Designing community care systems with AUML

This paper describes an approach to developing an appropriate agent environment appropriate for use in community care applications. Key to its success is that software designers collaborate with environment builders to provide the levels of cooperation and support required within an integrated agent–oriented community system. Agent-oriented Unified Modeling Language (AUML) is a practical approach to the analysis, design, implementation and management of such an agent-based system, whilst providing the power and expressiveness necessary to support the specification, design and organization of a health care service. The background of an agent-based community care application to support the elderly is described. Our approach to building agent–oriented software development solutions emphasizes the importance of AUML as a fundamental initial step in producing more general agent–based architectures. This approach aims to present an effective methodology for an agent software development process using a service oriented approach, by addressing the agent decomposition, abstraction, and organization characteristics, whilst reducing its complexity by exploiting AUML’s productivity potential. </p

The Existence of Integrated Service Units in Improving Management and Public Services Quality at Universities in Indonesia

The study aims to analyze and gather information about the implementation of an Integrated Service Unit (ULT) to improve quality management and service quality at universities in Indonesia. The context for this research is the highly competitive and tight competition for quality management and public service quality among universities in the last decade. In response to the low quality of higher education administration services in Indonesia, the concept of service bureaucratic reform led to the establishment of Integrated Service Units. The research type is library research or literature review, where the researchers rely on existing literature to gather data. The research follows a descriptive qualitative approach with observation tools to analyze the existence of Integrated Service Units that have a high presence in the world of university administration services and have received awards or appreciation from the government. The results of the research indicate that the services implemented by the Integrated Service Units have quality management and service quality that adhere to established standards and principles of public service. The infrastructure of the service system is built using an electronic-based service system (SPBE). The activities are carried out in an integrated manner and are closely connected with other work units to provide cross-unit services in the university or faculty. The service process is completely digitized, using applications developed by each tertiary institution. Keywords: integrated service unit, quality management, service qualit

A framework for integrated early childhood development

This resource is intended to support and encourage integrated service delivery across the early childhood development sector. Integrated service delivery brings together different disciplines and services into a more comprehensive service delivery system. An integrated approach to early childhood development enables families to access multiple services in a cohesive way. The framework for integrated early childhood development draws on current research, Queensland early childhood integrated service reviews and evaluations, and was developed in consultation with several funded services. Research indicates integrated services are increasingly providing positive outcomes for children and their families. In Cairns, Mookai Rosie Bi-Bayan provides a home away from home for women who come to prepare for their babies’ birth or attend medical appointments not available in their far northern communities. One of their integrated programs is the Bi-Bayan Playgroup where playgroup staff work with other members of the Mookai Rosie team to offer holistic parenting support, including culturally supportive behaviour management, nutrition programs, and advocacy and referral pathways for children with developmental concerns. This framework focuses on integration within service delivery and is intended to support early childhood development services to analyse and enhance their integrated approach. It has four main components: 1. An overview of integration in early childhood development; 2. The department’s model for integrated early childhood development services; 3. A reflective tool to support organisations to develop or enhance their integrated approach; and 4. A range of relevant references and tools. The reflective tool is composed of reflective questions which providers can use to enhance or evaluate their services. The reflective tool is enhanced with examples and case studies from Queensland services to illustrate the successes, challenges and variety of approaches to integrated early childhood development. At the Caboolture Early Years Centre, for example, staff recognised that it took a while for everyone to get their heads around who did what when they first started working in an integrated way. To help the process along, they jointly created a plan which formalised staff roles. After six months, people became more comfortable with the integrated model and individual challenges were worked through

Integration of cost-risk assessment of denial of service within an intelligent maintenance system

As organisations become richer in data the function of asset management will have to increasingly use intelligent systems to control condition monitoring systems and organise maintenance. In the future the UK rail industry is anticipating having to optimize capacity by running trains closer to each other. In this situation maintenance becomes extremely problematic as within such a high-performance network a relatively minor fault will impact more trains and passengers; such denial of service causes reputational damage for the industry and causes fines to be levied against the infrastructure owner, Network Rail. Intelligent systems used to control condition monitoring systems will need to optimize for several factors; optimization for minimizing denial of service will be one such factor. With schedules anticipated to be increasingly complicated detailed estimation methods will be extremely difficult to implement. Cost prediction of maintenance activities tend to be expert driven and require extensive details, making automation of such an activity difficult. Therefore a stochastic process will be needed to approach the problem of predicting the denial of service arising from any required maintenance. Good uncertainty modelling will help to increase the confidence of estimates. This paper seeks to detail the challenges that the UK Railway industry face with regards to cost modelling of maintenance activities and outline an example of a suitable cost model for quantifying cost uncertainty. The proposed uncertainty quantification is based on historical cost data and interpretation of its statistical distributions. These estimates are then integrated in a cost model to obtain accurate uncertainty measurements of outputs through Monte-Carlo simulation methods. An additional criteria of the model was that it be suitable for integration into an existing prototype integrated intelligent maintenance system. It is anticipated that applying an integrated maintenance management system will apply significant downward pressure on maintenance budgets and reduce denial of service. Accurate cost estimation is therefore of great importance if anticipated cost efficiencies are to be achieved. While the rail industry has been the focus of this work, other industries have been considered and it is anticipated that the approach will be applicable to many other organisations across several asset management intensive industrie

