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Ireland’s ageing population has resulted in an increasing number of older adults living with frailty. Despite growing attention towards older adults’ and health professionals’ perspectives of frailty, occupational therapy research is limited. This study aims to explore occupational therapists’ perceptions of frailty and how their perceptions impact their approach to the assessment and management of frailty.

Using qualitative descriptive design, 19 occupational therapists working with older adults participated in online focus groups. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Perceptions of occupational therapists were constructed into three main themes: conceptualising frailty; management of frailty; and advancing frailty practice. Findings indicate that occupational therapists perceived frailty as a multidimensional concept but highlight a reluctance to use frailty terminology with patients. Findings also suggest that although occupational therapists are involved in provision of care for older adults living with frailty, the profession’s scope is not optimised in the assessment and management of frailty.

Findings provide insight into occupational therapists’ perceptions of frailty. Development of a shared understanding of frailty between clinicians and patients and enhancement of undergraduate frailty education are recommended to progress occupational therapy’s role in frailty management.

Climate change is one of our time’s most pressing global environmental challenges, and environmental innovation is critical to addressing it. This study aims to investigate the relationship between environmental innovation and carbon emission in the healthcare industry in Europe while also examining the moderating role of environmental governance.

Data for this study were collected from publicly listed healthcare companies in ten European countries spanning the years 2012–2021. The selected countries encompassed Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The research encompassed all healthcare companies for which data were accessible, resulting in a comprehensive dataset comprising 1,210 companies. The authors collected data from multiple sources, including annual reports, the World Bank and Eikon databases, to ensure a robust and extensive dataset.

The results of this study indicate that environmental governance plays a significant moderating role in the relationship between environmental innovation and carbon emission within the healthcare sector in Europe, but when combined with high levels of environmental innovation, strong environmental governance leads to enhanced efforts to reduce carbon emissions. This combination also contributes to meeting the expectations of a broader range of stakeholders and maintaining legitimacy.

The study’s findings have practical implications for healthcare regulators, policymakers and various stakeholders. It underscores the importance of integrating solid environmental governance and innovation to address climate change challenges in the healthcare sector effectively. This integrated approach not only helps reduce carbon emissions but also contributes to achieving sustainable outcomes while satisfying a wider range of stakeholders.

This study adds to the existing body of knowledge by highlighting the significant role of environmental governance as a moderator in the relationship between environmental innovation and carbon emission in the healthcare industry. The research findings provide valuable insights for academics, practitioners and decision-makers, emphasizing the need to combine governance and innovation for sustainable outcomes in healthcare sectors.

Decentralization has profound implications for many health systems. This study investigates the effect of health system decentralization in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries on public health security capacity and health service satisfaction.

Multiple linear regression analyses were employed for variables related to the level of health security capacity and satisfaction with the healthcare system while controlling for all socio-demographic variables from the European Social Survey, including over 44,000 respondents from 25 OECD countries. The Health Systems in Transition series of countries were used for assessing the decentralization level.

The result of multiple linear regression analyses showed that the level of decentralization in health systems was significantly associated with higher health security capacity (ß-coefficient 3.722, 95% confidence interval (CI) [3.536 3.908]; p=<0.001) and health service satisfaction (ß-coefficient 1.463, 95% CI [1.389 1.536]; p=<0.001) in the study. Countries with a higher level of decentralization in health policy tasks and areas were significantly likely to have higher health services satisfaction, whereas this satisfaction had a significant negative relation with the lower level of decentralization status of secondary/tertiary care services in OECD countries (ß-coefficient −5.250, 95% CI [−5.757–4.743]; p = 0.001).

This study contributes to a better understanding of the extent to which decentralization of health services affects public health safety capacity and satisfaction with health services, whereas the level of decentralization in OECD countries varies considerably. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of public health security and satisfaction with health care delivery in assessing the effects of decentralization in health services.

The primary objective of this article is to examine current procurement, inventory control and management practices in modern healthcare, with a particular focus on the procurement and management of surgical supplies in a prominent public, highly specialized healthcare sector.

