Marshfield Clinic: Health Information Technology Paves the Way for Population Health Management

Highlights Fund-defined attributes of an ideal care delivery system and best practices, including an internal electronic health record, primary care teams, physician quality metrics and mentors, and standardized care processes for chronic care management

Greening information management: final report

As the recent JISC report on ‘the ‘greening’ of ICT in education [1] highlights, the increasing reliance on ICT to underpin the business functions of higher education institutions has a heavy environmental impact, due mainly to the consumption of electricity to run computers and to cool data centres. While work is already under way to investigate how more energy efficient ICT can be introduced, to date there has been much less focus on the potential environmental benefits to be accrued from reducing the demand ‘at source’ through better data and information management. JISC thus commissioned the University of Strathclyde to undertake a study to gather evidence that establishes the efficacy of using information management options as components of Green ICT strategies within UK Higher Education environments, and to highlight existing practices which have the potential for wider replication

Safer clinical systems : interim report, August 2010

Safer Clinical Systems is the Health Foundation’s new five year programme of work to test and demonstrate ways to improve healthcare systems and processes, to develop safer systems that improve patient safety. It builds on learning from the Safer Patients Initiative (SPI) and models of system improvement from both healthcare and other industries. Learning from the SPI highlighted the need to take a clinical systems approach to improving safety. SPI highlighted that many hospitals struggle to implement improvement in clinical areas due to inherent problems with support mechanisms. Clinical processes and systems, rather than individuals, are often the contributors to breakdown in patient safety. The Safer Clinical Systems programme aimed to measure the reliability of clinical processes, identify defects within those processes, and identify the systems that result in those defects. Methods to improve system reliability were then to be tested and re-developed in order to reduce the risk of harm being caused to patients. Such system-level awareness should lead to improvements in other patient care pathways. The relationship between system reliability and actual harm is challenging to identify and measure. Specific, well-defined, small-scale processes have been used in other programmes, and system reliability has been shown to have a direct causal relationship with harm (e.g. care bundle compliance in an intensive care unit can reduce the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia). However, it has become evident that harm can be caused by a variety of factors over time; when working in broader, more complex and dynamic systems, change in outcome can be difficult to attribute to specific improvements and difficulties are also associated with relating evidence to resulting harm. The overall aim of Phase 1 of the Safer Clinical Systems programme was to demonstrate proof-of-concept that using a systems-based approach could contribute to improved patient safety. In Phase 1, experienced NHS teams from four locations worked together with expert advisers to co-design the Safer Clinical Systems programme

Insurer Climate Risk Disclosure Survey: 2012 Findings and Recommendations

2012 was the warmest year on record in the Lower 48 states and the second most extreme weather year in U.S. history. This is not a coincidence. Extreme weather -- stronger, more damaging storms, unprecedented drought and heat in some regions and unprecedented rainfall and flooding in others -- are the predictable consequences of rising global temperatures.Eleven extreme weather events each caused at least a billion dollars in losses last year in the United States. A single event, Hurricane Sandy, caused more than $50 billion in economic losses. Insurance companies are on the hook for tens of billions of dollars in claims as a result of Sandy and other severe weather events. And American taxpayers are on the hook for tens of billions of dollars themselves, thanks to losses sustained by the National Flood Insurance Program as well as disaster relief spendingThis raises a fundamental question: Is the insurance industry prepared? Have insurers analyzed and measured their climate-related risk? Are they planning for life in a warmer world? These should be essential questions for insurance regulators in all 50 states to be asking, and some are

INDUSTRIAL DISTRICTS AS LOCAL SYSTEMS OF INNOVATION

This essay examines the situation and the lines of development of industrial districts from the point of view of local systems of innovation. First of all, this article points out to the modernity factors of the district model – which are ascribable to the supply chain economy, to entrepreneurial dynamics and to the importance of geography as a competitive resource – through the analysis of recent contributions of economic literature that examined the emerging organizational models in knowledge economy. Secondly, the outcomes of recent research on leading companies of Italian industrial districts will be presented, looking at three particularly topics of ongoing changes: the process of international opening of the value chain, the technological conditions of competitive advantage, the relationship between strategies and economic performance. Finally, some considerations on the issue of policies will be developed. Such considerations underline the need to re-think the traditional models of local governance of development and suggest to look at the new external district economies, based on service economies, on much more considerable investments in training, technological and cultural activities and, finally, on more aware institutional actions with reference to the association of companies in innovation projects.Industrial districts, Innovation Systems, Entrepreneurship, Global Value Chain

