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A recent paradigm-shift in patient care advocates for long-term recovery and quality of life in survivors of critical illness. Evidence suggests that occupational therapists in critical care can contribute to recovery in areas such as functional outcomes, length of stay and delirium, although poor role understanding can limit service-utilisation. The purpose of this study is to investigate current and future roles and practices of critical care occupational therapists in the UK.

Occupational therapists with clinical experience in adult critical care were invited to participate in a mixed-methods design using a locally developed online questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, concurrently. Descriptive statistics were generated through SPSS. Qualitative data were analysed using the framework approach.

Twelve occupational therapists participated in the survey element, with five continuing to interview. Occupational therapists described a multifaceted role in critical care where the majority reported practice in upper limb function, seating/positioning, cognition, psychosocial sequelae and discharge planning. Role and internal characteristics impacted on service delivery. It is envisaged that earlier intervention in a greater percentage of patients, a greater evidence-base, raising awareness and adequate staffing will be features for future development.

This study provides new insight into the current role and practices of adult critical care occupational therapists in England and generates insights into their role in addressing physical and non-physical morbidity for this patient cohort. Findings are preliminary in nature; however, future research is warranted to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a partnership with specialized nurses from geographically disparate hospitals to provide critical support in national disasters.

The Australian Government established the National Critical Care Trauma Response Centre (NCCTRC) within Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH). A partnership with the Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH) occurred to support RDH during national disasters. PAH nurses undertook two-week rotations to RDH in readiness for deployment. PAH, NCCTRC and RDH nurses’ perceptions of the efficacy of the nurse rotations were explored in surveys and focus groups.

PAH nurses felt they were well equipped for practice in RDH and the partnership developed professional reciprocity with the PAH nurses feeling respected, valued and part of the RDH team. This finding of adequate preparation and effective integration was consistent with the perceptions of senior staff from the participating organizations.

This unique partnership created a well-prepared team to provide support in a national disaster.

The number of disasters has increased by 30 per cent worldwide in the past 30 years. Nurses constitute the largest clinical group within a hospital and their ability to respond to disasters is crucial to the provision of quality patient care. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a four-year disaster preparedness partnership between two tertiary hospitals from the perspective of executive staff, senior clinical managers and specialist nurses. The national disaster response centre was situated in one hospital and the other hospital was located 3,500 km away.

The intervention involved selected nurses working at the partner hospital to enable familiarisation with policies, procedures and layout in the event of a request for back-up in the event of a national disaster. A mixed-methods design was used to elicit the strengths and limitations of the partnership. Surveys, in-depth interviews and focus groups were used.

In total, 67 participants provided evaluations including ten executive staff, 17 clinical management nurses and 38 nurses from the disaster response team. Improvements in some aspects of communication were recommended. The successful recruitment of highly skilled and committed nurses was a strength. A disaster exercise resulted in 79 per cent of nurses, able and willing to go immediately to the partner hospital for up to 14 days.

During the four year partnership, no actual disaster occurred that required support. This limited the ability to fully trial the partnership in an authentic manner. The disaster exercise, although helpful in trialling the processes and assessing nurse availability, it has some limitations.

This innovative partnership successfully prepared specialist nurses from geographically distant hospitals for a disaster response. This together with a willingness to be deployed enhanced Australia’s capacity in the event of a disaster.

Digital transformation (DT) in the semiconductor industry goes beyond traditional business operations and supply chain management (OSCM) to the digital world. Despite significant developments in recent years, blockchain implementations for OSCM remain relatively underdeveloped in the semiconductor industry. Therefore, this research aims to examine the relationships between blockchain visibility, supply chain integration (SCI) and supply chain performance (SCP) in the era of DT in Malaysia's semiconductor industry to shed light on this emerging area.

A convenience sampling of 71 operations and supply chain managers attached to semiconductor manufacturing firms in Malaysia were invited to participate in a survey. In assessing blockchain visibility within the industry, key terms namely business intelligence gathering, information exchange, information technology (IT) and knowledge of asset status, were conceptualised from the literature review. The questionnaires developed to collect data were validated by industry and academic experts.

