Search results

A new triage method, MBCE (Medical Bio Social Ethics), is presented with social justice, bio, and medical ethics for critical resource distribution during a pandemic. Ethical triage is a complex and challenging process that requires careful consideration of medical, social, cultural, and ethical factors to guide the decision-making process and ensure fair and transparent allocation of resources. When assigning priorities to patients, a clinician would evaluate each patient’s medical condition, age, comorbidities, and prognosis, as well as their cultural and social background and ethical factors.

A statistical analysis shows no interactions among the ethical triage factors. It implies the ethical components have no moderation effect; hence, each is independent. The result also points out that medical and bioethics may have an affinity for interactions. In such cases, there seem to be some ethical factors related to bio and medical ethics that are correlated. Therefore, the triage team should be careful in evaluating patient cases. The algorithm is explained with case histories of the selected patient. A group of triage nurses and general medical practitioners assists with the triage.

The MBCE triage algorithm aims to allocate scarce resources fairly and equitably. Another ethical principle in this triage algorithm is the principle of utility. In a pandemic, the principle of utility may require prioritizing patients with a higher likelihood of survival or requiring less medical care. The research presents a sensitivity analysis of a patient’s triage score to show the algorithm’s robustness. A weighted score of ethical factors combined with an assessment of triage factors combines multiple objectives to assign a fair triage score. These distinctive features of the algorithm are reasonably easy to implement and a new direction for the unbiased triage principle.

The idea is to make decisions about distributing and using scarce medical resources. Triage algorithms raise ethical issues, such as discrimination and justice, guiding medical ethics in treating patients with terminal diseases or comorbidity. One of the main ethical principles in triage algorithms is the principle of distributive justice.

The study explores how Taiwan’s electronic health data systems can be used to build algorithms that reduce or eliminate medical errors and to advance precision medicine.

This study is a narrative review of the literature.

The body of medical knowledge has grown far too large for human clinicians to parse. In theory, electronic health records could augment clinical decision-making with electronic clinical decision support systems (CDSSs). However, computer scientists and clinicians have made remarkably little progress in building CDSSs, because health data tend to be siloed across many different systems that are not interoperable and cannot be linked using common identifiers. As a result, medicine in the USA is often practiced inconsistently with poor adherence to the best preventive and clinical practices. Poor information technology infrastructure contributes to medical errors and waste, resulting in suboptimal care and tens of thousands of premature deaths every year. Taiwan’s national health system, in contrast, is underpinned by a coordinated system of electronic data systems but remains underutilized. In this paper, the authors present a theoretical path toward developing artificial intelligence (AI)-driven CDSS systems using Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database. Such a system could in theory not only optimize care and prevent clinical errors but also empower patients to track their progress in achieving their personal health goals.

While research teams have previously built AI systems with limited applications, this study provides a framework for building global AI-based CDSS systems using one of the world’s few unified electronic health data systems.

The objective of this study is to examine developments in the discursive practice of non-financial reporting in the public healthcare sector. In doing so, the authors investigate how the main reform foci of productivity and quality are represented, with a specific focus on the patient.

Drawing on critical discourse analysis (CDA), the authors conduct a longitudinal study (2007–2018) of healthcare reporting foci across the five administrative regions responsible for public hospitals in Denmark. The study analyses sixty annual reports and draws on contemporary reform documents over this period. CDA enables a micro-textual analysis, combined with macro-insights and discussions on social practice.

The findings show complex webs of presentation strategies, but in particular two changes occur during the period. First, the patient is centred throughout but the framing changes from productivity and waiting lists to quality and dialogue. Second, in the first years, the regions present themselves as actively highlighting financial and quality concerns, which changes to a passive and indirect form of presentation steered by indicators and patient legislation enforced by central government. This enhances passivity and distance in healthcare regional non-financial reporting where the regions seek to conform to such demands. Simultaneously, however, the authors find a tendency to highlight very different local initiatives, which shows an attempt to go beyond a pure automatic mode of reporting found in earlier studies.

Responding to the literature on both healthcare and financial reporting, this study identifies novel links between micro-level texts and macro-level social practices, enabling insights into the potentially intertwined impacts of public-sector reporting. The authors offer insights into the complexity of the construction of non-financial reporting in the public sector, which has a wider impact and different intentions than private-sector reporting.

This study aims to explore the role of international ambidexterity (IA) in improving the innovation capability of emerging market multinationals. In particular, the main purpose of this research is to study the relationship amongst digitalisation, IA and innovation performance (IP) amongst multinational enterprises in China’s healthcare industry.

The data for this investigation were collected from 134 listed companies in China’s healthcare industry during the study period. This study tested the hypotheses by constructing a two-way fixed-effects model.

