Search results

Despite the extensive adoption of radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology across many industry supply chains, the extent of adoption in healthcare is far behind the earlier expectation. The purpose of this study is to better understand the current RFID adoption in healthcare by looking beyond the existing body of work using both the task-technology fit (TTF) framework and network externalities theories.

A survey is employed in this study, and the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique is used to test the hypotheses of the proposed model.

The findings are twofold. First, both TTF and network externalities exert a positive impact on the RFID adoption in the healthcare sector; and second, no synergistic effect can be found between these two for further increasing the adoption. This is different from what the extant research found on other technology adoptions across various supply chains.

This paper provides contributions to both researchers and practitioners. For researchers, this study enriches the body of knowledge of RFID adoption by being the first to apply the network externalities and TTF theories to predict the adoption of RFID in healthcare. For healthcare practitioners, to make the RFID adoption easier and more effective, any initial applications of RFID tools should be centered on those for which there is a more natural application. Further, for those who propose an RFID adoption should start with a product that has a sizable adoption community; this may help persuade senior management to make the adoption decision.

The number of older Asians in the UK is increasing placing greater numbers at risk of developing dementia. The emerging need to address early diagnosis is especially prominent in areas where Asian communities are long established. This was the specific focus of a Dementia Collaborative Project in North West Kent. The project, working through a primary care practice, aimed to raise awareness of dementia and to facilitate early intervention and access to specialist dementia services. Using an evaluation methodology adopted by the Collaborative and working through a multiagency steering group, the pilot project successfully identified an appropriate primary care practice, established a link with a specially trained Asian nurse and devised a set of project materials. By inviting older Asian patients with memory problems to make an appointment with the nurse, and enclosing a culturally relevant information leaflet, older people were encouraged to come forward. Although the number of individual patients identified was small, the project outcomes include: significantly increased referral rates from black and minority ethnic communities to specialist services and greater awareness of dementia‐related issues in both primary care and Asian care services. Overall, the evaluation suggests that by engaging with a committed primary care practice it is possible to engage a hitherto marginal group of older people in early intervention in dementia and raise awareness about its benefits. That this approach underpins the development of a larger scale five year project in the same area additionally endorses its relevance for the mainstream population.

‘Black Africans’ in England are disproportionately and highly affected by the heterosexually contracted HIV epidemic. Policy and practice frameworks have advocated ethnic matching in HIV prevention. We explore how self‐identifying ‘black African’ workers in London were co‐producers of ‘black African’ identities to target in preventative HIV interventions. Drawing on a focused literature review and 12 in‐depth interviews with workers, the paper identifies themes associated with co‐production of an African identify by workers. The historical inclusion of the category ‘black African’ in the 1991 census coincided with the emergence of Africans as at higher HIV ‘risk’. In co‐producing an African public, the workers projected their heterosexual and Christian affiliations on to the targeted population, perceiving themselves as ‘insiders’ knowledgeable about rumours that had historically co‐produced African identities. Fear of those in authority galvanised the formation of African‐led agencies, offering entry points for HIV prevention to Africans. By projecting aspects of their complex ‘selves’ on to the ‘other’, encounters in public spaces were deemed ‘opportunities’ for outreach interventions. The ethics of ‘cold calling’, confidentiality and informed consent were taken as ‘given’ in these socially produced ‘private’ spaces located in ‘public’ venues. In following HIV prevention frameworks as advocated by Pulle et al (2004), the workers endorsed yet problematised the notion of ethnic matching.

Purpose – To assess the unrelenting argument made by conservative social theorists that low-income women of color have high rates of out-of-wedlock births because they are anti-marriage and have deviant family values.Methodology – Based on a four-year ethnographic study of homeless mothers in San Francisco, this research examines whether or not Latinas and African Americans do in fact denigrate marriage and unabashedly embrace unwed motherhood.Findings – The major contribution of this research is the recognition that low-income African American women and Latinas do value the institution of marriage and prefer to be married before they have children. Unfortunately, the exigencies of poverty force many of them to delay marriage indefinitely. A lack of financial resources, the importance of economic stability, gender mistrust, domestic violence, criminality, high expectations about marriage, and concerns about divorce are common reasons given for not getting married.Research limitations – Although San Francisco is a unique city, and I cannot generalize my findings to other locales, the experiences of homeless women in the Bay Area are analogous to what was happening throughout urban America at the end of the twentieth century.Originality – For homeless mothers in San Francisco, having children without being married is a consequence of poverty in which race, class, and gender oppression conspire to prevent them from realizing their familial aspirations, pushing them further into the margins of society. Using intersectionality theory, this research debunks the Culture of Poverty perspective and analyzes why homeless mothers choose to remain unmarried.