Application of Computer Simulation Modeling to Evaluate Business Continuity Plans

Business continuity plans (BCP) help organizations plan for and withstand the occurrence of unexpected events that interrupt the normal operation of business. Managers typically develop several alternate plans to minimize the business impact of unexpected events. The problem for decision makers is that comparative evaluation of BCP is typically done using subjective judgments. This research uses a case study approach focusing on a single organization and a single business continuity application to propose the use of computer simulation as a tool for managers to identify and evaluate different BCP prior to committing resources. In the context of an insurance firm, a specific plan was evaluated using simulation methods. A simulation model was used to model the operational aspects of the call center in an insurance company. After the model was validated, it was used to answer questions about what-if scenarios. Results suggest that scenario analysis using simulated model enables managers to ask useful questions that can help evaluate the plan. Managers at the insurance company used the simulation model to determine the level of service required and evaluate business continuity strategies to achieve it

A review of the leader approach for delivering the rural development programme for England: a report for Defra

This report, commissioned by the Rural Communities Policy Unit at Defra, sets out the findings of a review of the Leader approach in England. The focus of the review is the impact of Leader in contributing to the delivery of the Rural Development Programme (RDP) in England, in order to inform the future Leader approach to delivering rural policy. The research is primarily based on a review of existing literature and in-depth qualitative research with Local Action Groups and other stakeholders involved in delivering or benefiting from the Leader approach. The review focuses on four key issues: 1) Evidence to support the rationale for use of EU resources to enable rural development – justifying intervention for the current programme and informing choices about interventions in the next programme 2) Evidence on the extent to which interventions have been effective to date and where future resources can be targeted 3) Evidence to provide an assessment of the impact of RDPE spend (2007-13) on outcomes – with reference to delivery mechanisms 4) Evidence to support prioritisation of activities to be funded under the next programme mapped against the six EU wide priorities for 2014-2020 and inform decisions about future delivery models

Successful Management of an Outsourced Large-scale Digitization Newspaper Project

This article uses the case study of the Nevada Digital Newspaper Project (https://nvdnp.wordpress.com/), an extension of the National Digital Newspaper Program (https://www.loc.gov/ndnp/), to introduce proven strategies on how to successfully manage a large-scale digitization project. It provides tips on how to stay within the timeline and deliver products with outstanding quality, leveraging limited human resources, and engaging an external digitization vendor. It discusses practical project management techniques and tools, strategies for establishing collaborative vendor partnerships, and strategies for efficient communication with stakeholders

Technologies to develop technology: the impact of new technologies on the organisation of the innovation process.

Companies are under increasing pressure to develop new product more effectively and efficiently. In order to meet this challenge, the organisation of the new product development process has received ample attention both in the academic literature and in the practitioner literature. As a consequence, a myriad of methods to design new products has been developed. These methods aim at facilitating concurrent product design and engineering. However, it is only recently, through the advent of families of new design technologies, that concurrency really becomes possible. In this paper, research on the impact of new design technologies on the product development process is reported and discussed. It is demonstrated that these technologies can have a significant impact on the organisation of innovation processes.Processes;

Mortality risk factors in micro and small businesses : systematic literature review and research agenda

Most micro and small businesses (MSEs) are limited in organizational structure, financial resources, technology, and management strategies. Due to these limitations, there are many risks involved in this sector. Understanding the aspects that contribute to the risk of mortality among MSEs is important to guide entrepreneurs in the development of strategic actions and to assist governments in the elaboration of policies that support the creation of new ventures. For this, it is important to know the key factors that contribute to the risk of business mortality. Thus, the following research questions emerge: What is the state of the art on the subject of business mortality in MSE? What are the factors that contribute to the risk of mortality in MSE? What is the relationship between the factors that contribute to the risk of mortality in MSE? The objective of this research was to analyze what the risk factors are for MSE mortality and how they are related to each other. From a systematic literature review, the state of the art on the topic of business mortality in MSEs was evidenced and its risk factors were identified. One hundred and six articles, published from January 2000 to February 2021, were analyzed. The results showed 36 mortality risk factors and highlighted the risks associated with innovative processes, business management, and the characteristics of the entrepreneur. This study contributes to a theoretical framework on corporate mortality and provides an agenda for future research, showing gaps to be explored. In terms of managerial implications, we suggest that entrepreneurs prioritize training initiatives, investing in education, that MSEs participate in cooperation networks to establish partnerships between stakeholders, and that they invest in technological tools to make companies more competitive in the market