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1 – 10 of over 2000Ntibaneng Hunadi Maleka and Walter Matli
The purpose of this study is to provide current state of knowledge on how the COVID-19 emergency situation necessitated the behaviour influencing use and acceptance of telehealth…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to provide current state of knowledge on how the COVID-19 emergency situation necessitated the behaviour influencing use and acceptance of telehealth. This study interlinks the health belief model (HBM) and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to highlight the challenges and opportunities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in the public health sector.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used three online databases (Emerald publishing, Science Direct and Taylor and Francis) that enabled the authors to access electronic journal articles. Search strategy was used to extract articles based on the relevance of this study.
Findings
The key findings from this study suggested that the COVID-19 emergency forced health-care workers and their patients to rapidly use and rely on telehealth to reduce the rate of COVID-19 transmissions. The key benefits of telehealth use highlighted an expansive cost effective and convenient access to health-care services irrespective of geographical local and levels of physical impairment. Moreover, telehealth inhibited in person human interaction, which was perceived as impersonal and not ideal for new patient consultations. The barriers outweighed the benefits; as a result, it is unlikely that there will be a wide use of telehealth beyond the COVID-19 emergency situation.
Practical implications
The research findings are limited to discussions drawn from available secondary data. The criteria within telehealth for policymakers to note the technology acceptance and use for both health-care and outpatient stakeholders and their health seeking behaviour. Health-care sectors (private and public) and government need to understand enablers of effective telehealth in policymaking to ease the barriers during an emergency situation like a pandemic.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the emerging literature on how COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted and accelerated telehealth by extending both the UTAUT and HBM theories. This study is expected to contribute and expand literature on telehealth during emergency situations, given the novice nature of COVID-19 and limited literature surrounding it.
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Hanna Komulainen, Satu Nätti, Saila Saraniemi and Pauliina Ulkuniemi
Recent literature within public service logic has called for more explicit conceptualisation of customer value in public services. This study aims to fill this gap by examining…
Abstract
Purpose
Recent literature within public service logic has called for more explicit conceptualisation of customer value in public services. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how the customer value approach can be applied in the management of public health care services.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is a qualitative case study of management of public health care services in Finland. The authors interviewed 17 regional health care service developers and analyzed the interview data using thematic analysis.
Findings
The study suggests five propositions for applying customer value approach from the marketing literature in public health care service management. The study enables a deeper understanding of customer value creation in this context and improvement of public health care services.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the public management research in general and public service logic research in particular by suggesting what constitutes customer value in public health care services.
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Timo Pohjosenperä and Hanna Komulainen
This paper aims to explore the dynamics of value co-creation in the context of health care logistics by focusing on the change in the value creation spheres of a logistics service…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the dynamics of value co-creation in the context of health care logistics by focusing on the change in the value creation spheres of a logistics service provider and its customer organization.
Design/methodology/approach
The development of value co-creation between the two organizations was researched through a qualitative case study that focuses on a situation wherein the hospital’s central warehouse was moved to a more distant location. Data consist of the interviews and focus group discussions of both nursing staff and logistics managers before and after the change. The empirical results are reflected to service and value co-creation literature as well as to existing knowledge about health care logistics.
Findings
The new situation compelled the counterparts to plan more structured logistics service procedures, as there was no longer any possibility for nursing staff to pick up urgently needed items from the central warehouse. This strengthened the role of the joint value creation sphere and made it more visible during the change.
Research limitations/implications
The study contributes to the evolving research on health care logistics and connects it to timely service value discussion. This paper proposes that as the physical distance of service facilities increases, the joint co-creation sphere, interestingly, gets widened during the change.
Practical implications
Managerially, the study provides implications for how to develop health-care material logistics to provide more value for both the logistics service providers and their customers.
Social implications
Understanding value co-creation in health care logistics services supports care organizations in developing their processes toward better care for the patients. Thus, health care logistics research facilitates societies and health-care systems to reach their goals in terms of better service and lower costs.
Originality/value
This study presents an up-to-date example of value co-creation in the scarcely researched context of health care logistics.
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Claudio Miraldo, Sonia Francisca Monken, Lara Motta and Ana Freitas Ribeiro
To promote access to their services, health-care companies provide various communication channels to their customers (beneficiaries) to enable the receipt of requests, such as…
Abstract
Purpose
To promote access to their services, health-care companies provide various communication channels to their customers (beneficiaries) to enable the receipt of requests, such as authorization for examinations, procedures and hospitalizations. Under the approach of innovation studies, the management of customer relationship channels for health-care companies is characterized as a knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS). The purpose of this study is presenting innovation as a strategy to increase customer service productivity, as well as the monitoring of the quality of the service, the generation of health information for beneficiaries and compliance with the regulation set by the Brazilian National Health Agency (ANS).