This paper sets out to analyse the use of the Six Sigma methodology to improve quality in healthcare. It looks at how Six Sigma grew out of the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM).

Six Sigma is a quality improvement methodology that has been widely adopted by companies since the early 1990s and has grown exponentially in the healthcare industry during the past five years. Some of the main tenets of Six Sigma have emerged from the principles of TQM, including the notion that the entire organization must support the quality effort; that there should be a vigorous education effort; and that a quality improvement process should emphasize root cause analysis.

In spite of its early success, TQM “crashed and burned” for several reasons including the fact that financial benefits were difficult to assign to TQM efforts, root cause was not always determined resulting in recurring errors, there was no common metric to measure the level of quality attained, and quality efforts were sometimes aimed at processes or operations that were not critical to the customer. Six Sigma filled the vacuums created by these TQM failures in several ways. Under the Six Sigma methodology, quality improvement projects are carefully defined so that they can be successfully completed within a relatively short time frame. Financials are applied to each completed project so that management knows how much the project saves the institution.

On each project, intense study is used to determine root cause analysis; and in the end, a metric known as “sigma level” can be assigned to signify the level of quality. Six Sigma has a “critical to quality” dimension that keeps the quality effort focused on improving only those things that really matter to the customer.

Examines Six Sigma as a strategy for improving service which tries to reduce defects and therefore improve a firm’s marketing position. Looks at how this as been applied in business and then examines its place in healthcare. Concludes that the few healthcare institutions that have implemented Six Sigma have done so in the interest of business and not so much in the area of patient care, where it is proposed that it will improve things dramatically.

The high failure rate for expatriate leaders is well documented. One major cause of these failures has been identified as the incongruencies in the perceptions of expatriate leaders and the host members that they manage. This article describes theory and research which suggests that a potential explanation for at least some of these perceptual incongruencies is that they are a result of culturally‐based attributional biases interacting with self‐serving and actor‐observer attributional biases. Although not all of the interactions of these biases result in incongruent perceptions, some interactions appear to be particularly prone to result in incongruent perceptions such as when leaders from highly individualistic and low context cultures interact with members from highly collectivistic and high context cultures. Suggestions for research and interventions designed to reduce incongruent attributions between leaders and members are discussed.

This study aims to provide healthcare managers with a meaningful synthesis of state of the art knowledge on error proofing strategies. The purpose is to provide a foundation for understanding medical error prevention, to support the strategic deployment of error proofing strategies, and facilitate the development and implementation of new error proofing strategies.

A diverse panel of 40 healthcare professionals evaluated the 150 error proofing strategies presented in the AHRQ research monograph using classification systems developed by earlier researchers. Error proofing strategies were ranked based on effectiveness, cost, and ease of implementation as well as based on their aim/purpose, i.e. elimination, replacement, facilitation, detection, or mitigation of errors.

The findings of this study include prioritized lists of error proofing strategies from the AHRQ manual based on the preferred characteristics (i.e. effectiveness, cost, ease of implementation) and underlying principles (i.e. elimination, replacement, facilitation, detections mitigation of errors) associated with each strategy.

The results of this study should be considered in light of certain limitations. The sample size of 40 panelists from hospitals, medical practices, and other healthcare related companies in the Gulf Coast region of the USA prevents a stronger generalization of the findings to other groups or settings. Future studies that replicate this approach, but employ larger samples, are appropriate. Through the use of public forums and expanded sampling, it may be possible to further validate research findings in this paper and to expand and build on the results obtained in this study.

Using the error‐proofing strategies identified provides a starting point for researchers seeking to better understand the impact of error proofing on healthcare services, the quality of those services and the potential financial ramifications. Further, the results presented enhance the strategic deployment of error proofing strategies by bringing to light some of the important factors that healthcare managers should consider when implementing error proofing solutions. Most notably, healthcare managers are encouraged to implement effective solutions, rather than those that are merely inexpensive and/or easy to implement, which is more often the case.

This study provides a much‐needed forum for sharing error‐proofing strategies, their effectiveness, and their implementation.

This study examines the adjustment process and the adaptability of the Chinese migrant spouses’ in Auckland, New Zealand. A total of 97 spouses participated in a survey from a random sample of 200. The results suggest that both anticipatory and in‐country experiences are relevant to adjustment. The results of the study, specifically suggest that the adjustment process experienced by the Chinese spouses in the New Zealand environment is based on a number of factors such as (1) the amount of information and knowledge of New Zealand they have prior to arrival in New Zealand, (2) the backgrounds of the spouses, (3) their experiences prior to and on arrival in New Zealand, and (4) their ability to cope in the new environment.