145 research outputs found

    Current Management Issues in Health Information Technology

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    Health information technology can improve quality care delivery, thereby boosting the healthcare business reputation. However, it can negatively affect quality care delivery and lead to a negative business reputation if not efficiently managed. This single qualitative study aimed to explore the causes of the inefficiencies in managing health information technology and strategies that healthcare organizations use to ensure its efficiencies. In a purposive sample, the researcher conducted telephone interviews with twenty-one participants from Lancaster General Hospital. The participants comprised medical doctors, Doctor of Nursing practitioners, managers of health informatics, and informatics specialists working in various divisions and E-health operations. Other participants included the director of quality improvement within Epic Solutions and clinical applications, the director of health information management, the entity and privacy officer, the risk department manager, the executive director of ACO inter-community care, the pharmacist, and the director of operations. Data collected and analyzed yielded four themes: Users face various management challenges leading to HIT management efficiencies, primarily due to a need for adequate training. Strategies used to ensure the efficient management of health information technology comprised the use of robust policies and procedures, Management issues leading to the disruption of health information technology due to the issues with the design of tools of HIT, and Users reported more potential than actual impact on business reputation as judged through external organization ratings. This study could positively impact social change by fostering efficiencies in its adoption, implementation, and use, which could enhance better care delivery

    The In/visible Stockade: Sex Offender Management, Governmentality, and the Search for Normal Life

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    Over the past thirty-five years, the United States has seen a dramatic expansion of regulatory policy around individuals convicted of sexual offenses. Sex offender management policies include national and state registries, notification laws, treatment mandates, residency restrictions, and numerous exclusions from institutions. A growing body of research from sociologists and criminologists has tracked the effects of this sex offender regime by measuring recidivism and collateral consequences among released offenders. Less attention has been paid to how sex offenders adapt to their regulator context—especially the selective public visibility that the registry generates. Furthermore, sociological scholarship has not yet developed strong theoretical tools with which to make sense of sex offense management. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 106 registered citizens in the state of Nevada, I examine how registered citizens experience their contacts with direct state actors, various types of social relationships, and navigating institutions.I find that registered citizens face ever-present tensions across most social domains that are mitigated by how, when, and what information is released about their criminal history. I argue that a constellation of “information triggers” result in their offense history being revealed at critical junctures that systematically exclude them from a variety of interpersonal relations, group membership, and access to essential institutions like work and community. Direct state actors influence registered citizens by actively triggering the release of information to others in the community or to other sex offenders, isolating them from their communities and each other. In order to form or retain social ties, registered citizens worked to establish counternarratives facilitate disclosure and differentiate themselves from cultural perceptions of sex offenders; however, not all ties were as responsive. Registered citizens struggled to form weak social ties in their community, among their neighbors, and with friends, resulting in a much smaller social network and decreased social capital. Registered citizens faced extensive collateral consequences, including employment rejection, termination, housing rejection, harassment, and an unpredictable legal environment that caused registrants to lose a sense of progress toward normal life. I argue that the components of sex offender experience are best understood through the lens of neoliberal governmentality, a theoretical framework that examines government practice and logics as moving through the state and into the public to generate technologies of the self. The registry depends upon the public to expand the range of enforcement beyond what a democratic state would normally allow, enabling the rejection of the registered from most social domains with minimal action by the state. Approaching sex offense management from this perspective enables scholars to reframe sex offense management as a collaborative process between state actors, legislative processes, and the free actions of the public. Furthermore, it reveals how a contemporary state apparatus can employ the selective disclosure of information as a tool of social control, both for offenders and for the public

    Twice-Exceptional Autism and Home Education: A Phenomenological Analysis

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    It is common for autistic and particularly twice-exceptional (2e) children to be schooled from home at a higher rate than their neurotypical peers. Much of the current research investigating this phenomenon is conducted from the perspective of the public school system. This point of view is generally critical of the curriculum taught in the home, has largely limited parental voices in the literature, and overlooks possible circumstances in the public school system that might have led families to choose to homeschool. This qualitative analysis conducted open-ended interviews of parents with twice-exceptional autistic children who have home-educated or currently educate their children at home. It explored parents’ reasons for choosing to homeschool, and it gathered insight into their experiences as they transitioned from public schooling to the home environment. The data indicated two theories. The first was that parents tend to choose to homeschool their 2e, autistic children because the public schools are in some way not meeting their needs. The second theory was that transitions to homeschool were positive in some households and challenging in others. Those experiencing positive transitions likely benefitted from self-directed learning, one-on-one time, and fewer distractions of home education. Families who experienced difficulty typically had schedule conflicts (such as working parents), and parent burnout. Implications of this study may inform public schools of the under-served 2e population and encourage better accommodations for the students. This cannot be done, however, unless the students are evaluated, and their autism is recognized