Design/methodology/approach
The study is characterized as an applied research, as it proposes solutions to problems faced by supplemental health-care companies using the strategy of action research, i.e. an independent, social research with an empirical basis.
Findings
The result of this study shows that a computerized health-care system can increase productivity by 21.96%, and it presents an innovative solution for health-care companies to guarantee the process of meeting the demands and requests of their beneficiaries, ensuring the compliance with ANS regulations.
Practical implications
These results can be replicated to other healthcare companies and contribute to those seeking innovation, increased productivity and quality improvements in their services.
Originality/value
This work was also motivated by the lack of lstudies in the areas of health-care companies in Brazil.
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Rosemarie Santa González, Marilène Cherkesly, Teodor Gabriel Crainic and Marie-Eve Rancourt
This study aims to deepen the understanding of the challenges and implications entailed by deploying mobile clinics in conflict zones to reach populations affected by violence and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to deepen the understanding of the challenges and implications entailed by deploying mobile clinics in conflict zones to reach populations affected by violence and cut off from health-care services.
Design/methodology/approach
This research combines an integrated literature review and an instrumental case study. The literature review comprises two targeted reviews to provide insights: one on conflict zones and one on mobile clinics. The case study describes the process and challenges faced throughout a mobile clinic deployment during and after the Iraq War. The data was gathered using mixed methods over a two-year period (2017–2018).
Findings
Armed conflicts directly impact the populations’ health and access to health care. Mobile clinic deployments are often used and recommended to provide health-care access to vulnerable populations cut off from health-care services. However, there is a dearth of peer-reviewed literature documenting decision support tools for mobile clinic deployments.
Originality/value
This study highlights the gaps in the literature and provides direction for future research to support the development of valuable insights and decision support tools for practitioners.
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Rocco Palumbo, Capolupo Nicola and Paola Adinolfi
Promoting health literacy, i.e. the ability to access, collect, understand and use health-related information, is high on the health policy agenda across the world. The…
Abstract
Purpose
Promoting health literacy, i.e. the ability to access, collect, understand and use health-related information, is high on the health policy agenda across the world. The digitization of health-care calls for a reframing of health literacy in the cyber-physical environment. The article systematizes current scientific knowledge about digital health literacy and investigates the role of health-care organizations in delivering health literate health-care services in a digital environment.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature review was accomplished. A targeted query to collect relevant scientific contributions was run on PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. A narrative approach was undertaken to summarize the study findings and to envision avenues for further development in the field of digital health literacy.
Findings
Digital health literacy has peculiar attributes as compared with health literacy. Patients may suffer from a lack of human touch when they access health services in the digital environment. This may impair their ability to collect health information and to appropriately use it to co-create value and to co-produce health promotion and risk prevention services. Health-care organizations should strive for increasing the patients’ ability to navigate the digital health-care environment and boosting the latter’s value co-creation capability.
Practical implications
Tailored solutions should be designed to promote digital health literacy at the individual and organizational level. On the one hand, attention should be paid to the patients’ special digital information needs and to avoid flaws in their ability to contribute to health services’ co-production. On the other hand, health-care organizations should be involved in the design of user-friendly e-health solutions, which aim at engaging patients in value co-creation.
Originality/value
This contribution is a first attempt to systematize extant scientific knowledge in the field of digital health literacy specifically focused on the strategies and initiatives that health-care organizations may take to address the limited digital health literacy pandemic.
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Owolabi Lateef Kuye and Olusegun Emmanuel Akinwale
Bureaucracy to a large extent entrenches orderliness and productive means of achieving goals in both public and private organisations across the world. However, bureaucracy is not…
Abstract
Purpose
Bureaucracy to a large extent entrenches orderliness and productive means of achieving goals in both public and private organisations across the world. However, bureaucracy is not suitable in the management of hospitals due to its peculiar nature of operations. This study investigates the conundrum of bureaucratic processes and health-care service delivery in government hospitals in Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach
The study surveyed 600 outpatients and attendees visiting tertiary and government hospitals in Nigeria using descriptive design to obtained data from the respondents. A research instrument, questionnaire, was used to gather data. Out of the 600 outpatients visiting the 20 hospitals in government and tertiary hospitals, 494 responses were returned from the attendees. The study employed random sampling strategy to collect the information.
Findings
The findings of this study were that service delivery in government hospitals were in adverse position on all the four constructs of bureaucratic dimensions as against quality of service delivery in hospitals in Nigeria. It discovered that bureaucratic impersonality cannot impact on the quality of service delivery in government hospitals in Nigeria. Separation and division of labour among health workers have no significant effect on quality service delivery in government hospitals. Formal rules and regulations (administrative procedure, rules, and policies) prevent quality service delivery in government hospitals in Nigeria. Also, patient’s waiting time was not significant to the quality of service delivery in government hospitals.
Research limitations/implications
The results are constrained with dimensions of bureaucratic processes. Thus, the implication of this study is that bureaucracy in the Nigerian public hospitals is an unnecessary marriage which should be carefully separated and de-emphasised for quality service delivery in the hospitals to thrive.
