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Health Information Exchange (HIE) is essential for the efficient and cost-effective delivery of health-care services. The provider’s administrative structure and external environment can substantially influence adopting technologies involving inter-organizational linkages, such as HIE. Using the theoretical lens of institutional theory, this study aims to compare how public and private hospitals' engagement in HIE is influenced by corruption and government online services or e-government usage.

The study uses the positivist research design of secondary data analysis to test the six hypotheses proposed. Data from multiple third-party reliable sources, including the European Commission and World Bank, are combined into the final dataset consisting of observations from 1,442 hospitals across 30 countries in Europe. A multilevel modeling approach is used to associate country and hospital-level variables and test the hypothesis.

The study finds that, on average, a 10% increase in corruption leads to a 6.3% decrease, while a 10% increase in e-government leads to a 7% increase in the probability of HIE engagement for a hospital. The negative impact of corruption on average is 18% more in public than private hospitals, while the positive impact of e-government is 75% stronger in public in comparison to private hospitals. The study also finds that HIE engagements in health systems with predominantly public hospitals are more sensitive to corruption and e-government.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is one of the first to use the institutional view to test the influence of government actions and public providers' concentration on HIE engagement. The comparison of public and private institutions enriches our understanding of promoters and inhibitors of HIE.

This study aims to explore the nexus of equality and efficiency by considering public hospitals' development dynamics, capacity and technology indicators.

Data was collected from the Ministry of Health Public Hospital Almanacs from 2014 to 2017. The Gini index (GI) is used to estimate the inequality of distribution of hospital performance indicators. A bias-corrected efficiency analysis is calculated to obtain efficiency scores of public hospitals for the year 2017. A path analysis is then constructed to better identify patterns of causation among a set of development, equality and efficiency variables.

A redefined path model highlights that development dynamics, equality and efficiency are causally related and health technology (path coefficient = 0.57; t = 19.07; p < 0.01) and health services utilization (path coefficient = 0.24; t = 8; p < 0.01) effects public hospital efficiency. The final path model fit well (X²/df = 50.99/8 = 6; RMSEA = 0.089; NFI = 0.95; CFI = 0.96; GFI = 0.98; AGFI = 0.94). Study findings indicate high inequalities in distribution of health technologies (GI > 0.85), number of surgical operations (GI > 0.70) and number of inpatients (GI > 0.60) among public hospitals for the years 2014–2017.

Study results highlight that, hospital managers should prioritize equal distribution of health technology and health services utilization indicators to better orchestrate equity-efficiency trade-off in their operations.

Identifying the perception of competition between public and private providers in the national hospital market can help authorities to develop appropriate management strategies applicable to the hospital sector and increase the efficiency of public hospital institutions.

A mixed selective descriptive study including quantitative and qualitative components was carried out on in the Republic of Moldova between 12/2021 and 03/2022. The study included all hospitals in the country. The study revealed the hospital manager's perception of the hospital's competition as respondents to the questionnaire were only the directors and managers of hospital institutions. The concept of evaluation of the perception of competition was carried out through the lens of “Porter's 5 forces” from “Competitive strategies” by Michael E. Porter. The authors used a questionnaire as an instrument for studying the perception of competition. All study participants responded to both the quantitative and qualitative questionnaire.

Interhospital competition perceived by managers using model framework of “Porter's 5 forces” reveals high danger from service providers and high perception of rivalry; hospital directors perceived as low: the patient's bargaining power; the danger of new competitors entering the market; the danger of substitution, which constitutes competitive advantages; the lack of autonomy in the selection of services and patients and legislative barriers are the main perceived dissensions. The perception of competition between public and private hospitals is one with high rivalry, especially in the country's municipalities.

The national public hospital system takes up to 65% of the health budget being extremely expensive, a fact that indicates a rather low competitiveness of them. The European average indicates figures of 30–40%. The private hospital sector is less developed compared to most European countries, being represented by 17 institutions, in comparison Romania has 104 private hospitals representing about 25% of the market share. Private hospitals also occupy a considerable part of the European hospital healthcare market, continuing to increase, reaching over 30% in Germany.

This study aims to investigate and classify the hospital logistics key performance indicators (KPIs) using the context of public hospitals in remote areas.

The public hospitals in northern Thailand were selected for the case study. The questionnaire was developed and used to collect data from hospital logistics experts. Then, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method was used to evaluate the hospital logistics KPIs in each dimension.