    Integrating unorganised waste reclaimers into formal recycling systems: the positive role of key brokers

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    Waste reclaimers create a significant impact through their role in the recycling industry. Yet, the majority perform their role undignifiedly and with little or no support. Over the past few years, this impact has been researched, acknowledged and publicised by the government and private sector. As a result, the Waste Picker Integration Guideline for South Africa was developed to assist organisations working with waste reclaimers. However, these guidelines were mainly derived from case studies where waste reclaimers were more organised than most South African waste reclaimers and none based in the Western Cape. The difference in organisation, location and demographics is significant as it alters the process used to integrate waste reclaimers. This research sought to understand better the processes used to integrate unorganised waste reclaimers into formal recycling operations or projects in the Western Cape. The case studies were selected based on an existing integration process between a formal entity, either public or private, and an informal waste entity, a group of unorganised waste reclaimers. Five case study projects were chosen. The case study analysis resulted in a process model that highlighted the central finding, the role of the “key broker”, who can build trust among the waste reclaimers and successfully integrate unorganised waste reclaimers. The findings show characteristics to play such a role and how crucial such trust-building is because waste reclaimers have a deep-seated distrust of actors in the formal sector. This research contributes to prior work by exploring what makes such integration processes successful even in the absence of large associations or intermediating NGOs

    Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem

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    With the contributions of international experts, the book aims to explore the new boundaries of universal bibliographic control. Bibliographic control is radically changing because the bibliographic universe is radically changing: resources, agents, technologies, standards and practices. Among the main topics addressed: library cooperation networks; legal deposit; national bibliographies; new tools and standards (IFLA LRM, RDA, BIBFRAME); authority control and new alliances (Wikidata, Wikibase, Identifiers); new ways of indexing resources (artificial intelligence); institutional repositories; new book supply chain; “discoverability” in the IIIF digital ecosystem; role of thesauri and ontologies in the digital ecosystem; bibliographic control and search engines

    Finnishness, whiteness and coloniality

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    This multidisciplinary volume reflects the shifting experiences and framings of Finnishness and its relation to race and coloniality. The authors centre their investigations on whiteness and unravel the cultural myth of a normative Finnish (white) ethnicity. Rather than presenting a unified definition for whiteness, the book gives space to the different understandings and analyses of its authors. This collection of case-studies illuminates how Indigenous and ethnic minorities have participated in defining notions of Finnishness, how historical and recent processes of migration have challenged the traditional conceptualisations of the nation-state and its population, and how imperial relationships have contributed to a complex set of discourses on Finnish compliance and identity. With an aim to question and problematise what may seem self-evident aspects of Finnish life and Finnishness, expert voices join together to offer (counter) perspectives on how Finnishness is constructed and perceived. Scholars from cultural studies, history, sociology, linguistics, genetics, among others, address four main topics: 1) Imaginations of Finnishness, including perceived physical characteristics of Finnish people; 2) Constructions of whiteness, entailing studies of those who do and do not pass as white; 3) Representations of belonging and exclusion, making up of accounts of perceptions of what it means to be ‘Finnish’; and 4) Imperialism and colonisation, including what might be considered uncomfortable or even surprising accounts of inclusion and exclusion in the Finnish context. This volume takes a first step in opening up a complex set of realities that define Finland’s changing role in the world and as a home to diverse populations.VertaisarvioitupeerReviewe