The results show that both the balance dimension and the combined dimension of IA have significant positive effects on IP. Digitalisation not only has a direct positive effect on IP but also positively moderates the positive correlation between IA and IP.

Previous studies have not captured the relationship between ambidexterity, digitalisation and IP, and this study helps to fill in the gap and examine these associations in China’s healthcare industry. The results of this study provide valuable insights for healthcare industry managers to understand the role of ambidexterity and digitalisation in innovation in the context of internationalisation.

The study aims to investigate the nurse job enjoyment and their participation in medical affairs to enchance the quality of patient care in Saudi hospitals. In addition, this study also investigates the management team's role in patient care quality through the mediating effects of nurse job enjoyment and participation in medical affairs.

The present study used a self-administered survey questionnaire to collect data from registered nurses in Saudi hospitals. In this study, 600 survey questionnaires were distributed online (Google Forms) and received 266 valid responses (44.33% response rate). In addition, SmartPLS-4.0 was applied to validate the research constructs and test the hypotheses via partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The study's findings indicate that the job enjoyment of the nurses and participation in medical affairs have positive and significant effects on the quality of patient care. In addition, the research findings also suggest that the management team of the hospitals has a significant indirect influence on the quality of patient care through the medicating effects of nurse job enjoyment and participation in medical affairs.

The findings of this study also offer various practical implications. This study showed the direct impact of the management team on job enjoyment, medical affairs and patient care quality. Therefore, hospital authorities and policymakers may emphasise clear communication, collaboration, respect and trust for the effective management team in providing higher-quality patient care. The present study suggests that hospital policymakers should strive to create a positive work environment, provide adequate resources, foster team spirit, offer incentives and allow flexible scheduling to ensure higher job enjoyment and increase nurse participation in medical affairs.

This study adds to the growing body of knowledge by investigating the effects of the management team, job enjoyment and nurses' participation in medical affairs on patient care quality. This study also enhances the theoretical depth by exploring the mediating impact of job enjoyment in predicting the relationships between the management team and the quality of care provided to patients. The present study provides guidelines for healthcare service providers or practitioners to focus on the nurses' job enjoyment and their engagement in medical activities to continuously improve the quality of patient care in the hospitals.

The purpose of this study is to define and investigate the governance requirements of supply chain finance (SCF).

A qualitative analysis of 849 news articles published in UK newspapers (2000–2022) using the Gioia method.

SCF governance relies on developing capacities for reflexive scrutiny at two stages: (1) prior to entering into an SCF relationship and (2) during its operation. Based on the notion of SCF as a complex adaptive system, we theorise SCF governance requirements as a dual-layered semipermeable boundary. The semipermeability of the two layers allows for a dynamic exchange between the SCF system and its environment. The first layer is the capacity to selectively enable or control the entry and access of certain actors and practices into the SCF system. The second layer is a capacity for ongoing scrutiny of the SCF operation and its development. Further, we identify five aspects of governance to be enabled, i.e. enhancing adaptability, building confidence, improving efficiency, advancing technology and promoting transparency; and four aspects to be controlled, i.e. preventing abuse of power, curbing fraud risk, constraining operational risk and restricting risky extensions to SCF practices.

Our dynamic framework can guide supply chain (SC) members in making decisions about whether to participate, or continue to operate, in an SCF relationship. Moreover, the findings have implications for policymakers and authorities who oversee entry/access and the involvement of SCF providers, particularly, fintech firms.

The study contributes to both the SC and governance literature by providing a systematic analysis of what SCF governance has to accomplish. Our novel contribution lies in its analysis of SCF governance based on a complex adaptive system approach, which expands the existing literature where SCF is described in rather static terms. More specifically, it suggests a need for a dynamic duality of SCF governance through the semipermeable boundary that selectively enables and controls certain SCF actors and practices.

Biotech companies stand as key actors in pharmaceutical innovation. The high risk and long timelines inherent with their R&D investments might hinder their access to funding, potentially stifling innovation. This study aims to explore into the appeal of biotech companies to capital market investors, whose financial backing could bolster the growth of the biotechnology sector.

This paper uses a dataset of 774 US publicly listed biotech firms to investigate their risk and return characteristics by comparing them to pharmaceutical firms and a sample of matched non-biotech R&D-intensive firms over the sample period 1980–2021. Tests show that the conclusions remain consistent across diverse methodological approaches.

The paper shows that biotech companies are riskier than the average firm in the market index but outperform on a risk-adjusted basis both the market and a matched group of R&D-intensive firms. This is particularly true for large capitalization biotech, which is also shown to provide a diversification benefit by reducing the downside risk in past crisis periods.