The results from the analysis confirmed that SCI mediates the link between blockchain visibility (information exchange, business intelligence gathering and knowledge asset status) and SCP. Likewise, the importance-performance matrix analysis (IPMA) outcomes revealed that IT played a minor role. The results suggested that semiconductor manufacturers should pay less attention to IT since this was identified as having the least priority towards improvement.

The outcomes from this research enable policymakers to strategise and integrate blockchain technology in the era of DT to ensure sustainable SCM in the semiconductor industry in Malaysia.

The research bridge the knowledge gap by revealing the value that blockchain visibility can facilitate SCP and explore SCI as the prevailing factor and demonstrates how Resource-Based Theory and Network Theory can be applied in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to examine blockchain's roles in promoting ethical sourcing in the mineral and metal industry.

It analyzes multiple case studies of blockchain projects in the mineral and metal industry.

It gives detailed descriptions of how blockchain-based supply chain networks' higher density of information flow and high degree of authenticity of information can increase supply chain participants' compliance with sustainability standards. It gives special consideration to blockchain systems' roles in overcoming the deficits in the second party and the third-party trust. It also demonstrates how blockchain-based supply chain networks include outside actors and configure the supply chain networks in a way that enhances the empowerment of marginalized groups.

It suggests various mechanisms by which blockchain-based supply chain networks can give a voice to marginalized groups.

It demonstrates how blockchain is likely to force mineral and metal supply chains to become more traceable and transparent.

Evidence-based practice is pivotal to effective patient care. However, its translation into practice remains limited. Given the central role of primary care in many healthcare systems, it is important to identify strategies that bolster clinician-capacity to promote evidence-based care. The purpose of this paper is to identify strategies to increase Practice Nurse capacity to promote evidence-based sexual healthcare within general practice.

A survey of 217 Practice Nurses in an Australian state and ten respondent-interviews regarding two resources to promote evidence-based sexual healthcare – namely, a clinical aide and online training.

The perceived impact of both resources was determined by views on relevance and design – particularly for the clinical aide. Resource-use was influenced by role and responsibilities within the workplace, accessibility, and support from patients and colleagues.

This is the first Australian study to reveal strategies to promote evidence-based sexual healthcare among Practice Nurses. The findings provide a platform for future research on knowledge translation processes, particularly among clinicians who might be disengaged from sexual healthcare.

Given the benefits of evidence-based practices, it is important that managers recognize their role, and the role of their services, in promoting these. Without explicit support for evidence-based care and recognition of the Practice Nurse role in such care, knowledge translation is likely to be limited.

Knowledge translation among Practice Nurses can be facilitated by: resources-deemed informative, relevant, and user-friendly, as well as support from patients, colleagues, and their workplace.

This paper aims to investigate how blockchain has moved beyond cryptocurrencies and is being deployed to enhance visibility and trust in supply chains, their limitations and potential impact.

Qualitative analysis are undertaken via case studies drawn from food companies using semi-structured interviews.

Blockchain is demonstrated as an enabler of visibility in supply chains. Applications at scale are most likely for products where the end consumer is prepared to pay the premium currently required to fund the technology, e.g. baby food. Challenges remain in four areas: trust of the technology, human error and fraud at the boundaries, governance, consumer data access and willingness to pay.

The paper shows that blockchain can be utilised as part of a system generating visibility and trust in supply chains. Research directs academic attention to issues that remain to be addressed. The challenges pertaining to the technology itself we believe to be generalisable; those specific to the food industry may not hold elsewhere.

From live case studies, we provide empirical evidence that blockchain provides visibility of exchanges and reliable data in fully digitised supply chains. This provides provenance and guards against counterfeit goods. However, firms will need to work to gain consumer buy-in for the technology following repeated past claims of trustworthiness.

This paper provides primary evidence from blockchain use cases “in the wild”. The exploratory case studies examine application of blockchain for supply chain visibility.