Practical implications
Largely, this study is practical essential as it unearths the irrelevant operations procedure that hinder progress in Nigerian hospitals.
Originality/value
The study accomplishes recognised importance to survey how bureaucracy impedes quality service delivery in government hospitals. This study has provided a vital clue to elements that will bring rapid attention to patients’outcome in Nigerian hospitals and health-care facilities which hitherto has not been emphasised. The study has contributed to the existing body of knowledge associated to healthcare service quality in developing country.
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Hannah Devlin, Clodagh Nolan and Niall Turner
Assistive technology (AT) has been highlighted as a tool that can support self-management for people living with schizophrenia. A gap in the literature exists regarding the views…
Abstract
Purpose
Assistive technology (AT) has been highlighted as a tool that can support self-management for people living with schizophrenia. A gap in the literature exists regarding the views held by the stakeholders involved in the health care of an individual living with schizophrenia regarding the potential use of AT to enable the self-management of this condition. The purpose of this paper is to explore how individuals living with schizophrenia, their relatives and their mental health care professionals view AT as a tool to facilitate self-management.
Design/methodology/approach
This mixed methods research paper will discuss the findings of the second stage of a two-stage research study. The paper will discuss the findings of questionnaires that were disseminated to service users living with schizophrenia, their relatives and the health-care professionals of a community mental health service in the Greater Dublin area.
Findings
The results indicate that the introduction of AT for the self-management of schizophrenia would be accepted by key stakeholders.
Research limitations/implications
As AT continues to develop, it is clear from the findings presented in this paper that the main stakeholder groups involved in the care of an individual living with schizophrenia are amenable to the use of AT to facilitate the self-management of this condition. Further research is required to explore correct policing and management of its implementation.
Originality/value
This study is the first study of its kind within an Irish context to explore the use of assistive technology as a tool for self-management from the perspective of those experiencing schizophrenia, their relatives and the health-care professionals working alongside them.
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Mitch Blair, Mariana Miranda Autran Sampaio, Michael Rigby and Denise Alexander
The Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) project identified the different models of primary care that exist for children, examined the particular attributes that might be…
Abstract
The Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) project identified the different models of primary care that exist for children, examined the particular attributes that might be different from those directed at adults and considered how these models might be appraised. The project took the multiple and interrelated dimensions of primary care and simplified them into a conceptual framework for appraisal. A general description of the models in existence in all 30 countries of the EU and EEA countries, focusing on lead practitioner, financial and regulatory and service provision classifications, was created. We then used the WHO ‘building blocks’ for high-performing health systems as a starting point for identifying a good system for children. The building blocks encompass safe and good quality services from an educated and empowered workforce, providing good data systems, access to all necessary medical products, prevention and treatments, and a service that is adequately financed and well led. An extensive search of the literature failed to identify a suitable appraisal framework for MOCHA, because none of the frameworks focused on child primary care in its own right. This led the research team to devise an alternative conceptualisation, at the heart of which is the core theme of child centricity and ecology, and the need to focus on delivery to the child through the life course. The MOCHA model also focuses on the primary care team and the societal and environmental context of the primary care system.
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Heba Nassar, Hala Sakr, Asmaa Ezzat and Pakinam Fikry
This paper aims to evaluate the technical efficiency of the health-care systems in 21 selected middle-income countries during the period (2000–2017) and determine the source of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to evaluate the technical efficiency of the health-care systems in 21 selected middle-income countries during the period (2000–2017) and determine the source of inefficiency whether it is transient (short run) or persistent (long run).
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses the stochastic frontier analysis technique through employing the generalized true random effects model which overcomes the drawbacks of the previously introduced stochastic frontier models and allows for the separation between unobserved heterogeneity, persistent inefficiency and transient inefficiency.
Findings
Persistent efficiency is lower than the transient efficiency; hence, there are more efficiency gains that can be made by the selected countries by adopting long-term policies that aim at reforming the structure of the health-care system in the less efficient countries such as South Africa and Russia. The most efficient countries are Vietnam, Mexico and China which adopted a social health insurance that covers almost the whole population with the aim of increasing access to health-care services. Also, decentralization in health-care has assisted in adopting health-care policies that are suitable for both the rural and urban areas based on their specific conditions and health-care needs. A key success in the implementation of the adopted long-term policies by those countries is the continuous monitoring and evaluation of their outcomes and comparing them with the predefined targets and conducting any necessary modifications to ensure their movement in the right path to achieve their goals.
Originality/value
Although several studies have evaluated the technical efficiency both across and within countries using non-parametric (data envelopment analysis) and parametric (stochastic frontier analysis) approaches, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to evaluate the technical efficiency of selected middle-income countries during the period (2000–2017) using the generalized true random effects stochastic frontier analysis model.
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