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The COVID-19 pandemic stressed the health care sector's longstanding pain points, including the poor quality of frontline work and the staffing challenges that result from it. This has renewed interest in technology-centered approaches to achieving not only the “Triple Aim” of reducing costs while raising access and quality but also the “Quadruple Aim” of doing so without further squeezing wages and abrading job quality for frontline workers.

How can we leverage technology toward the achievement of the Quadruple Aim? I view this as a “grand challenge” for health care managers and policymakers. Those looking for guidance will find that most analyses of the workforce impact of technological change consider broad classes of technology such as computers or robots outside of any particular industry context. Further, they typically predict changes in work or labor market outcomes will come about at some ill-defined point in the medium to long run. This decontextualization and detemporization proves markedly problematic in the health care sector: the nonmarket, institutional factors driving technology adoption and implementation loom especially large in frontline care delivery, and managers and policymakers understandably must consider a well-defined, near-term, i.e., 5–10-year, time horizon.

This study is predicated on interviews with hospital and home health agency administrators, union representatives, health care information technology (IT) experts and consultants, and technology developers. I detail the near-term drivers and anticipated workforce impact of technological changes in frontline care delivery. With my emergent prescriptions for managers and policymakers, I hope to guide sectoral actors in using technology to address the “grand challenge” inherent to achieving the Quadruple Aim.

This study sought to identify the organizational factors associated with team and network effectiveness of the Athena Breast Health Network, a multi-site collaboration between five University of California health systems.

Providers, managers, and support staff completed self-administered surveys over three years. Statistical analyses at the network and medical center levels tested hypotheses regarding the correlates of effective teams and perceived network effectiveness over time.

Perceived team effectiveness was positively correlated with group culture and environments which support collaboration, negatively correlated with hierarchical culture, and negatively associated with professional tenure at year two. As measured by increasing team effectiveness scores over time and Athena’s potential impact on patient care, perceived network effectiveness was positively associated with team effectiveness.

Results do not allow us to conclude that a certain type of culture “causes” team effectiveness or that team effectiveness “causes” greater perceptions of progress over time. Subsequent studies should examine these variables simultaneously. Further research is needed to examine the role of payment incentives, internal reward systems, the use of electronic health records, public disclosure of performance data, and depth of leadership within each organization and within the network overall.

Focusing on group affiliation and participation may improve team member perceptions regarding effectiveness and impact on patient care.

Relatively little is known about the adaptive processes that occur within inter-organizational networks to achieve desired goals, and particularly the roles played by multi-disciplinary inter-professional teams. We studied a network comprising multiple campuses actively involved in better understanding, preventing, and treating a complex disease.

Purpose: We examined whether the five-service quality dimensions described by SERVQUAL (SQ) and SERVPERF (SP) are consistent with perceived dimensions of management accounting (MA) service quality and we compared responses from users and providers.

Design/methodology/approach: We surveyed experienced providers and users of MA services to learn their perceptions and expectations of accounting service quality using SQ/SP adapted to an MA context. We used principal components analysis (PCA) to investigate service quality dimensions.

Findings: Participant responses identified three dimensions of MA service quality. There was a high degree of correspondence in dimensions of service quality between users and providers, but with notable differences in service priorities. A performance-only (SP) approach seems to provide a better measure of overall service quality than performance minus expectations (SQ).

Research limitations/implications: Participants self-selected to participate. Respondents were not matched by organization. The SQ/SP instrument may not capture important organization specific attributes. Our approach may serve as a guide for future studies of accounting service quality.

Practical implications: SP may be more useful to managers who wish to evaluate overall service quality. SQ may be more useful to identify specific gaps between user perceptions and expectations. SQ/SP assessments may help to improve the quality of MA service delivery and provider-user communications.

Originality/value: This is the first empirical study to our knowledge that reports on MA service quality dimensions using both the SQ and SP instruments. This study investigated perceptions and expectations of MA service users and providers. Our sample is a cross-section of experienced professionals.

The following is an introductory profile of the fastest growing firms over the three-year period of the study listed by corporate reputation ranking order. The business activities in which the firms are engaged are outlined to provide background information for the reader.

This chapter examines the policy context, characteristics, and challenges of supplementary tutoring in the United States, with a specific focus on the supplemental educational services (SES) mandate of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). This government-sponsored tutoring is particularly an interesting case of the United States, where privately funded tutoring is increasingly integrated into a public policy.

After introducing the details of SES program and examining major forces that influenced the introduction of this program, the chapter provides a summary on the scale of SES with a particular focus on a historical period when this program was most pervasive. It also discusses challenges of this policy and notes some recent policy changes due to NCLB reauthorization. The main sources of data for this study include two major federal reports on SES as well as the empirical studies on the effectiveness of supplementary tutoring in the United States.

An examination of policy contexts reveals that both federal and market forces contributed to the development of supplementary tutoring in the United States. While the number of tutoring providers and eligible students increased, evaluation studies have found either a small or insignificant effect of publicly funded tutoring. Communications among schools, families, and tutoring providers need to be more effective.

Although SES of the NCLB have exclusively been examined in the American context in the previous studies, this study suggests that other countries may learn from its policy context, practices, and challenges to reflect on supplementary tutoring in their own school systems.

Emerging technologies have the potential to significantly change the way people work and function, with tremendous impacts on people and the societies in which they live. For emergency management practice, efficient and effective use of emerging technologies can save both lives and property, while also improving the way emergency managers communicate with the populations they serve. However, the use of emerging technologies can also have negative and unforeseen consequences. Thus, it is essential to have a comprehensive understanding of how emerging technologies function as a communications and information-sharing tool to improve the practice of emergency management.

Furthermore, as with the emergence of any new technology, social justice issues must be considered. For example, is an emerging technology affordable enough for all to use, or does the technology add to the so-called “digital divide,” increasing the gap between the haves and have-nots? Or does the emerging technology serve as an equalizer, providing access and availability for all socio-economic status groups? This chapter serves as an introduction to these issues and how they impact emergency management practice in a discussion of how the communication process functions, how emerging technologies impact communication strategies in emergency management, and the importance of including a social justice framework in emergency management operations and plans to understand how these emerging technology tools can be used to keep people and property safe from disasters.