This paper provides insight relevant to the current debate about the overall performance of the biotech industry in terms of policy changes and their impact on small, early-stage biotech firms. While small and early-stage biotech firms are playing an increasing role in scientific innovation, this study confirms their greater vulnerability to financial risks and the importance of access to capital markets in enabling those companies to survive and evolve into larger biotech.

Since the last decade, debates regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of the forms of transfer, i.e. in the form of in-kind or cash transfers, have been gaining momentum. This paper aims to explore the preferences revealed by the beneficiaries, the role of contextual conditions in moulding these preferences, factors associated with the transfer scheme that defines the preferences and the rationale behind such responses.

The study conducted involves primary data collected from an Indian state, Odisha. 308 beneficiaries of the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) were interviewed concerning specific objectives in a rural district (Mayurbhanj) and another highly urbanised district (Khordha).

The comparative results show that the strength of the contextual conditions significantly influences the preferences of the beneficiaries in the rural district as compared to the effect on the beneficiaries of the urban district. Education seems to have an insignificant impact in rural areas. However, income and standard of living have positive significant effects on shaping the preferences for cash or in-kind transfers.

Examining the strength of the contextual conditions and emphasising beneficiaries' perspectives would stimulate a better understanding of the implementation of the proposed quasi-Universal Basic Income. The study would hence, be instrumental in dealing with the transition towards cash transfers in the Indian context where the co-responsibility of both stakeholders, the government and the beneficiaries, should be given equal weightage.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2023-0158

As an emerging technology, Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) and blockchain have the potential to disrupt many areas of business and social structure. However, it is loaded with significant technical, social, legal, financial and ethical complications that bring difficulty in its widespread use within the public distribution system (PDS). This research aims to analyze the barriers to integrated RFID and blockchain adoption in developing countries' PDS. Furthermore, this study also aims to validate the proposed framework against the Indian PDS.

The proposed framework consists of 10 potential barriers to integrated RFID and blockchain adoption. To identify the barriers, this study referred to the extant literature followed by consultations with domain experts. This study prepared the DEMATEL-based questionnaires, collected the data from four domain experts and analyzed them using an integrated Grey-DEMATEL approach.

The obtained results provide a precise list of barriers and the correlations among them. From the results, it is concluded that the unavailability of a skilled workforce at affordable cost, lack of knowledge about privacy level and unclear return on investment and benefits are the most critical blockchain adoption barriers in the context of Indian PDS.

This research proposes a framework consisting of 10 integrated RFID and blockchain adoption barriers in relation to Indian PDS. It also proposes a method for analyzing causal interrelationships between the barriers while allowing for data input from domain experts. Consequently, the framework is capable of coping with experts' biases and data scarcity.

The fundamental aim of the study is to investigate the implications of labor housing designs in Dubai, with a focus on courtyards and the governing building regulations, on daylight performance as an underlying factor impacting laborers’ indoor environmental quality. Several studies shed light on the subject of labor camps and labor migration in Dubai, but few have focused on the subject from the perspective of the environmental performance of these camps. A model that represents one of the labor camps was built using Rhinoceros 7.0 and Grasshopper software packages. Annual daylighting and glare simulations were carried out using the lighting modeling engine RADIANCE 5.0 in conjunction with the “ClimateStudio”.

The construction sector has emerged as a significant economic development driver, attracting a diverse labor force from a variety of countries to Dubai. As a result, Dubai authorities have implemented several measures to ensure the provision of suitable housing facilities for its labor force. These measures contribute to the reduction of energy costs in labor housing by encouraging the use of renewable energy. While several studies shed light on the subject of labor camps and labor migration in Dubai, few have focused on the subject from the perspective of the environmental performance of these camps.

The study provided statistical evidence that the current regulations governing courtyards in labor housing resulted in significant changes in daylight levels across different floor levels of the labor housing units. It is suggested that both 2:3 and 3:4 Court Width-to-Height ratios would further contribute to a more consistent daylight Illuminance with marginal statistical differences between floor levels (p > 0.05). The 3:4 ratio, on the other hand, offers a consistent distribution across all floor levels in the North and South with negligible variances, although weakly significant differences can be yet expected between the first and fourth floors in the East and West orientations (p < 0.05). The results of Annual Sunlight Exposure (ASE) suggest excessive solar incidence and a high probability of glare, which remains a problem that must be addressed under the governing building regulations.

This study could serve as a framework for analyzing and contrasting the findings of other studies on labor accommodation, notably in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Such an approach has the potential to enhance living conditions in labor accommodations in Dubai and other areas. It is necessary to meet people' physical and psychological well-being while also addressing sustainability and regulatory compliance.