Utilizing Team-Based Care to Improve Rural Cardiovascular Care

Cardiovascular morbidity and mortality are significantly higher among individuals living in rural areas compared to urban and suburban settings. Some contributing factors include financial limitations, education level, and limited access to cardiovascular specialty healthcare. Using a team-based cardiovascular care approach in rural communities, including both nurse practitioners and physicians, could help improve access to cardiovascular health services. The purpose of this project was to conduct a focus group interview to evaluate a team-based care approach to cardiovascular services implemented in a rural clinic located in a medically underserved area. Based on the results of the focus group interview, an evidence based strategic plan was developed. Nine health care providers participated in the focus group. The participants noted that with the team-based approach, there has been an increase in the number of cardiology patients that are able to receive care. They expressed that support from clinic administrators influenced the noted success. Their main concerns were now focused on the implementation of a standardized chest pain protocol, increasing and retaining specialized staff, and acquiring equipment for more cardiovascular procedures. Future projects focusing on evaluating the perceptions that patients receiving cardiovascular care have about this model are essential

Evaluating learning and teaching technologies in further education

With the current emphasis on quality assessment and the role of evaluation in quality assessment, it is likely that teachers in post‐compulsory education will increasingly be expected to evaluate their teaching, especially when making changes to their teaching methods. In Further Education (FE), there have been a number of developments to foster the use of Information and Learning Technologies (ILT), following the publication of the Higginson Report in 1996. However, there is some evidence that the adoption of ILT has been patchy

Volunteering Reinvented: Human Capital Solutions for the Nonprofit Sector

To grow and adapt in today's continuously changing society, a nonprofit organization must recognize the value and contribution of both its paid staff and volunteers. Simply recruiting large numbers of volunteers, however, does not necessarily translate into success for the nonprofit sector or the community at large. Successful results are achieved when an organization is able to support, mobilize, and manage its volunteer resources for the greatest possible impact on a problem or need.In a competitive environment where resources are often scarce, nonprofit executives and boards of directors have become more strategic about how they leverage the various resources at their disposal:money, space, inkind donations, equipment, technology, and employees. Unfortunately, however, one of the most powerful and plentiful resources of all -- volunteers -- continues to receive short shrift from nonprofit leadership. This paper is intended to educate nonprofit executives about volunteering as a key human resource strategy, illustrate that volunteering is not just nice but necessary, and demonstrate the value volunteers bring to an organization that strategically plans for how to use them both to support infrastructure and to deliver programs and services

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Goal-Directed Intervention on the Social Interaction of Children with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities

This study sought to address social interaction needs of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities through an eight week intervention focusing on social skills at Spaulding Youth Center (SYC), a residential facility in Northeast United States. The study implemented a randomized control design, with a control and intervention group, totaling n=19 students. Results have implications for future practice

Use of an agile bridge in the development of assistive technology

Engaging with end users in the development of assistive technologies remains one of the major challenges for researchers and developers in the field of accessibility and HCI. Developing usable software systems for people with complex disabilities is problematic, software developers are wary of using user-centred design, one of the main methods by which usability can be improved, due to concerns about how best to work with adults with complex disabilities, in particular Severe Speech and Physical Impairments (SSPI) and how to involve them in research. This paper reports on how the adoption of an adapted agile approach involving the incorporation of a user advocate on the research team helped in meeting this challenge in one software project and offers suggestions for how this could be used by other development teams

Explicating the role of partnerships in changing the health and well-being of local communities in urban regeneration areas: evaluation of the Warnwarth conceptual framework for partnership evaluation

This literature review is one of three outputs from a project: Explicating the role of partnerships in changing the health and well-being of local communities, one of a number of projects in a larger Higher Education Funding Council Strategic Development Fund project (HEFCE) entitled: Urban Regeneration: Making a Difference. This was a collaborative venture between Manchester Metropolitan University, Northumbria University, University of Salford and University of Central Lancashire. Bradford University was an affiliated partner

The evaluation of the national learning network

In December 1998, the Department for Education and Employment announced that £74 million would be made available, over a three‐year period, to fund improvements in information and learning technology within English further education: this initiative is known as the National Learning Network. An evaluation team has been appointed to report on whether the investment is being used nationally and locally in an efficient and effective manner. This paper outlines the process by which this task is being fulfilled and how the impact of the investment is being evaluated through the close monitoring of forty‐one representative English FE colleges. It also presents a range of free‐standing evaluation tools which have been developed by the evaluation team for use within these colleges by internal practitioner‐evaluators. These tools will enable colleges to assess the effectiveness of the investment and enable the evaluation team to monitor the impact of the national investment on a small, representative cohort of students and staff over a two‐year period The paper concludes with a brief look at the role this development is playing in designing a universally applicable model for assessing cost‐effectiveness across all educational sectors

Business process re-engineering (BPR): The REBUS approach

Many organisations undertake business process re-engineering (BPR) projects in order to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Although this approach can result in significant improvements and benefits, there are high risks associated with radical changes of business processes and the failure rate of BPR projects is reported to be as high as 70%. The Centre for Re-engineering Business Processes (REBUS) was established at Brunel University to provide a multidisciplinary environment for research into BPR and its success factors. This paper describes the REBUS approach to research concerning the success of BPR projects and presents examples of some of the projects carried out

The Stable Core and Dynamic Periphery in Top Management Teams

This study explores how top management teams make strategic decisions. The findings indicate that the top management team performs a variety of monitoring and control functions within most firms, but that a single team with stable composition does not make strategic choices in most organizations. Instead, different groups, with members from multiple organizational levels, form to make various strategic decisions. A stable subset of the top team forms the core of each of these multiple decision‐making bodies. The findings offer a possible explanation for inconsistent findings in the top management team literature, and suggest several new directions for future senior team research