This study was conducted in three phases. In Phase 1, the study team interacted with various hospital management stakeholders, including the surgical hospital store, examined the current procurement process and identified challenges. Phase 2 focused on selecting items for a detailed study and collected the qualitative and quantitative details of the store department of the healthcare sector chosen. A detailed study analyzed revenue, output/demand, inventory levels, etc. In Phase 3, a decision-making framework is proposed, and inventory control systems are redesigned and demonstrated for the selected items.

It was observed that the demand for many surgical items had increased significantly over the years due to an increase in disposable/disposable items, while inventories fluctuated widely. Maximum inventory levels varied between 50 and 75%. Storage and availability were important issues for the hospital. It is assumed the hospital adopts the proposed inventory control system. In this case, the benefits can be a saving of 62% of the maximum inventory, 20% of the average stock in the system and optimal use of storage space, improving the performance and productivity of the hospital.

This study can help the healthcare sector administration to develop better systems for the procurement and delivery of common surgical items and efficient resource allocation. It can help provide adequate training to store staff. This study can help improve management/procurement policies, ordering and delivery systems, better service levels, and inventory control of items in the hospital business context. This study can serve as a pilot study to further investigate the overall hospital operations.

This study can help the healthcare sector administration develop better systems for procuring and delivering common surgical items and efficient resource allocation. It can help provide adequate training to store staff. This study can help improve management/procurement policies, ordering and delivery systems, better service levels and inventory control of items in the hospital business context. This study can serve as a pilot study to further investigate the overall hospital operations.

This study is an early attempt to develop a decision framework and inventory control system from the perspective of healthcare inventory management. The gaps identified in real hospital scenarios are investigated, and theoretically based-inventory management strategies are applied and proposed.

The resource crisis in healthcare can be alleviated by engaging external stakeholders and resources in healthcare delivery. The authors use value and open innovation concepts to understand what motivates the stakeholders to join the healthcare innovation ecosystem and what value such an ecosystem brings to healthcare.

A systematic literature review following the PRISMA framework method was applied to reach the research objective. Out of a total of 509 identified articles published till 2021, 25 were selected as relevant for this review.

Six categories of actors were identified, including innovation intermediaries, which were so far neglected in the healthcare innovation literature. Furthermore, patients, healthcare providers, innovation suppliers, investors and influencers were described. The authors also distinguished internal and external stakeholders. The authors show why and how open innovation projects contribute to involving external stakeholders and resources in healthcare delivery by contributing to patient autonomy, relationship building, knowledge transfer, improving collaborative mindset and culture, advancing know-how and bringing additional finances.

This article is the first one to systematically describe the value of open innovation in healthcare. The authors challenge the positivist approach in value presented by value-based healthcare. The authors show how openness contributes to addressing the resource crisis by involving new stakeholders and resources in the care delivery process.

Health-care marketing typically entails a coordinated set of outreach and communications designed to attract consumers (patients in the health-care context) who require services for a better health outcome and guide them throughout their health-care journey to achieve a higher quality of life. The purpose of this study is to understand the progress and trends in healthcare marketing strategy (HMS) literature between 2018 and 2022, with a special emphasis on the pre- and post-Covid-19 periods.

The authors examine 885 HMS-related documents from the WOS database between 2018 and 2022 that were extracted using a keyword-based search strategy. After that, the authors present the descriptive statistics related to the corpus. Finally, the authors use author co-citation analysis (ACA) and bibliographic coupling (BC) techniques to examine the corpus.

The authors present the descriptive statistics as research themes, emerging sub-research areas, leading journals, organisations, funding agencies and nations. Further, the bibliometric analysis reveals the existence of five thematic clusters: Cluster 1: macroeconomic and demographic determinants of healthcare service delivery; Cluster 2: strategies in healthcare marketing; Cluster 3: socioeconomics in healthcare service delivery; Cluster 4: data analytics and healthcare service delivery; Cluster 5: healthcare product and process innovations.

