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The purpose of this paper is to identify barriers to financial product innovation in the Islamic banks (IBs) of Pakistan. This paper also aims to establish the relationship among the barriers and present them in a hierarchical model after classification.

This study is exploratory and qualitative in nature. A total of ten experts from the IBs and from academia have been interviewed to collect data. Literature has also been reviewed to identify the barriers. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) analysis has been used to establish relationship among the barriers, to rank and to come up with a hierarchical model of barriers.

This research paper makes out, ranks and classifies the nine most important barriers to product innovation in the IBs in Pakistan, including high innovation cost; lack of customer awareness; difference of school of thoughts between members of Shari’ah board; non-compatibility between product design department and members of Shari’ah board; lack of research and development; non-acceptability of concept of Islamic banking; lack of training regarding a new product; imitation of a new product by competitors; and the limited use of new product development tools.

This study offers originality in its nature of being qualitative and the use of ISM technique. It is also the first research project regarding identification of barriers in the IBs in Pakistan.

Health-care simulation has evolved rapidly in the past few decades; it has become an integral component of education and training to improve the efficacy of both individuals and teams. Designing an optimal simulation-based learning space is a multitiered and multidisciplinary process involving architects, engineers and simulation educators. The purpose of this paper is to present the experience of designing a simulation center for a tertiary academic hospital.

The study is based on an in-depth analysis of the final structural blueprint of the center and qualitative thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with persons involved in the design process

Thematic analysis led to three thematic categories, namely, organization of space, equipment and administrative and staff requirements.

The paper describes the experience of designing one center within an academic tertiary setting. This experience may lack external validity and generalizability. Moreover, the operationality and functionality of the center have not been studied yet. Finally, the interviewees were interviewed post-design, which may pose as recall bias.

For future simulationists or educators attempting to undertake a simulation center design, this paper will help guide them to anticipate the needed human and technical resources and potential challenges.

The study offers recommendations meant to guide others attempting to design a simulation center within an academic institution.

The purpose of this study is to explore the determinants of needle stick injuries (NSIs) suffering in terms of occupational health and safety (OHS) coverage critically for health-care workers’ rights in Pakistan.

This is a qualitative study involving the designing of a questionnaire followed by the World Health Organization’s NSI prevention assessment tool and nationally published reports covering health-care workers’ OHS rights protection. A total of 17 public and private hospitals were surveyed with a two-stage sampling method. Descriptive and inferential statistics (one-way analysis of variance with multiple comparison tests) were applied and significant results were discussed (p = 0.05 & p = 0.01). The results were discussed critically in the context of the OHS rights of health-care workers.

Analysis revealed the following significant relationships: job type and safety behavior; age group of health-care workers and safety management; injection usage per day and safety behavior; past year’s needle sticks injuries cases with safety behavior and occupational exposure; work shift and work experience with safety knowledge, safety awareness and work experience with safety management. It was also found there is no specific OHS law in the country for health-care workers.

This study is limited in terms of sampling size and quantification of NSI burden among health-care workers.

Improved OHS management practices among health-care workers can control NSIs that ultimately ensure their workplace OHS rights. Health-care workers need OHS coverage in terms of awareness about potential workplace hazards and job training accordingly. Findings from extensive studies of a similar kind can give useful policy directions for workplace health management in health-care setup at the national level.

This study highlights the importance of OHS coverage for health-care workers in hospitals. It reports different determinants of NSIs suffering causing health-care worker’s rights violations at the workplace in Pakistan.