Health, Human Rights, and Structural Violence: Identifying Barriers to Healthcare Access of Deaf American Sign Language Users in Rhode Island

Deaf American Sign Language (ASL) users possess both human and legal rights to health. Yet, despite these rights, this linguistic minority group continues to experience challenges in accessing health care services. Using a structural violence framework, this study identifies the barriers to healthcare access of Deaf ASL users in one particular state - Rhode Island. More specifically, this study seeks to uncover the structural and social forces that constrain agency of Deaf ASL users in their attempts to access healthcare. Survey methodology is used to obtain both qualitative and quantitative data from 11 community stakeholder groups. Results show that Deaf ASL users in Rhode Island experience numerous structural barriers to accessing health care, including economic, civil, political, and cultural constraints. The structural disempowerment and reduced agency experienced by Deaf ASL users, perpetuated by the state’s institutionalized social structures, prevents Deaf ASL users from getting their health needs met. Implications for embodied health risks that result from human needs deprivation, trauma, and social disadvantage are discussed. Recommendations are offered on actions toward transformative justice, which can lead to greater fulfillment of human needs and realization of the inherent dignity, worth, and human rights of Deaf ASL users

Management of medical records for healthcare service delivery at the Victoria Public Hospital in the Eastern Cape Province :South Africa

The study sought to investigate the management of medical records for healthcare service at the Victoria Public Hospital in the Eastern Cape Province. The objectives of the study were to describe the present records management practices in Victoria Hospital; find out the existing infrastructure for the management of patient medical records at the Victoria Hospital; determine the compliance of patient medical records management in Victoria Hospital with relevant national legislative and regulatory framework; find out the security of patient medical records at the Victoria Hospital. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed. The sample was drawn from the service providers and from the healthcare service users. Questionnaires, interviews and observation were used to collect data. The findings showed that Victoria Hospital uses manual records management system in the creation, maintenance and usage of records. In the findings, there were challenges related to misfiling and missing patient folders which sometimes lead to the creation of new patient folders. Also, the study discovered that the time spent in the retrieval of patient folders could negatively affect the timely delivery of healthcare services. The study recommended the adoption of electronic records management system as most public healthcare institutions in the country are rapidly shifting to electronic records management system. The use of electronic records management system is believed to be efficiently and effectively promoting easy accessibility, retrieval of patient medical records and allows easy communication amongst the healthcare service institutions and healthcare practitioners

Accounting for Secrets

The Soviet state counted people, resources – and secret papers. The need to account for secrets was a transaction cost of autocratic government. This paper finds archival evidence of significant costs, multiplied by secrecy’s recursive aspect: the system of accounting for secrets was also secret and so had to account for itself. The evidence suggests that most Soviet officials complied most of the time. Numerous instances also imply that careless handling could take root and spread locally until higher authorities intervened. The paper uses the case of a small regional bureaucracy, the Lithuania KGB, to estimate the aggregate costs of handling secret paperwork. Over the period from 1954 to 1982, accounting for secrets makes up around one third of this organization’s archived records. This figure is surprisingly large, and is the main new fact contributed by the paper. There is much time variation, some of it not easily explained.Accounting; Dictatorship; Norms; Secrecy; Soviet Union; Transaction Costs

Influences of Instructionally Planned Experiential Learning Strategies on Student Perceptions of Learning

Research in leadership and education reveals consensus among educators that leadership can be taught. Educators are exploring how leadership should be taught believing that students learn best from personal experiences. Experiential learning provides an instructional framework for student centered learning grounded in student experiences and course content. The purpose of the study is to qualitatively assess the degree to which experiential learning in undergraduate leadership courses, facilitated by faculty planning, influences the perception of student learning. Using a phenomenological research method, one interview with the instructor of an undergraduate leadership course at a private, Midwestern four-year university was conducted about course planning. One interview was conducted with students enrolled in the course to assess student perceptions of learning. Three students out of eight enrolled in the course volunteered for participation in interviews. Findings indicated that experiential learning was utilized for instructional planning as a component of adult learning and the instructor’s teaching philosophy. They also indicated students are learning from experiential learning planned by the instructor, including preference for in-class teams and in-class exercises, as well as personal experiences and experiences of classmate’s occurring outside of the classroom

Is the future of the ATM past?