This study provides an in-depth analysis of the advancements made in HMS-related research between 2018 and 2022. In addition, this study describes the evolution of research in this field from before to after the Covid-19 pandemic. The findings of this study have both research and practical significance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to use bibliometric analysis to identify advancements and trends in HMS-related research and to examine the pattern before and after Covid-19 pandemic.

We investigate the role of fiscal policy, through several measures of government revenues and expenditures and redistribution, on disposable and market income inequality and economic growth as well as the interaction between inequality and growth for 31 European countries from 1995 to 2019.

We use a simultaneous equations model to assess the linkage between economic growth, inequalities and fiscal policy variables.

(1) While disposable income inequality has a negative effect on all fiscal policy variables, market income inequality has a mixed effects; (2) for Eastern European countries, public consumption and direct taxation positively influence economic growth; conversely, for Western European countries, the effects are negative; (3) disposable and market income inequality have a positive effect on growth for Eastern European countries, and a negative influence on growth for Western European countries; (4) growth contributes to the increase of disposable and market income inequality for Eastern European countries; for Western European countries, the effects are opposite; and (5) fiscal policy allows for the attenuation of disposable income inequality.

The different results between the role of market and disposable income inequality levels lead us to suggest tax progressivity as an important feature to consider when analyse the trivariate relationship between inequalities, fiscal policy and growth. Furthermore, there are different dynamics between inequality and growth, and the role of fiscal policy, on both Eastern and Western European countries.

The primary objective of this paper is to show a systematic and methodological approach for the digitalization of critical clinical pathways (CPs) within the healthcare domain.

The methodology entails the integration of service design (SD) and action research (AR) methodologies, characterized by iterative phases that systematically alternate between action and reflective processes, fostering cycles of change and learning. Within this framework, stakeholders are engaged through semi-structured interviews, while the existing and envisioned processes are delineated and represented using BPMN 2.0. These methodological steps emphasize the development of an autonomous, patient-centric web application alongside the implementation of an adaptable and patient-oriented scheduling system. Also, business processes simulation is employed to measure key performance indicators of processes and test for potential improvements. This method is implemented in the context of the CP addressing transient loss of consciousness (TLOC), within a publicly funded hospital setting.

The methodology integrating SD and AR enables the detection of pivotal bottlenecks within diagnostic CPs and proposes optimal corrective measures to ensure uninterrupted patient care, all the while advancing the digitalization of diagnostic CP management. This study contributes to theoretical discussions by emphasizing the criticality of process optimization, the transformative potential of digitalization in healthcare and the paramount importance of user-centric design principles, and offers valuable insights into healthcare management implications.

The study’s relevance lies in its ability to enhance healthcare practices without necessitating disruptive and resource-intensive process overhauls. This pragmatic approach aligns with the imperative for healthcare organizations to improve their operations efficiently and cost-effectively, making the study’s findings relevant.

European justice systems are facing a dramatic performance crisis due to the frequent inability to resolve cases without incurring unreasonable delays and backlogs. In this framework, the Italian Judicial system places itself well below the European countries average, in terms of speed of resolution of administrative, civil and criminal trials. The purpose of the paper was to (1) identify factors affecting Italian judicial system efficiency and (2) identify potential actions to manage them, improving judicial system efficiency.

In order to achieve the aims of this paper, a systematic review to map all critical factors discussed in previous studies was performed. Studies were extracted from Google Scholar, Web of Science and SSRN databases. In total, 22 studies were included.

The identified factors of inefficiency of the Italian judicial system have been divided into three macro-classes depending on whether they concern human resource management, the judicial process or whether they pertain to internal or external outside the judicial organization. For each of these, possible strategies have been developed in a new conceptual framework.

The framework seeks to assist policymakers in forming policy measures that can significantly increase court effectiveness. This is the first attempt to review and map all factors affecting judicial system efficiency systematically, providing a new conceptual framework to manage them.