Longer-term agreements for health care services: what will they achieve?

Government policy announced in the White Paper is to require purchasers and providers in the NHS to move from annual contracting cycles to longer-term contracts (agreements). It would appear the original arguments for this change came from the economics literature, suggesting longer-term contracts would help deal with problems of asset specificity, promotion of new entry and transactions cost. The Labour government emphasises longer-term contracting as a means of shifting the focus of purchaser provider relations from price and activity to quality of service and strategic planning. This Discussion Paper reports the results of research into the extent and nature of long-term contracting in the NHS. It is based on examination of contracts from a sample of six health authorities and their GP Fundholders, supplemented by interviews with individuals from these Health Authorities and Trusts who were involved in the contracting process. The paper considers the extent to which the problems identified in the theoretical literature on duration of contract are likely to be observed in the NHS and the extent to which it is likely a movement to longer-term contracting will achieve the benefits expected.NHS contracts

Reference costs and the pursuit of efficiency in the 'new' NHS

Both the White Paper, The New NHS, and the later consultation document, A National Framework for Assessing Performance, stress the need to develop new instruments to tackle inefficiency in the NHS. Among these instruments it has been proposed to benchmark Trusts, and by association Health Authorities, using Healthcare Resource Group (HRG) costs. The NHS Executive has published plans for a system of ‘Reference Costs’ that will itemise the cost of every treatment in every Trust. These reference costs will be derived from costing HRGs and are to be used for many purposes: benchmarking cost improvement, measuring relative efficiency, identifying best practice, funding transfers and costing health improvement programmes. This paper examines the construction of reference costs, considers incentives to use the information appropriately and asks whether a single accounting construct, the costed HRG, can be expected to contribute successfully to its many intended functions of regulation and management.performance measures; costing

The NHS plan: an economic perspective

The NHS Plan, published in July 2000, presented an ambitious blueprint for the transformation of the way the NHS delivers health care. The backdrop to the Plan is the substantial increase in resources for the NHS promised for the next 5 years. At the heart of the Plan is the aim of ensuring these resources are used effectively to provide a health service “designed around the patient”. After reviewing the perceived flaws in the current system and dismissing the notion of alternative systems of health care funding, the main part of the Plan outlines the strategy for tackling the shortcomings. The discussion is wide-ranging and includes not only those areas we would expect to see covered, such as the interface between health and social care and the performance management system, but also issues such as investment in infrastructure, the relationships between the NHS and the private sector and key personnel issues such as the supply of health care professionals and their contractual arrangements. This discussion paper summarises the main elements of the Plan before focusing more closely on seven key themes on which economic analysis has a distinctive insight to offer – investment, information, labour markets, the independent sector, waiting times, performance management, and patient and carer responses. Some of the preconditions for success of the Plan are outlined and gaps in the available evidence to support various aspects of the Plan are highlighted. Our conclusions suggest that there is reason to be optimistic that the Plan will deliver many of its lofty aspirations if two key conditions are met. First, that front-line staff are on board and have the resources and the will to help implement the Plan; and second, that political expediency and the desire to achieve short-term goals does not drive out the commitment to the long-term aims for the NHS.The NHS Plan

Open science and crowd science: Selected sites and resources

Diane Dawson, Natural Sciences Liaison Librarian, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, [email protected]

Strategies of Effective Open Access Outreach Services to Researchers: A Qualitative Study

ACRL 2017 ConferenceMany academic libraries now offer support services to assist researchers in making their outputs open access (OA) and in complying with funder OA policies. The focus of this qualitative study was on outreach efforts to raise the awareness of researchers about OA, their funders' policies, and the services available to support them. Objective: To determine effective strategies and characteristics for OA outreach to researchers

Exploring the scholarly communications landscape at the University of Saskatchewan

