China
Africa
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Consumer Access and Control of Data, Data Sharing, Consumer Participation
Published in Connie White Delaney, Charlotte A. Weaver, Joyce Sensmeier, Lisiane Pruinelli, Patrick Weber, Nursing and Informatics for the 21st Century – Embracing a Digital World, 3rd Edition, Book 4, 2022
The consequence of increased control and choice is that patients begin to act more like consumers of a product, namely care and treatment. While technology is racing to meet the demand of healthcare consumers, funding has not been widely available for building the infrastructure needed. Previously in the Federal Meaningful Use (Promoting Interoperability) Program, funding was associated with new regulations that focused on the digitization of health data (US Department of Health & Human Services, 2014). And yet, funding for the new Patient API rule has not been made available as of this writing. When policy is linked with funding, we see widespread response that drives innovation, adoption and compliance. Without funding, the new Patient API rules may not advance or may require additional enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance and movement that accomplish the work of clinical, claims and provider data aggregation and availability for consumers. As this transformation evolves, it is essential that we seize the opportunity to study the adoption patterns, end-user experience and widespread implications of consumer access and control of health data in the larger health system and information exchange network. This is essential because technology not used as intended is often abandoned or not adopted by a critical mass of individuals, thereby limiting the full impact of the technical enablement and augmentation of care processes and educational benefit.
Chain Reactions
Published in Alan Perkins, Life and Death Rays, 2021
A memorial stone to Harry Daghlian in Cullins Park, New London, Connecticut, reads A brilliant scientist on the Manhattan Project. His work involved determination of critical mass. During an experiment gone awry he became the first American casualty of the atomic age. Though not in uniform he died in service to his country.
Assessment tool for evaluating AHP management structures
Published in Robert Jones, Fiona Jenkins, Penny Humphris, Jim Easton, Key Tools and Techniques in management and leadership of the Allied Health Professions, 2021
So often we hear of restructuring that takes place without proper consideration of the likely advantages and disadvantages, or put forward on the basis of ‘politics’ or ‘ownership agendas’ of particular organisations or managers. Sometimes, this takes place without proper consideration of how services might be structured to provide optimum high-quality clinical outcomes, appropriate care pathways, patient flows, development for staff, economies of scale, ‘critical mass’, elimination of duplication, excellent communication and networking, and many others. The Assessment Tool incorporates a ‘big picture’ overview and it is evidence based, informed by research and detailed studies of the available literature and examination of a wide range of models—some in place, and some theoretical.
Quintile distribution of health resourcing in Africa
Published in Cogent Medicine, 2021
Concisely, health worker numbers need to be augmented, and simultaneously reinforced with relevant quality training and upskilling to improve health service delivery. This requires targeted interventions for implementation. Doctors should be adequately equipped with skills, infrastructure and medical supplies to provide decent healthcare. Nurses represent the majority of the health workforce, are integral to health service delivery, and should be utilized for task shifting and sharing with support from allied health workers and communities to improve quality of care; this can be better leveraged in countries with high nurse densities and nurse to doctor ratios. Allied and community health workers should also be incentivized to contribute to healthcare—this presents an opportunity to increase the health workforce and to develop skills to enhance critical mass is health. Quantitative and qualitative enhancement of health workers will ultimately improve health service delivery. Hospital bed availability was also low in most African countries; therefore strategies should aim to increase hospital beds in health facilities, utilize beds in non-hospital facilities when necessary (e.g., commercial properties) and reduce patients’ time in hospital beds; these initiatives will improve health access.
Determining optimal community protection strategies for the influenza vaccine
Published in Expert Review of Vaccines, 2019
Charlotte Switzer, Lorne Babiuk, Mark Loeb
Fine [37] developed the theory further, introducing the ‘basic case reproduction rate … [which] describes the spreading potential of an infection in a population’ (1993:272). This spreading potential would reflect both the mode of transmission and biological infectiousness; and the interaction rate of susceptibles in the host population, in keeping with parameters defined by Fox et al. Under real-world circumstances, it is likely that the contacts of a susceptible individual may already possess immunity, or be infected themselves. As such, the number of actual infections arising from a single infectious case will be less than the basic reproduction rate. This introduces a new consideration, the probability of effective contact, wherein the risk of infection is essentially the risk of an infectious case having effective contact with a susceptible. While the number of susceptibles fluctuates within populations and population subgroups, epidemic scale of new incident infections will not occur unless a critical mass of susceptibles is exceeded. This notion of critical mass, or an ‘epidemic threshold’, is the simplest quantification of herd immunity – ‘if the proportion immune is so high that the number of susceptibles is below the epidemic threshold, then incidence will decrease’ (1993:269).
What are the features of targeted or system-wide initiatives that affect diversity in health professions trainees? A BEME systematic review: BEME Guide No. 50
Published in Medical Teacher, 2018
Kristen Simone, Rabia A. Ahmed, Jill Konkin, Sandra Campbell, Lisa Hartling, Anna E. Oswald
The basis of this review is underpinned in Bandura’s self-efficacy learning theory. This conceptual framework purports that the key elements essential for learning are: (1) experience; (2) modeling; (3) social persuasion; and (4) physiological factors (Bare 2007). In relation to this project, the first three elements are key to the diffusion of positive change through increasing diversity in health professions training programs. For example, in regards to experience and modeling in one large American study, students attending more racially diverse medical schools rated themselves as better prepared to meet the needs of a diverse population compared to those who attended less diverse schools (Baker and Lyons 1989). Expanding on this, we also draw on the concepts of “critical mass” and “social networks.” Critical mass, as it pertains to health professions school diversity, has been defined as the minimum number of under-represented population students that are needed to produce a change in the group interaction and educational experience. However, as Elam et al. (2009) argue, the concept of critical mass alone conceptualizes a quantitative threshold in order to elucidate a qualitative change. Instead, Elam et al. suggest that achieving the goals of a critical mass of diverse students is linked to a critical mass of their social networks. Within this framework, critical mass is “conditional on the underlying meanings and self-perceptions individuals assign via the social roles they occupy, the social groups to which they belong” and reasonably the subsequent interactions among these groups.