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Health care institutions in many Western countries have developed preoperative testing and assessment guidelines to improve surgical outcomes and reduce cost of surgical care. The aims of this chapter are to (1) summarize the literature on the effect of preoperative testing on clinical outcomes, efficiency, and cost; and (2) to compare preoperative testing guidelines developed in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

We reviewed the literature from 1975 to 2014 for studies and preoperative testing guidelines.

We identified 29 empirical studies and 8 country-specific guidelines for review. Most studies indicate that preoperative testing is overused and comes at a high cost. Guidelines are tied to payment only in one country studied. This is the most recent review of the literature on preoperative testing and assessment with a focus on quality of care, efficiency, and cost outcomes. In addition, this chapter provides an international comparison of preoperative guidelines.

In the Netherlands, thesis assessment quality is a growing concern for the national accreditation organization due to increasing student numbers and supervisor workload. However, the accreditation framework lacks guidance on how to meet quality standards. This study aims to address these issues by sharing our experience, identifying problems and proposing guidelines for quality assurance for a thesis assessment system.

This study has two parts. The first part is a narrative literature review conducted to derive guidelines for thesis assessment based on observations made at four Dutch universities. The second part is a case study conducted in one bachelor’s psychology-related program, where the assessment practitioners and the vice program director analyzed the assessment documents based on the guidelines developed from the literature review.

The findings of this study include a list of guidelines based on the four standards. The case study results showed that the program meets most of the guidelines, as it has a comprehensive set of thesis learning outcomes, peer coaching for novice supervisors, clear and complete assessment information and procedures for both examiners and students, and a concise assessment form.

This study is original in that it demonstrates how to holistically ensure the quality of thesis assessments by considering the context of the program and paying more attention to validity (e.g. program curriculum and assessment design), transparency (e.g. integrating assessment into the supervision process) and the assessment expertise of teaching staff.

The assessment of fitness to drive after stroke is an emerging area of occupational therapy practice in Ireland. Despite this, little is known about occupational therapists’ evaluation practices, and there are no internationally agreed clinical guidelines to inform best practice. The purpose of this paper is to investigate occupational therapy evaluation practices for fitness to drive after stroke in Ireland.

This is a cross-sectional study design targeting occupational therapists working with people after stroke using an online survey. Summary and descriptive statistics were used to analyse the returned surveys.

In total, 47 occupational therapists participated. Off-road driving assessment was completed by 68 per cent of respondents. Functional assessment and non-driving-specific assessments were most widely used and perceived to be the most useful in informing the off-road assessment. A total of 89 per cent referred clients for on-road assessments; however, some referred without first completing an off-road assessment. The therapists who completed formal post graduate education/training in driving assessment reported greater confidence and competence in their skills and ability to assess fitness to drive. A vast majority of participants agreed that clinical guidelines regarding best practice in this area would be beneficial.

A majority of occupational therapists are assessing fitness to drive after stroke in Ireland with non-driving-specific assessments and functional observations; however, there are many gaps and wide variations between services. Education/training in evaluating fitness to drive after stroke is recommended. The development of clinical guidelines to inform practice would facilitate a consistent approach nationally.

This is the first study completed in Ireland to investigate occupational therapy evaluation practices for fitness to drive after stroke.

The purpose of this study is threefold: (1) to propose partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) as a way to estimate models containing composites of composites and to compare the performance of the PLS-PM approaches in this context, (2) to provide and evaluate two testing procedures to assess the overall fit of such models and (3) to introduce user-friendly step-by-step guidelines.

A simulation is conducted to examine the PLS-PM approaches and the performance of the two proposed testing procedures.

The simulation results show that the two-stage approach, its combination with the repeated indicators approach and the extended repeated indicators approach perform similarly. However, only the former is Fisher consistent. Moreover, the simulation shows that guidelines neglecting model fit assessment miss an important opportunity to detect misspecified models. Finally, the results show that both testing procedures based on the two-stage approach allow for assessment of the model fit.

Analysts who estimate and assess models containing composites of composites should use the authors’ guidelines, since the majority of existing guidelines neglect model fit assessment and thus omit a crucial step of structural equation modeling.

This study contributes to the understanding of the discussed approaches. Moreover, it highlights the importance of overall model fit assessment and provides insights about testing the fit of models containing composites of composites. Based on these findings, step-by-step guidelines are introduced to estimate and assess models containing composites of composites.