This research found that the procurement management dimension is ranked highest. Information and technology management is the last rank in the hospital logistics KPIs used for public hospitals in remote areas.

The public hospitals located in northern Thailand were selected for the case study. Fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making methods can be used to reduce the vagueness of the values.

The results from this study can be a guideline for hospitals to improve the efficiency of their logistics operations.

The decision-makers in the hospital can use these results to improve the hospital’s logistics performance in the future, which could help increase the service level and the safety of the patients.

The hospital logistics KPIs were revised, and the crucial KPIs were prioritized for improving the hospital logistics using the AHP method.

This study investigates the effects of top management commitment (TMC) and Kaizen on quality management practices (QMP) and how the latter influence the performance of Jordanian public hospitals in the aftermath of COVID-19.

A survey-based questionnaire was employed to collect data from 222 practitioners and professionals working in public hospitals in Jordan. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was undertaken to analyze data.

Significant and positive effects of TMC and Kaizen (continuous improvement) on QMP are highlighted by the results. The findings also show that QMP has a positive and significant impact on public hospitals' performance. Furthermore, the effects of TMC and Kaizen on performance were also found to be significant.

Practitioners and researchers will gain a greater understanding of how implementing QMP can enhance the performance of public hospitals in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak. The results underline the important role of Kaizen and TMC in the success of QMP and their effect on performance. This research is a cross-sectional study, and there is a need to conduct further empirical investigation based on secondary data or objective measurement of performance.

This research is one of the first studies to investigate the effects of QMP on public hospitals' performance following the COVID-19 outbreak. This study is one of the empirical examinations of QMP and Kaizen in developing countries by investigating Jordanian public hospitals.

Estimation of (in)efficiency became a popular practice that witnessed applications in virtually any sector of the economy over the last few decades. Many different models were deployed for such endeavors, with Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) models dominating the econometric literature. Among the most popular variants of SFA are Aigner, Lovell, and Schmidt (1977), which launched the literature, and Kumbhakar, Ghosh, and McGuckin (1991), which pioneered the branch taking account of the (in)efficiency term via the so-called environmental variables or determinants of inefficiency. Focusing on these two prominent approaches in SFA, the goal of this chapter is to try to understand the production inefficiency of public hospitals in Queensland. While doing so, a recognized yet often overlooked phenomenon emerges where possible dramatic differences (and consequently very different policy implications) can be derived from different models, even within one paradigm of SFA models. This emphasizes the importance of exploring many alternative models, and scrutinizing their assumptions, before drawing policy implications, especially when such implications may substantially affect people’s lives, as is the case in the hospital sector.

The problems that face health service delivery across different countries are compounded by financial, political, institutional and technical deficiencies. Yet, the role of technological aspects in the procurement of health commodities and health service delivery system requires in-depth exploration. This study bridges this gap by examining the mediating effect of an integrated health commodities procurement system on the relationship between responsiveness and health service delivery.

Data for this study were collected from 274 respondents, comprising procurement staff and pharmacists using a cross-sectional questionnaire survey. A total of 28 government-owned hospitals from 6 regions in the Southern Highland of Tanzania were sampled for observation. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used for data analysis.

The results of the study revealed a positive and significant relationship between responsiveness and integrated health commodities procurement system (β = 0.572, p < 0.001). Responsiveness positively and significantly affects health service delivery (β = 0.175, p = 0.004). The results also show that integrated health commodities procurement system is positive and significantly related to health service delivery (β = 0.264, p < 0.001). Lastly, the bootstrapping confidence intervals revealed that an integrated health commodities procurement system significantly mediates the relationship between responsiveness and health service delivery.

To strengthen the health service delivery system, the study recommends enforcing internal control mechanisms and supporting policies that will monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the integrated health commodities procurement system and service practitioners' responsiveness. Moreover, health service managers should ensure that the planning, procurement and distribution of health commodities are fully and effectively integrated at each node of the health supply chain.

The study contributes to the body of knowledge which examines the efficacy of health service delivery from procurement perspective. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first study that offers empirical evidence for the mediating effect of integrated health commodities procurement system on the link between responsiveness and health service delivery.

This research aimed to create inventive principles in managing quality and innovation systems that can be used as a guide for the development of effective innovation projects in hospitals.