Poster presented at the 2013 Canadian Library Association (CLA) conference in Winnipeg.This poster presents the results of an exploratory survey to understand the current publishing behaviours, and open access awareness and attitudes, of faculty at the University of Saskatchewan. The research was conducted in an effort to establish a basis for the potential development of a scholarly communications program at the University Library

Breaking-up is hard to do: A unique methodology for unbundling a “Big Deal”

Slides from presentation at the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (C-EBLIP) Fall Symposium, October 15, 2014Academic libraries acquire access to many journal titles through “Big Deal” bundles. As serials prices continue to rise at unsustainable rates it will become increasingly necessary to consider breaking-up these packages and just subscribing to the most important titles individually. Recently, it appeared that the University Library, University of Saskatchewan would likely no longer be able to afford the American Chemical Society (ACS) bundle of 40+ titles, and tough decisions would need to be made. Usage data on each title were readily available – but is that enough evidence? Working under the common assumption that the primary users of this package are the Chemistry Department researchers, a citation analysis was conducted on what ACS journals these users recently published in and cited in their articles. In an effort to engage chemistry researchers and offer them a voice in the process, a survey of their opinions on each ACS title was also conducted. It was hoped that combining data from these three discrete sources: usage statistics, citation analyses, and user feedback, would enable us to arrive at the most conscientious, evidence-based decisions possible. This study took the novel approach of applying a citation analysis technique to usage data and survey responses. Although unconventional, this unique methodology proved useful in this situation. This presentation will describe the steps taken and discuss the benefits and challenges of this method so that librarians may consider whether this approach could be adapted to their own collections analysis needs

Exploring the scholarly communications landscape at the University of Saskatchewan

Poster presented at the 2013 Canadian Library Association (CLA) conference in Winnipeg.This poster presents the results of an exploratory survey to understand the current publishing behaviours, and open access awareness and attitudes, of faculty at the University of Saskatchewan. The research was conducted in an effort to establish a basis for the potential development of a scholarly communications program at the University Library

The Scholarly Communications Needs of Faculty: An Evidence-Based Foundation for the Development of Library Services

Objectives – This exploratory research seeks to broadly understand the publishing behaviours and attitudes of faculty, across all disciplines, at the University of Saskatchewan in response to the growing significance of open access publishing and archiving. The objective for seeking this understanding is to discover the current and emerging needs of researchers in order to determine if scholarly communications services are in demand here and, if so, to provide an evidence-based foundation for the potential future development of such a program of services at the University Library, University of Saskatchewan. Methods – All faculty members at the University of Saskatchewan were sent personalized email invitations to participate in a short online survey during the month of November 2012. The survey was composed of four parts: Current Research and Publishing Activities/Behaviours; Open Access Behaviours, Awareness, and Attitudes; Needs Assessment; and Demographics. Descriptive and inferential statistics were calculated. Results – The survey elicited 291 complete responses – a 21.9% response rate. Results suggest that faculty already have a high level of support for the open access movement, and considerable awareness of it. However, there remains a lack of knowledge regarding their rights as authors, a low familiarity with tools available to support them in their scholarly communications activities, and substantial resistance to paying the article processing charges of some open access journals. Survey respondents also provided a considerable number of comments – perhaps an indication of their engagement with these issues and desire for a forum in which to discuss them. It is reasonable to speculate that those who chose not to respond to this survey likely have less interest in, and support of, open access. Hence, the scholarly communications needs of this larger group of non-respondents are conceivably even greater. Conclusion – Faculty at the University of Saskatchewan are in considerable need of scholarly communications services. Areas of most need include: advice and guidance on authors’ rights issues such as retention of copyright; more education and support with resources such as subject repositories; and additional assistance with article processing charges. The University Library could play a valuable role in increasing the research productivity and impact of faculty by aiding them in these areas

Information Privilege: Talking to Undergraduates about Scholarly Communication

Slides also posted here: https://coppulscwg.ca/training-day/regional-training-day-2019-presentation-materials/Non-Peer Reviewe