Management of health care workforce: Conceptualizing a structural model of human resource planning in healthcare in Slovenia

The healthcare system’s effectiveness depends mainly on healthcare workers’ knowledge, skills, and motivation, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Systematic planning of human resources is, therefore, an essential prerequisite for ensuring the sustainability and efficiency of the health care system. This article outlines a structural human resource planning model in health care and explores the complexities involved. A detailed analytical framework is proposed, drawing on various materials and evidence to outline the factors that influence human resource planning in health care. The in-depth analytical process employs an extensive literature review to provide greater credibility to research findings. It investigates numerous sources and materials, both in national and international contexts. The purpose of human resource planning initiatives in healthcare is to calculate the needed number of healthcare workers in the future based on past and current data and assumptions about future supply and demand trends. The research findings reveal this is a very challenging task, as there are typically many unknowns when planning for the future. In addition, planners often need more reliable data and systemic deficiencies. Furthermore, the study shows that unplanned and delayed solutions concerning human resource needs in healthcare can only alleviate problems. Still, they cannot replace effective strategic measures and timely structural changes within the healthcare ecosystem

DRAFT Report:Community Systems Strengthening Toward a Research Agenda

Communities have a long history of acting to preserve and promote the health of their members. Public health researchers, programmers, and funders are increasingly recognizing that community involvement is essential to improving health, especially among populations that are disproportionately affected by HIV. The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, together with civil society organizations and other development partners, created the Community Systems Strengthening (CSS) Framework to help Global Fund applicants frame, define, and quantify efforts to strengthen community contributions engagement (Global Fund 2011). Although the use of a CSS approach in health programming implementation shows promise, it lacks a theoretical framework to guide collaborations with communities. Additionally, it suffers from a paucity of program designs and evaluation practices, an incomplete evidence-based rationale for investing in CSS, and imprecise definitions (e.g., what is meant by “community” and “CSS”).The purpose of this paper is to highlight promising areas for future research related to CSS. Toward this objective, we propose to lay a foundation for a CSS research agenda by using theories and approaches relevant to CSS, reinforced with evidence from projects that employ similar approaches

Characteristics of Real-Time, Non-Critical Incident Debriefing Practices in the Emergency Department.

INTRODUCTION: Benefits of post-simulation debriefings as an educational and feedback tool have been widely accepted for nearly a decade. Real-time, non-critical incident debriefing is similar to post-simulation debriefing; however, data on its practice in academic emergency departments (ED), is limited. Although tools such as TeamSTEPPS® (Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety) suggest debriefing after complicated medical situations, they do not teach debriefing skills suited to this purpose. Anecdotal evidence suggests that real-time debriefings (or non-critical incident debriefings) do in fact occur in academic EDs;, however, limited research has been performed on this subject. The objective of this study was to characterize real-time, non-critical incident debriefing practices in emergency medicine (EM). METHODS: We conducted this multicenter cross-sectional study of EM attendings and residents at four large, high-volume, academic EM residency programs in New York City. Questionnaire design was based on a Delphi panel and pilot testing with expert panel. We sought a convenience sample from a potential pool of approximately 300 physicians across the four sites with the goal of obtaining \u3e100 responses. The survey was sent electronically to the four residency list-serves with a total of six monthly completion reminder emails. We collected all data electronically and anonymously using SurveyMonkey.com; the data were then entered into and analyzed with Microsoft Excel. RESULTS: The data elucidate various characteristics of current real-time debriefing trends in EM, including its definition, perceived benefits and barriers, as well as the variety of formats of debriefings currently being conducted. CONCLUSION: This survey regarding the practice of real-time, non-critical incident debriefings in four major academic EM programs within New York City sheds light on three major, pertinent points: 1) real-time, non-critical incident debriefing definitely occurs in academic emergency practice; 2) in general, real-time debriefing is perceived to be of some value with respect to education, systems and performance improvement; 3) although it is practiced by clinicians, most report no formal training in actual debriefing techniques. Further study is needed to clarify actual benefits of real-time/non-critical incident debriefing as well as details on potential pitfalls of this practice and recommendations for best practices for use

Technology and Caregiving: Emerging Interventions and Directions for Research.

