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Explores recent approaches to international best practices and how they relate to context and innovation in health services.

Critical review of existing research on best practices and how they created, diffused, and translate in the international setting.

Best practices are widely used and discussed, but processes by which they are developed and diffused across international settings are not well understood.

Further research is needed on innovation and dissemination of best practices internationally.

This commentary points out directions for future research on innovation and diffusion of best practices, particularly in the international setting.

Government agencies have endeavored, with limited success, to improve the methodological consistency of regulatory benefit–cost analysis (BCA). This paper recommends that an independent cohort of economists, policy analysts and legal scholars take on that task. Independently established “best practices” would have four positive effects: (1) they would render BCAs more regular in form and format and, thus, more readily assessable and replicable by social scientists; (2) improved consistency might marginally reduce political opposition to BCA as a policy tool; (3) politically-motivated, inter-agency methodological disputes might be avoided; and (4) an independent set of “best practices” would provide a sound, independent basis for judicial review of agency BCAs.

Special educators make countless decisions regarding services for students with disabilities. The evidence-based practice movement in education encourages those decisions be informed by the best available evidence, professional judgment, and client values and context. In this chapter we argue that while evidence is the best basis for making decisions it is imperfect and uncertainty about the evidence-base for decisions will always exist. We outline three classes of evidence and the sources of uncertainty for each. Finally, we describe a framework for integrating these different sources of evidence as a means for increasing confidence in evidence-based decisions.

Hospitals worldwide are facing the same opportunities and threats: the demographics of an aging population; steady increases in chronic diseases and severe illnesses; and a steadily increasing demand for medical services with more intensive treatment for multi-morbid patients. Additionally, patients are becoming more demanding. They expect high quality medicine within a dignity-driven and painless healing environment.

The severe financial pressures that these developments entail oblige care providers to more and more cost-containment and to apply process reengineering, as well as continuous performance improvement measures, so as to achieve future financial sustainability. At the same time, regulators are calling for improved patient outcomes. Benchmarking and best practice management are successfully proven performance improvement tools for enabling hospitals to achieve a higher level of clinical output quality, enhanced patient satisfaction, and care delivery capability, while simultaneously containing and reducing costs.

This chapter aims to clarify what benchmarking is and what it is not. Furthermore, it is stated that benchmarking is a powerful managerial tool for improving decision-making processes that can contribute to the above-mentioned improvement measures in health care delivery. The benchmarking approach described in this chapter is oriented toward the philosophy of an input–output model and is explained based on practical international examples from different industries in various countries.

Benchmarking is not a project with a defined start and end point, but a continuous initiative of comparing key performance indicators, process structures, and best practices from best-in-class companies inside and outside industry.

Benchmarking is an ongoing process of measuring and searching for best-in-class performance:

• Measure yourself with yourself over time against key performance indicators

• Measure yourself against others

• Identify best practices

• Equal or exceed this best practice in your institution

• Focus on simple and effective ways to implement solutions

Measure yourself with yourself over time against key performance indicators

Measure yourself against others

Identify best practices

Equal or exceed this best practice in your institution

Focus on simple and effective ways to implement solutions

Comparing only figures, such as average length of stay, costs of procedures, infection rates, or out-of-stock rates, can lead easily to wrong conclusions and decision making with often-disastrous consequences. Just looking at figures and ratios is not the basis for detecting potential excellence. It is necessary to look beyond the numbers to understand how processes work and contribute to best-in-class results. Best practices from even quite different industries can enable hospitals to leapfrog results in patient orientation, clinical excellence, and cost-effectiveness.

Despite common benchmarking approaches, it is pointed out that a comparison without “looking behind the figures” (what it means to be familiar with the process structure, process dynamic and drivers, process institutions/rules and process-related incentive components) will be extremely limited referring to reliability and quality of findings.

In order to demonstrate transferability of benchmarking results between different industries practical examples from health care, automotive, and hotel service have been selected.

Additionally, it is depicted that international comparisons between hospitals providing medical services in different health care systems do have a great potential for achieving leapfrog results in medical quality, organization of service provision, effective work structures, purchasing and logistics processes, or management, etc.

The paper sets forth and examines the assumptions underlying two global ideas – world class and best practices – and their application to (higher) education and health organizations. Our basic (ex-ante) assumption is that both sectors are influenced by organizational fields that embody these ideas. However, we also assume that these sectors differ, and thus, that one should find between sector variations in the influence of such ideas. The findings suggest that both sectors have been affected by hegemonic ideas, yet in rather different ways, and that these ideas, particularly the metrics being used, pose different challenges in the two sectors.

Alternative education settings (AES; i.e., self-contained alternative schools, therapeutic day treatment and residential schools, and juvenile corrections schools) serve youth with complicated and often serious academic and behavioral needs. The use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) and practices with Best Available Evidence are necessary to increase the likelihood of long-term success for these youth. In this chapter, we define three primary categories of AES and review what we know about the characteristics of youth in these schools. Next, we discuss the current emphasis on identifying and implementing EBPs with regard to both academic interventions (i.e., reading and mathematics) and interventions addressing student behavior. In particular, we consider implementation in AES, where there are often high percentages of youth requiring special education services and who have a significant need for EBPs to succeed academically, behaviorally, and in their transition to adulthood. We focus our discussion on: (a) examining approaches to identifying EBPs; (b) providing a brief review of EBPs and Best Available Evidence in the areas of mathematics, reading, and interventions addressing student behavior for youth in AES; (c) delineating key implementation challenges in AES; and (d) providing recommendations for how to facilitate the use of EBPs in AES.

There is a concerning disparity between students with disabilities and their peers without disabilities in their long-term, postsecondary outcomes. The former group tends to have a variety of poorer outcomes in important domains of life, such as employment, postsecondary education, independent living, and community participation. Policymakers, scholars, and the general public alike have called attention to this issue, resulting in both legal mandates and research on evidence-based practices in the area of transition services. While the law requires individualized, results-oriented transition services based upon age-appropriate transition assessment and a number of evidence-based transition practices and predictors have been identified, studies of individualized education programs and practices have revealed a significant underuse of best practices in transition assessment and services. In this chapter, we discuss the importance of comprehensive transition assessment as a foundation for setting postsecondary goals and designing services that best fit individual student strengths and needs and best prepare students to be successful in their adult lives. Further, we provide an overview of current recommendations for best practices in planning, conducting, and interpreting transition assessments, and offer suggestions for areas where further research is needed.

This chapter aims to explore and examine the extent of Islamic corporate governance practices in 35 Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs) in Malaysia, Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the United Kingdom, particularly in its six major areas, namely approaches to Islamic governance, regulatory framework and internal policies, roles and functions of shari’ah board, attributes of shari’ah board members on independence, competency and transparency, and confidentiality, operational procedures and perception of IFIs of the shari’ah board’s performance. A questionnaire was developed by benefiting from the Islamic corporate governance standards identified by International Financial Services Board and Accounting and Auditing Organization for IFIs, which included mainly about 50 standards with sub-sections as questions. The study demonstrates the state of Islamic corporate governance practices in these countries. The survey findings affirm that there are significant differences and diverse Islamic governance practices amongst IFIs in the case countries. The study hence provides evidence that there are shortcomings and weaknesses to the existing governance framework, which needs further enhancement and improvement.