sigma define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) approach in reducing patients fall rate in an Academic Medical Center, Saudi Arabia.

A prospective study design was adopted and this study was conducted at King Fahd Hospital of the University (KFHU) during the year 2014. Based on the historical data of the patients’ falls reported at KFHU during the year 2013, the goal was fixed to reduce the falls rate from 7.18 to<3 (over 60 percent reduction) by the end of December 2014. This study was conducted through the five phases of “DMAIC” approach using various quality tools. Three time periods were identified, namely, pre-intervention phase; intervention phase; and post-intervention phase. Appropriate strategies were identified through the process of brainstorming and were implemented to study the potential causes leading to the occurrence of falls.

The pre-intervention falls rate was reported as 6.57 whereas the post-intervention falls rate was measured as 1.91 (demonstrating a 70.93 percent reduction) after the implementation of improvement strategies. The adherence rate toward the practice of carrying falls risk assessment and hourly rounding was observed to be high where 88 percent of nurses are regularly practicing it. A control plan was also executed to sustain the improvements obtained.

The Six Sigma “DMAIC” approach improves the processes related to the prevention of falls. A greater reduction in patients falls rate (over 70 percent) was observed after the implementation of the improvement strategy.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the perceptions of students of health sciences on research training programs offered at Saudi universities.

A cross-sectional survey design was adopted to capture the perceptions of health science students about research training programs offered at selected Saudi universities. A criterion-based sampling technique was adopted, and accordingly, 630 students were selected to participate in the study. A pre-tested questionnaire tool titled, “Students Attitude towards Research (SAR) questionnaire ”, was used to capture student responses on a five-point Likert scale with respect to three dimensions, namely, extent of research activities offered in their college, involvement of faculty in research and the infrastructural facilities offered by the college for research. The students’ attitudes with respect to various components of research training programs were analyzed using mean and cumulative percentage of students satisfied with the training. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to study whether there is any significant difference in attitudes among the students belonging to four health science programs of the seven selected universities.

The results of this study demonstrate that only less than 50 per cent of the students from the selected health science colleges are satisfied with the existing research training programs. There are significant differences in the students’ attitude toward research training programs offered in seven selected Saudi universities.

This is the first Saudi Arabia-based study that provides an alarming signal to educational-policy planners on students’ perceptions and attitudes toward research training programs offered in Saudi higher education institutions.