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This study aims to investigate workplace stress and its related patterns (sources, patient interactions, and coping strategies) among health care employees in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Academic research in this area is limited, and the globalization of health care services requires an examination of areas that have the potential to affect employee performance - which ultimately impacts health care service and quality. Based on a sample of 175 employees from both public and private health care organizations, results indicate the primary source of workplace stress is role ambiguity, while the lowest cause of stress is patients. The primary coping strategy used by our sample participants is productiveness and activity. Our findings are useful to healthcare management in order to address employee stress-related concerns, and increase the quality of health care provided.

Turkish Ministry of Health (MoH) has Health Transformation Program (HTP). The purpose of this program has been to modify the structure of the current system in order to enhance health system productivity, quality, and access in the Turkish health system. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

To measure the productivity, a data envelopment analysis-based Malmquist index approach was employed.

Results showed that the overall HTP have had a considerable positive impact on the productivity of general hospitals.

The limitation is the availability of some data that might not be collected or reported to the MoH in Turkey.

This research’s findings will have an impact on reforming the health care system in Turkey to be competitive and efficient as possible.

The research will have implication on reducing cost and provide value to the Turkish population.

This is one of the very few articles that targeted the efficiency of hospital system in Turkey.

The purpose of this study is to estimate economies of scale in Turkish Ministry of Health hospitals. Turkey is in the process of changing their healthcare system. Estimating economies of scale for Turkish hospitals will help funding decisions as Turkey determines whether to build, expand, or consolidate hospitals. The structural changes currently taking place provide an opportunity to revamp the way healthcare is provided so that access to and efficiency within healthcare can be increased in a cost effective manner. Data are collected from the Ministry of Health. The results suggest there is an optimal size for Turkish hospitals. Also, this study shows that hospitals in certain regions of Turkey are more efficient than other regions. Determining the characteristics of efficient hospitals is important if Turkey is to properly allocate scarce healthcare funding.

Reviews the extent of Internet utilisation in Jordanian university libraries. Discusses: its use, benefits, services, and applications; the effect on acquisitions, the libraries’ organisational structure, administration, cost, and services; problems and solutions. The study investigated 13 libraries linked to the Internet. They employ it for technical functions, information services, and Web pages. Head librarians perceive the Internet as a supplement to libraries’ collections, as a substitute for databases on CD‐ROMs, and a way of saving on subscription charges for printed journals, but not as a replacement for printed books. They perceive the Internet’s main administrative effect is on staff’s satisfaction, motives, speed and ease of services, users’ satisfaction, and turnouts, but it has the least effect on libraries’ budgets. Lack of experience, misconceptions about the Internet, misuse of Web sites, information inauthenticity, censorship, copyright, insufficient high quality terminals, and language problems are, inter alia, prime reasons limiting the optimal use of the Internet.

The purpose of this study is to examine the association of managerial incentives and political costs with hospital financial distress, recovery or closure. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has stated that hospital closures are important for evaluating the distribution of cost, quality and access to healthcare throughout the US. Using Logistic regression, we demonstrate that hospital closure is associated with low occupancy, return on investment, asset turnover, and lack of affiliation with a multihospital system. It is also significantly associated with urban location, teaching programs, high Medicare and Medicaid patient populations, and high debt. Essential access nonprofit hospitals are less likely to close, while this does not affect governmental and for-profit hospitals. Our research hypotheses are supported by these results.

In 2010 the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act boosted the expansion of community health centers (CHCs) with $11 billion in mandatory funding from 2011 to 2015. This study used data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and the North Carolina Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) to assess the cost savings associated with the use of community health centers compared to other primary care providers. After controlling for various demographic, socioeconomic characteristics and health conditions, we found savings at an average of $3,437 in total expenditures and $1,211 in ambulatory care expenditures. These results suggest that continuing investment in health centers are important during times of budget cuts in order to improve access to care and to generate cost savings to the healthcare system.

Wagner’s Law and Keynesian’s theory are two widely accepted yet contrasting propositions. This paper employs Granger causality test on US federal government data, from 1947 to 2002. We used aggregate data as well as disaggregate data with the sub-categories of five federal expenditures, including: national defense, human resources expenditure, physical resources expenditure, net interest payment, and other expenditure. The results of our study suggest that total federal government expenditure is more consistent with Keynesian’s theory while there are diversified causal relationships among five sub-category of federal expenditure. The policy recommendation generated from this paper is that the US federal government should invest more public resources in human resources expenditure assuming that economic growth is the utmost important item on the government agenda.

The study is concerned with gathering factual data on the use of local online information systems, automation, online connections, online public access catalogs (OPACs), CD‐ROM‐based systems in 19 Jordanian university libraries.

Information was sought through a written questionnaire; personal interviews; literature review, and field visits. The implementation of local online information systems; OPACs, CD‐ROM databases, online searching, networks/databases subscribed to, methods of online services to users, problems and solutions are investigated.

Of the 18 (94.7 percent) libraries responded, half (50 percent) are using MINISIS or CDS/ISIS, one‐third (33.3 percent) is using either M2L, or ORACLE based systems, and 3 (16.7 percent) are using locally designed packages. Technical processing, information retrieval, circulation, reference services, and serial control are the prime systems functions. All respondents are linked to the internet. A total of 15 (83.3 percent) respondents have developed collections of databases on CD‐ROMs; 11 (73.3 percent) use single‐ access, and four (26.7 percent) use multi‐user systems.

Online services are provided mostly by traditional means. Lack of skilled staff, shortages of fund, and insufficient hardware are prime obstacles hindering systems optimal utilization. Outdated databases, cost, and users incompetence are problems limiting the optimal use of online systems. Developing intranet, funding, trained manpower, training courses to users, sharing subscription expenses in electronic full‐text database, and promote cooperation to exchange OPACs records through the internet, are suggested solutions to overcome these problems.

Academic libraries in Jordan are changing emphasis from ownership of information sources in printed forms, to the access to online databases or local area networks systems based on CD‐ROMs, to linkage with the internet as a prime gateway to information sources.