342,328 research outputs found
Building Stronger Nonprofits Through Better Financial Management: Early Efforts in 26 Youth-Serving Organizations
Outlines the Financial Management in Out-of-School Time initiative to improve nonprofits' long-term financial management capacity and reform funding practices that weaken it, challenges participating nonprofits faced, progress to date, and early lessons
Building Stronger Nonprofits Through Better Financial Management
The Wallace Foundation's four-year Strengthening Financial Management in Out-of-School Time initiative(SFM) was designed to improve the financial management systems of 26 well-respected Chicago nonprofits that provide out-of-school-time (OST) services. SFM grew out of the Foundation's longstanding commitment to improving the quality of services for youth during nonschool hours and the realization that even successful nonprofits face financial management challenges that have an impact on their ability to achieve their missions. To address these challenges, the initiative is working to reform public and private funding practices that strain OST organizations' financial management capacity and providing participating organizations with financial management training and peer networking opportunities (using one of two models that vary in intensity and in the balance of individual vs. group-based training and support)
Achieving the Potential of Health Care Performance Measures: Timely Analysis of Immediate Health Policy issues
The United States is on the cusp of a new era, with greater demand for performance information, greater data availability, and a greater willingness to integrate performance information into public policy. This era has immense promise to deliver a learning health care system that encourages collaborative improvements in systems-based care, improves accountability, helps consumers make important choices, and improves quality at an acceptable cost. However, to curtail the possibility of unintended adverse consequences, it is important that we invest in developing sound measures, understand quality measures' strengths and limitations, study the science of quality measurement, and reduce inaccurate inferences about provider performance
Semi-Annual Report to Congress for the Period of April 1, 2009 to September 30, 2009
[Excerpt] I am pleased to submit this Semiannual Report to Congress, which highlights the most significant activities and accomplishments of the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General (DOL-OIG), for the six-month period ending September 30, 2009. During this reporting period, our investigative work led to 214 indictments, 221 convictions, and 7.4 million in payroll taxes. Because of our investigative expertise, the OIG is a member of the International Organized Crime (IOC) strategy headed by the U.S. Attorney General. The IOC is committed to combating crime by international organized groups.
Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to former DOL Inspector General Gordon S. Heddell, who is now serving as the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Defense. During his leadership of more than eight years, the DOL-OIG consistently achieved significant results similar to those presented in this report. As Acting Inspector General, I look forward to continuing to work with the Secretary of Labor and her management team in ensuring the effectiveness of DOL in delivering services and protecting the rights and benefits of American workers and retirees
Working Paper: Measuring Job Creation in Private Sector Development
The Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) Standard offers a best practice by outlining the key elements for practically and credibly estimating the results of Private Sector Development programmes, in a process which can be managed by programmes internally. It involves a few common impact indicators to ensure that donors will be able to add up their results across country programmes. The Standard is being piloted on a multi-agency basis; the DCED invites new programmes to join in adopting the approach
Improve Intra-Operative Nurse-to-Nurse Communication Using a Safety Checklist
Poor and inadequate handoff, or transfer of care of the surgical patient care from the primary to the relief operating room registered nurse circulators, can result in irreversible patient harm, or sentinel events, such as retained foreign items. In this study, Rogers\u27 diffusion of innovation theory was the framework for implementing the handoff safety checklist. Also, Donabedian\u27s structure process and outcome was the model to investigate the feasibility, acceptability, and improvement in the quality of patient handoff communication and improvement of nurse satisfaction over time. Nineteen-statement surveys, conducted at multiple timeframes, were completed by volunteer operating room nurse participants. In comparison, outcomes of the pre-intervention and post-intervention surveys illustrated significance in the quality of nurse communication and satisfaction of the handoff safety checklist. The value of standardized handoff safety checklists is evident in the study. However, further research of handoff safety checklists in the intraoperative arena is warranted
Reporting on Pathways to Health Insurance Coverage: California's Experience
The Affordable Care Act opened new and expanded pathways to public health insurance coverage. Since 2014, many states have broadened their eligibility criteria for Medicaid, and have introduced new access points for Medicaid enrollment. During this time, publicly subsidized health insurance coverage also became available through state health insurance exchanges and through the federal health insurance marketplace. Recognizing there is a great deal to learn about who applies for and obtains these types of public coverage, the federal government and some states have established new data reporting efforts on how people use both new and existing pathways to health insurance coverage. In 2014 and 2015, Mathematica Policy Research supported the launch of such a reporting effort in California, with funding from the California Health Care Foundation. In this brief, we describe California's experience in reporting on applications, eligibility determinations, enrollments and coverage renewals for public insurance, highlight some of the practical implications of California's first few reports, and offer lessons for other states that are launching comparable reporting efforts. Key Findings: The open enrollment period drives enrollment growth for both qualified health plans and Medi-Cal, even though Medi-Cal enrollment remains open year-round. Insurance coverage was more stable over time than expected. During the second open enrollment period, 92 percent of individuals enrolled in qualified health plans in California renewed their coverage from the previous year. During that same period about 80 percent of Medi-Cal beneficiaries remained eligible for coverage. California's experience with reporting on public insurance coverage suggests that significant effort is needed to carefully define measures, produce data that are meaningful to multiple audiences, and communicate findings clearly. Public data reporting can be a powerful tool for advancing transparency and identifying areas for improvement. State officials in California now have an opportunity to examine local variation in application and enrollment measures to identify policy or process differences that might be driving different outcomes across the state
Bolstering State Efforts to Implement the National HIV/AIDS Strategy: Key Indicators and Recommendations for Policymakers and Community Stakeholders
The report builds upon the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) 2014 "State Prevention Progress Report," which provided state-level data on indicators related to national HIV prevention goals. The release of the report coincides with the release by the White House Office of National AIDS Policy of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy Update, which sets priorities to guide the nation's HIV response through 2020. While significant progress has been made since the release of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy in 2010, the report indicates that states can, and should, do more to align their efforts with the national goals of 1) reducing new infections; 2) increasing access to care and improving health outcomes for people with HIV; and 3) reducing HIV-related health disparities
Options for basing Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) on chronic disease endpoints: report from a joint US-/Canadian-sponsored working group.
Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) are used in Canada and the United States in planning and assessing diets of apparently healthy individuals and population groups. The approaches used to establish DRIs on the basis of classical nutrient deficiencies and/or toxicities have worked well. However, it has proved to be more challenging to base DRI values on chronic disease endpoints; deviations from the traditional framework were often required, and in some cases, DRI values were not established for intakes that affected chronic disease outcomes despite evidence that supported a relation. The increasing proportions of elderly citizens, the growing prevalence of chronic diseases, and the persistently high prevalence of overweight and obesity, which predispose to chronic disease, highlight the importance of understanding the impact of nutrition on chronic disease prevention and control. A multidisciplinary working group sponsored by the Canadian and US government DRI steering committees met from November 2014 to April 2016 to identify options for addressing key scientific challenges encountered in the use of chronic disease endpoints to establish reference values. The working group focused on 3 key questions: 1) What are the important evidentiary challenges for selecting and using chronic disease endpoints in future DRI reviews, 2) what intake-response models can future DRI committees consider when using chronic disease endpoints, and 3) what are the arguments for and against continuing to include chronic disease endpoints in future DRI reviews? This report outlines the range of options identified by the working group for answering these key questions, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of each option
Health Challenges for the People of New Orleans: The Kaiser Post-Katrina Baseline Survey
Presents detailed findings from a household survey of Greater New Orleans area residents conducted in Fall 2006. Examines the health care status of residents and their access to health care services after the Hurricane Katrina disaster
- …