An array of technology-based interventions has increasingly become available to support family caregivers, primarily focusing on health and well-being, social isolation, financial, and psychological support. More recently the emergence of new technologies such as mobile and cloud, robotics, connected sensors, virtual/augmented/mixed reality, voice, and the evermore ubiquitous tools supported by advanced data analytics, coupled with the integration of multiple technologies through platform solutions, have opened a new era of technology-enabled interventions that can empower and support family caregivers. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for identifying and addressing the challenges that may need to be overcome to effectively apply technology-enabled solutions for family caregivers. The paper identifies a number of challenges that either moderate or mediate the full use of technologies for the benefit of caregivers. The challenges include issues related to equity, inclusion, and access; ethical concerns related to privacy and security; political and regulatory factors affecting interoperability and lack of standards; inclusive/human-centric design and issues; and inherent economic and distribution channel difficulties. The paper concludes with a summary of research questions and issues that form a framework for global research priorities

Towards a People's Social Epidemiology: Envisioning a More Inclusive and Equitable Future for Social Epi Research and Practice in the 21st Century.

Social epidemiology has made critical contributions to understanding population health. However, translation of social epidemiology science into action remains a challenge, raising concerns about the impacts of the field beyond academia. With so much focus on issues related to social position, discrimination, racism, power, and privilege, there has been surprisingly little deliberation about the extent and value of social inclusion and equity within the field itself. Indeed, the challenge of translation/action might be more readily met through re-envisioning the role of the people within the research/practice enterprise-reimagining what "social" could, or even should, mean for the future of the field. A potential path forward rests at the nexus of social epidemiology, community-based participatory research (CBPR), and information and communication technology (ICT). Here, we draw from social epidemiology, CBPR, and ICT literatures to introduce A People's Social Epi-a multi-tiered framework for guiding social epidemiology in becoming more inclusive, equitable, and actionable for 21st century practice. In presenting this framework, we suggest the value of taking participatory, collaborative approaches anchored in CBPR and ICT principles and technological affordances-especially within the context of place-based and environmental research. We believe that such approaches present opportunities to create a social epidemiology that is of, with, and by the people-not simply about them. In this spirit, we suggest 10 ICT tools to "socialize" social epidemiology and outline 10 ways to move towards A People's Social Epi in practice

Designing a training tool for imaging mental models

The training process can be conceptualized as the student acquiring an evolutionary sequence of classification-problem solving mental models. For example a physician learns (1) classification systems for patient symptoms, diagnostic procedures, diseases, and therapeutic interventions and (2) interrelationships among these classifications (e.g., how to use diagnostic procedures to collect data about a patient's symptoms in order to identify the disease so that therapeutic measures can be taken. This project developed functional specifications for a computer-based tool, Mental Link, that allows the evaluative imaging of such mental models. The fundamental design approach underlying this representational medium is traversal of virtual cognition space. Typically intangible cognitive entities and links among them are visible as a three-dimensional web that represents a knowledge structure. The tool has a high degree of flexibility and customizability to allow extension to other types of uses, such a front-end to an intelligent tutoring system, knowledge base, hypermedia system, or semantic network

Dancing on a Pin: Health Planning in Arizona

This publication challenges us to step back and reflect on the past, present and future of health systems. Take a deeper look at planning and how we got here, review the roles of competition and regulation, and learn about the health planning matrix along with the concept of health planning bridges. Discover for yourself if these thoughts and tools help the signal of quality health planning rise more clearly from out of the noise

Responsible research and innovation in science education: insights from evaluating the impact of using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values

The European Commission policy approach of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is gaining momentum in European research planning and development as a strategy to align scientific and technological progress with socially desirable and acceptable ends. One of the RRI agendas is science education, aiming to foster future generations' acquisition of skills and values needed to engage in society responsibly. To this end, it is argued that RRI-based science education can benefit from more interdisciplinary methods such as those based on arts and digital technologies. However, the evidence existing on the impact of science education activities using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values remains underexplored. This article comparatively reviews previous evidence on the evaluation of these activities, from primary to higher education, to examine whether and how RRI-related learning outcomes are evaluated and how these activities impact on students' learning. Forty academic publications were selected and its content analysed according to five RRI values: creative and critical thinking, engagement, inclusiveness, gender equality and integration of ethical issues. When evaluating the impact of digital and arts-based methods in science education activities, creative and critical thinking, engagement and partly inclusiveness are the RRI values mainly addressed. In contrast, gender equality and ethics integration are neglected. Digital-based methods seem to be more focused on students' questioning and inquiry skills, whereas those using arts often examine imagination, curiosity and autonomy. Differences in the evaluation focus between studies on digital media and those on arts partly explain differences in their impact on RRI values, but also result in non-documented outcomes and undermine their potential. Further developments in interdisciplinary approaches to science education following the RRI policy agenda should reinforce the design of the activities as well as procedural aspects of the evaluation research