The end of all niches: the future position of the academic librarian in a modern service industry

A (University) Library is a modern service industry which has to follow the rules of effectiveness, efficiency and productivity. Even academic librarians have to be integrated into the production process of ‘the supply of information’ in such a way that they can deliver optimal results on the basis of their qualifications. In the process, the classic occupational image of the subject indexing lone fighter has dramatically changed into that of a productive performance bearer with great skills in management, social competence and performance. This paper gives an overview of the historical development of the classic academic librarian and the current requirements for a modern information manager. The strictly contrastive approach makes clear what a quantum leap there is between the image of a classic academic librarian, and the modern requirements for an efficient academic employee in the production process of supplying information

SOA and BPM, a Partnership for Successful Organizations

In order to stay effective and competitive, companies have to be able to adapt themselves to permanent market requirements, to improve constantly their business process, to act as flexible and proactive economic agents. To achieve these goals, the IT systems within the organization have to be standardized and integrated, in order to provide fast and reliable data access to users both inside and outside the company. A proper system architecture for integrating company’s IT assets is a service oriented one. A service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an IT architectural style that allows integration of the company’s business as linked, repeatable tasks called services. A subject closely related to SOA is Business Process Management (BPM), an approach that aims to improve business processes. The paper also presents some aspects of this topic, as well as the relationship between SOA and BPM. They complement each other and help companies improve their business performance.Information Systems, SOA, Web Services, BPM

E-fulfilment Systems for Quality Healthcare Delivery: A New Construct for Visualising and Designing

Electronically delivered information and funds transaction systems do offer such organisations great potential for efficiency and effectiveness, but many large integrated ICT systems, particularly in public service projects, have notoriously underperformed and disappointed. To ensure that quality is ‘engineered in’ a holistic, integrated and quality approach is required, and Total Quality Management (TQM) principles are the obvious foundations for this. TQM is a business philosophy that encourages an over-arching responsibility - both individual and collective - to quality and customer satisfaction. This paper describes a novel approach to viewing the operations of a healthcare provider where electronic means could be used to distribute information and facilitate electronic fund settlements, building around the Full Service Provider core. Specifically, an approach called the “triple pair flow” model is used to provide a view of healthcare delivery that is integrated, yet detailed, and that combines the strategic enterprise view with a business process view

Evaluation of complex integrated care programmes: the approach in North West London

Background: Several local attempts to introduce integrated care in the English National Health Service have been tried, with limited success. The Northwest London Integrated Care Pilot attempts to improve the quality of care of the elderly and people with diabetes by providing a novel integration process across primary, secondary and social care organisations. It involves predictive risk modelling, care planning, multidisciplinary management of complex cases and an information technology tool to support information sharing. This paper sets out the evaluation approach adopted to measure its effect. Study design: We present a mixed methods evaluation methodology. It includes a quantitative approach measuring changes in service utilization, costs, clinical outcomes and quality of care using routine primary and secondary data sources. It also contains a qualitative component, involving observations, interviews and focus groups with patients and professionals, to understand participant experiences and to understand the pilot within the national policy context. Theory and discussion: This study considers the complexity of evaluating a large, multi-organisational intervention in a changing healthcare economy. We locate the evaluation within the theory of evaluation of complex interventions. We present the specific challenges faced by evaluating an intervention of this sort, and the responses made to mitigate against them. Conclusions: We hope this broad, dynamic and responsive evaluation will allow us to clarify the contribution of the pilot, and provide a potential model for evaluation of other similar interventions. Because of the priority given to the integrated agenda by governments internationally, the need to develop and improve strong evaluation methodologies remains strikingly important

Innovating mass-customized service

Abstract Mass customization is a business approach aimed at the low-cost production of customized goods and services. It relies on ‘horizontalization’, platform thinking and modularity, but how can these concepts be applied in a fast-changing service environment in which both the product and production processes are predominantly intangible? The study proposes an integrated innovation management system to effectively manage the innovation process in such an environment. A so-called ‘SLIM’ model is developed based on an in-depth case study at an incumbent telecom operator in the midst of a transition toward a mass-customized service company. Literature on business modeling, service marketing and new service development plays a major role, and IT-originating concepts of business componentization and release management are transformed to the business level. All in all, the SLIM model implies a major shift for organizations in how they position, design and organize the innovation process