    An analysis of the standardisation of forensic reports for court

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    The aim of this study is to determine the standardisation and conformance of the forensic reports issued by the South African Police Service Division Forensic Service in accordance with the service’s Standard Operating Procedure on report writing, and to outline the basic requirements for a forensic report in conjunction with the pre-requisites of the Criminal Procedure Act, 51 of 1977, and other prescribed prescripts. Data was collected through interviews conducted with forensic analysts attached to the Forensic Science Laboratory and Quality Management Components which includes the Ballistics, Biology, Chemistry and Questioned Documents Sections. These interviews provided a first-hand understanding of participants’ experiences relating to the standardisation of the forensic reports issued by the Division Forensic Service. The findings of the research indicate the forensic reports issued by the various sections of the Division Forensic Service are not standardised for court purposes. Furthermore, it was discovered that these forensic reports do not comply with the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Act, 51 of 1977. In addition, it was found that the Standard Operating Procedure on report writing does not effectively communicate procedures for writing a forensic report. Based on these findings, this study proposes general and fundamental recommendations by means of a proposed framework for the standardisation of forensic reports used for court purposes. This proposed framework convincingly presents practical solutions to address the identified shortcomings of forensic reports used for court purposes and thus contributes to the current body of scholarship on forensic science.Criminology and Security Scienc

    Tweeting 'truths': rumour and grammars of power in Kenya

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    This study examines rumour as a mediator of public discourses in Kenya. It focuses on rumours that followed the killing of Chris Msando – a senior election official with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission – and his friend Carolyne Ngumbu a week before the 2017 elections. Although earlier research on rumour exists, it is limited to oral societies and overlooks the versatility of structure and functions of rumours. Therefore, I study the interface between rumours, Twitter and the politics surrounding the two deaths. The research is informed by four objectives: to trace the history of rumour as an area of study in Africa; evaluate the role of Twitter in the creation, circulation, and use of rumour in contemporary Kenya; discuss the uses of rumour for government and individuals; and analyse how the interface between rumours and Twitter impact on the everyday life in Kenya. I use close textual reading of rumours and informal conversations to corroborate data scraped from Twitter. I then apply four theories: Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (1995) to unpack the meanings in rumours and informal conversations; Paul Ricoeur’s (1973) notion of hermeneutics of suspicion as popularised by Felski (2011) to analyse the rumours; Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) metaphorical rhizome to understand the amorphousness of rumours; and Jodi Dean’s (2009) concept of communicative capitalism to determine the extent to which communicative technologies of popular and social media’s appropriation in rumourous conversations evoke political awareness among different interlocutors. This thesis argues that rumours have changed and been changed by Twitter’s communicative cultures, owing to their structural complexity and the growing alertness among the general publics about the necessity of self-expression in a country where a majority of citizens have accepted democracy as the most desirable basis of political organization. Thus, contemporary rumours emerge from the process of co-creation in an amorphous public struggling to assert its identity through competing and alternative narratives it creates. The rumours are also subject to simultaneous archiving and transcend space and time. Furthermore, rumours on Twitter rarely filter to oral communities and vice versa, and are underpinned by ethnic sensibilities, historical mistrust, and national politics, all of which are the underpinning logics of Kenya’s experiments with democracy. This study demonstrates that viewing rumours as a weapon of the marginalised limits the scope of their value as knowledge, since the domination-resistance binary obscures the cultural and historical influences on creativity and appropriation of Twitter for rumourous communication

    Assuming Data Integrity and Empirical Evidence to The Contrary

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    Background: Not all respondents to surveys apply their minds or understand the posed questions, and as such provide answers which lack coherence, and this threatens the integrity of the research. Casual inspection and limited research of the 10-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-10), included in the dataset of the World Values Survey (WVS), suggested that random responses may be common. Objective: To specify the percentage of cases in the BRI-10 which include incoherent or contradictory responses and to test the extent to which the removal of these cases will improve the quality of the dataset. Method: The WVS data on the BFI-10, measuring the Big Five Personality (B5P), in South Africa (N=3 531), was used. Incoherent or contradictory responses were removed. Then the cases from the cleaned-up dataset were analysed for their theoretical validity. Results: Only 1 612 (45.7%) cases were identified as not including incoherent or contradictory responses. The cleaned-up data did not mirror the B5P- structure, as was envisaged. The test for common method bias was negative. Conclusion: In most cases the responses were incoherent. Cleaning up the data did not improve the psychometric properties of the BFI-10. This raises concerns about the quality of the WVS data, the BFI-10, and the universality of B5P-theory. Given these results, it would be unwise to use the BFI-10 in South Africa. Researchers are alerted to do a proper assessment of the psychometric properties of instruments before they use it, particularly in a cross-cultural setting
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