This study aims to investigate the perceptional differences of key stakeholders in assessing the Digital Library Accessibility and Usability Guidelines (DLAUG), in which design information is created and organized by types of help-seeking situations, to support blind and visually impaired (BVI) users. The stakeholders consist of BVI users, digital library (DL) developers and scholars/experts. The focus is on the identification of types of situations in which BVI users and developers show significant perception differences of DLAUG’s relevance, clarity and usefulness than the other two groups, respectively, and the associated reasons.

An in-depth survey was conducted to examine the perceptions of 150 participants representing three groups of key DL stakeholders: BVI users, DL developers and scholars/experts. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were applied.

The results show that BVI users and developers had significant perception differences of the relevance, clarity and usefulness of the DLAUG than the other two groups held on five situations, mainly because they played distinct roles in the development of DLs with differing goals and expectations for the DL design guidelines.

This is the first study that considers different DL stakeholders to assess DL guidelines to support BVI users.

This article aims to assess the standard local recommended management of women with severe pre‐eclampsia and eclampsia in relation to recommendations in a national clinical guideline using a criterion‐based survey.

A total of 227 maternity units in the UK were asked to provide a copy of their guideline for the management of severe pre‐eclampsia and eclampsia. Responses were obtained from 107 units (47.1 per cent), 37 units were using regional guidelines and 72 guidelines were available for assessment. A total of ten audit criteria were agreed by committee, based on national recommendations. Guidelines were then audited to assess concurrence with these criteria.

The standard of guidelines was highly variable with only four guidelines (4.5 per cent) satisfying all ten key guideline points. The majority of guidelines had clear criteria for inclusion (87.5 per cent) but in almost a quarter of all guidelines no mention was made of informing consultant staff once these criteria were met.

The study shows that the standard of local guidelines for management of these potentially fatal conditions is highly variable. Confidential inquiry has repeatedly recommended the use of regional guidelines. Perhaps it is time for the development of a national guideline representing consensus agreement of an evidence‐based approach.

In the UK eclampsia and pre‐eclampsia continue to be a leading cause of maternal mortality and morbidity. This paper provides a valuable insight into the standard of guidelines used in the management of these conditions.

Behavioral threat assessment and intervention is a violence prevention strategy that has become widely used in US schools. Instead of relying on a zero tolerance disciplinary approach that often leads to school exclusion of students with disabilities, schools can use a multidisciplinary threat assessment team to assess the seriousness and context of a student's behavior and identify appropriate interventions and supports. This process is especially valuable for students with disabilities who are identified as threatening violence. This chapter describes an evidence-based model of threat assessment, the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG), ¹ reviews some common misunderstandings of threat assessment, and presents a case example illustrating the value of threat assessment in preventing school exclusion, and provides services for a student with a disability.

This paper proposes a development methodology that uses the assessment criteria of the national quality award as the basis for creating a self‐assessment tool to measure quality performance in organizations. The Singapore Quality Award (SQA) assessment criteria were used as the framework for developing the self‐assessment tool. The SQA award criteria were translated into a multi‐item questionnaire. The self‐assessment tool is used to assess quality performance in various functions of the organization. The scores obtained using the assessment tool was tested against those of the recent SQA applicants. Results showed significant correlation between the assessment score bands and the actual score bands that they received on their SQA application. As of the end of 1998, about 200 business organizations in Singapore had used the self‐assessment tool. Self‐assessment tools using different national quality award criteria could also be developed based on the proposed development methodology described in this paper.

A series of highly publicized school shootings in the USA generated the misperception of an epidemic of school violence. Fears of school violence stimulated an ill‐advised expansion of zero tolerance school discipline policies and the widespread dissemination of profiles or warning signs of potentially dangerous students for use by school administrators. This article presents the rationale for student threat assessment as an administrative alternative to zero tolerance or profiling. It describes the development and field‐testing of guidelines for school administrators to follow in investigating and resolving student threats of violence. Student threat assessment permits administrators to make reasonable judgments about the seriousness of a threat, to resolve most threats quickly and efficiently, and to reserve more labor‐intensive procedures for the most serious threats.

This article is about the assessment of the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degrees that were developed in the UK in the 1990s. The article is based on a content analysis of the 16 DBA programmes in the UK at the end of 1999. It evaluates the assessment methods found against: the assessment of students’ achievement on traditional Doctor of Philosophy degrees (PhDs); the guidelines on the assessment of DBA candidates produced by the Association of British Business Schools; and the espoused intended learning outcomes of the DBA programmes themselves. The main conclusion is that there is a tension in the assessment methods employed by DBAs through their relationship with the traditional PhD. The tension is captured in the question: should programme developers follow the assessment methods of the “gold standard” PhD or should they use assessment methods that assess the learning outcomes of the DBA that distinguish it from the traditional PhD?