Total quality and innovation management in healthcare (TQIM-H) framework and theory of inventive problem-solving (TRIZ) were integrated with results from in-depth interviews with 30 healthcare experts, resulting in TQIM-H inventive principle. The developed inventive principle was validated using 50 effective innovation projects from one of the largest healthcare conglomerates in Southeast Asia.

The TQIM-H inventive principle consisted of 7 dimensions and 72 procedures for creating innovation in hospitals under the medical quality framework. The principle effectively helps innovators develop innovative solutions that still strictly comply with medical guidelines.

Innovation is recognized as a critical factor that helps organizations adapt to global changes and increases the potential for competition, especially in hospitals. However, creating innovation in hospitals has a lower success rate than in other industries because, in general, ineffective innovation development strategies are used and the created innovation is not aligned with regulations and restrictions regarding healthcare quality in the healthcare system.

Theory of Constraints (TOC), though a well-established process improvement methodology in manufacturing, is still a novel philosophy for healthcare and an exhaustive review of literature is needed to summarize the key findings of various researchers. Such a review can provide a direction to the researchers and academicians interested in exploring the application of TOC in the healthcare sector. This paper aims to review the existing literature of TOC tools and techniques applied to the healthcare environment, and to investigate motivating factors, benefits and key gaps for identifying directions for future research in the domain of healthcare.

In this paper, different electronic repositories were searched using multiple keywords. The current study identified 36 articles published between January 1999 to mid-2021 to conceptualize and summarize the research questions used in the study. Descriptive analysis along with pictorial representations have been used for better visualization of work.

This paper presents a thorough literature review of TOC in healthcare and identifies the evolution, current trends, tools used, nature of services chosen for application and research gaps and recommends future direction for research. A variety of motivating factors and benefits of TOC in healthcare are identified. Another key finding of this study is that almost all implementations listed in literature reported positive outcomes and substantial improvements in the performance of the healthcare unit chosen for study.

This paper provides valuable insight to researchers, practitioners and policymakers on the potential of TOC to improve quality of services, flow of patients, revenues, process efficiency and cost reduction in different health care settings. A number of findings and suggestions compiled in the paper from literature study can be used for diagnosing, learning and making substantial changes in healthcare. The methodologies used by different researchers were analysed and combined to propose a generic step by step procedure to apply TOC. This methodology will guide the practising managers about the appropriate tools of TOC for their specific need.

Good health is always the first desire of all men and women around the globe. The global aim of healthcare is to quickly cure more patients and ensure healthier population both today and in future. This article will work as a foundation for future applications of TOC in healthcare and guide upcoming applications in the booming healthcare sector. The paper will help the healthcare managers in serving a greater number of patients with limited available resources.

This paper provides original collaborative work compiled by the authors. Since no comprehensive systematic review of TOC in healthcare has been reported earlier, this study would be a valuable asset for researchers in this field. A model has been presented that links various benefits with one another and clarifies the need to focus on process improvement which naturally results in these benefits. Similarly, a model has been presented to guide the users in implementation of TOC in healthcare.

Integrated health and social care initiatives are increasing and health and social care systems are aiming to improve health and social outcomes in disadvantaged groups. There is a global dialogue surrounding improving services by shifting to an integrated health and social care approach. There is consensus of what is “health care”; however, the “social care” definition remains less explored. The authors describe the state of “social care” within the current integrated care literature and identify the depth of integration in current health and social care initiatives.

A narrative literature review, searching Medline, PsychINFO, CINAHL, PubMed, Scopus and Cochrane databases and grey literature (from 2016 to 2021), employing a search strategy, was conducted.

In total. 276 studies were eligible for full-text review, and 33 studies were included and categorised in types: “social care as community outreach dialogues”, “social care as addressing an ageing population”, “social care as targeting multimorbidity and corresponding social risks factors” and “social care as initiatives addressing the fragmentation of services”. Most initiatives were implemented in the United Kingdom. In total, 21 studies reported expanding integrated governance and partnerships; 27 studies reported having health and social care staff with clear integrated governance; 17 had dedicated funding and 11 used data-sharing and the integration of systems’ records.

The authors' demonstrate that social care approaches are expanding beyond the elderly, and these models have been used to respond to multimorbidity [including coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)], targeting priority groups and individuals with complex presentations.