Just over 40 years ago the first cash dispensers became operational in the UK. From its modest beginnings this industry specific application evolved into the backbone of self service technology. In this article we consider their past and present to reflect on their future with the assistance of the so called ‘social construction of technology’ theory while supported by archival research and a summary of interviews with ‘actors’ in the UK. We tell how machine, functionality and shared networks will continue to interact in shaping the future of the cash dispensing market.cash dispenser, ATM, payment systems, UK, networks, self-service market, multilateral interchange fee (MIF), LINK

Fire Officer Leadership Strategies for Cost Management

Fire departments in the United States accounted for 31% of municipal budgets with increases of 85% spending between 2015 and 2016. The purpose of this single case study was to explore leadership strategies fire officers used to manage costs associated with hazardous operations. The conceptual framework grounding this study was transformational leadership theory. The participants in this study were 10 fire officers who manage hazardous operations in central Wisconsin. The data collection process included open-ended questions in a semistructured format resulting in transcripts, a review of fire department staffing documents, and personal journal notes. Methodological triangulation was used to compare the collected data and verified through member checking for accuracy. Upon completion of data collection, the data analysis process consisted of transcripts involving coding, grouping key words, and reconstructing data into themes. Four central themes emerged from the study: servant leadership, partnership, accountability, and creative staffing. The fire officers used servant leadership to ensure the provisions of services to internal and external customers. The servant leadership practice created trust and integrity. Creative staffing provided innovative cost management and fiscal responsibility to include partnership. Partnership and accountability worked in every facet of the fire department soliciting input from every level of staff. Fire officers in the study practiced transformational leadership daily in both emergency and nonemergency situations. Social implications include innovative leadership strategies and application that may help fire officers promote positive social change through saving lives of firefighters and the citizens they serve

Building an Innovative Economy through Managed Creative Destruction: A Theory with Applications to South Korea

This paper presents a somewhat novel theory of innovation in the economy wide setting. The starting point for this theory is the creative destruction process at the firm and industry level. However, an extension to an economy wide setting requires the explicit theorization of the role of the state as well as an interacting nonlinear market process. The direction in which the theory leads is a complex interaction between state policies and market processes that influence the decisions taken by specific firms in particular areas of innovative activities. The key concept that is developed in this context can be called a Managed Creative Destruction(MCD) process. In a national (or regional) MCD, the creative destruction process characterizing innovation is structured more consciously by the state (or the states in a particular region). It can be argued that China is now going through this process. In this paper the particular case studied is South Korea's recent historical experience. Following Schumpeter we assume that innovation in specific firms can have economy-wide effects. Models based on this idea can be shown to have multiple equilibria. The idea of a positive feedback loop innovation system or POLIS is formalized by picking an appropriate sequence of equilibria over time. It is shown that POLIS has empirical relevance by applying the formal model to an actual economy. Recent financial crisis in many Asian countries, most notably South Korea, seems to have reversed the conventional wisdom regarding the East Asian “miracle”. This paper applies the concept of a POLIS to show that neither the current view that the miracle was a mirage nor the earlier contrarian view that the growth was a result of factor accumulation only is correct. Ultimately technological transformation — in particular the creation of a positive feedback loop innovation system is what makes the difference between sustained growth and gradual or sudden decline. Although various problems remain in both the real and the financial sectors, it will be premature to dismiss the impressive achievements and the future possibilities of the South Korean economytechnological transformation, multiple equilibria, POLIS (positive feedback loop innovation system), Korea,South Korean POLIS, Managed Creative Destruction(MCD)