Email training significantly reduces email defects

Organisations are now becoming aware of the problems associated with email use and are keen to reduce these defects. These email defects relate to the ineffective way that email is used within organisations, and are not only limited to the volume of email that is sent and received, but also the quality of the email content. Email defects lead to inefficiencies within the workplace as employees spend more time dealing with email rather than doing other aspects of their job. This paper firstly examines how email is used within a large organisation and highlights the defects associated with email. The initial results show that these defects affect some groups of employees more than others. The paper also reports on the effectiveness of email training in reducing the defects associated with email use. The results show that some of these defects are related and that training can significantly reduce some of the email defects and improve the way people write emails

Patient Perception of Negative Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing Results

Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) uses cell-free fetal DNA to assess for fetal aneuploidy during pregnancy. NIPT has higher detection rates and positive predictive values than previous methods; however, NIPT is not diagnostic. Studies suggest patients may underestimate the limitations of prenatal screening. Therefore, we conducted a prospective cross-sectional study of ninety-four women from genetic counseling clinics in Houston, Texas to assess patient understanding of the residual risk for aneuploidy after receiving a negative NIPT. The majority of participants (66%) understood the residual risk for Down syndrome following negative NIPT; however, 34% of participants indicated that negative NIPT completely eliminated the risk. Individuals with at least four years of college education were more likely to understand that NIPT does not eliminate the chance of trisomy 13/18 (p=0.012) and sex chromosome abnormality (p=0.039), and were more likely to understand which conditions NIPT tests for (p=0.021), compared to women with less formal education. These data demonstrate that despite the recent implementation of NIPT into obstetric practice, the majority of women are aware of its limitations after genetic counseling. However, clinicians may need to consider alternative ways to communicate the limitations of NIPT to those women with less formal education to ensure understanding

Can Seminar and Computer-Based Training Improve the Effectiveness of Electronic Mail Communication within the Workplace?

Email communication has become an integral part of the communication structure within organisations. However, we are far from efficient in using this organisational communication and knowledge sharing tool. We aim to improve workplace communications by improving the way email is used within the workplace. We undertake extensive two-phase research to demonstrate the need to give employees training regarding email communication, and conduct both seminar based training and computer-based training. Findings indicate that email training can lead to significant improvements in the way that employees use email within the workplace with computer-based training (or e-learning) showing a greater improvement. This study demonstrates that while email is a powerful organisational and knowledge tool, it can be optimised to better leverage its benefits by training employees in its us