Climate change adaptation in the boardroom

Abstract Climate adaptation is recognised by many of the world’s largest businesses as a global risk and one that requires critical attention. The World Economic Forum’s 2013 Global Risks Perception Survey, identified the ‘failure of climate change adaptation and rising greenhouse gas emissions as among those global risks considered to be the most likely to materialize within a decade’ (p.16). Yet despite action by many transnationals and international firms, it seems evident that most Australian companies appear to be struggling to move forward in responding to climate change impacts, apparently paralysed by short-term profit-first thinking, uncertain political risks and a corporate culture unused to volatility and disruption. Research approach This project set out to communicate adaptation to climate change to the “big end of town” and to gather soft data, acquire information and present issues back to the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF), the funder of this research. Our approach to the research challenge differed from a traditional technical, analytical or academic method. We used action-learning principles to engage a community in which we, as advisors to corporate Australia and as co-researchers, have social capital and standing. Through trusted information sharing networks, private closed-door meetings and one on one conversation with executives and senior management from over 100 companies we shared ideas, gathered, researched and refined information and tested our findings. Findings Our findings from the boardroom engagement include the following:   The Australian Government expects the private sector to adapt, yet little or no incentives exist to promote this behaviour. Autonomous adaptation as practiced may only benefit the lead actor while creating disbenefit for others (including other corporations, society and the environment). Market practices on current paradigms cannot be expected to meet greater societal adaptation needs. Further adaptation research is required in some areas to help guide shape and monitor adaptation for the private sector. A multiplicity of policy reform may be necessary, but crafting and implementing it is likely to remain beyond the capability of the Australian Public Service (APS) or individual Governments. Highly sophisticated mining, gas and some Asian owned technology companies are leading the way with many opportunities missed by Australian companies. Adaptation for the corporate sector is a key strategic issue, unlike mitigation and corporate social responsibility (CSR), as it benefits the corporate primarily. Insurance dependency may only be a short-term risk transfer mechanism as, in its current paradigm, it can mask risk, create a false sense of security and may impede adaptation.   Conclusion We hope that this report is of benefit to Australian organisations, policy makers, regulators and to researchers in adaptation science. This project shows that, on a whole, the Australian private sector is giving little consideration about the impacts climate change. This project has identified that considerable research gaps exist, but has also provided direction for organisations and researchers. Individual corporations and private sector peak bodies urgently need to explore the risks and opportunities that climate change and associated responses bring. This is especially so for the ICT, aviation, energy, insurance and finance sectors. Please cite this report as: Johnston, GS, Burton, DL, Baker-Jones, M, 2013 Climate Change Adaptation in the Boardroom National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast. pp. 81

Multiprocessor scheduling with practical constraints

The problem of scheduling tasks onto multiprocessor systems has increasing practical importance as more applications are being addressed with multiprocessor systems. Actual applications and multiprocessor systems have many characteristics which become constraints to the general scheduling problem of minimizing the schedule length. These practical constraints include precedence relations and communication delays between tasks, yet few researchers have considered both these constraints when developing schedulers. This work examines a more general multiprocessor scheduling problem, which includes these practical scheduling constraints, and develops a new scheduling heuristic using a list scheduler with dynamically computed priorities. The dynamic priority heuristic is compared against an optimal scheduler and against other researchers’ approaches for thousands of randomly generated scheduling problems. The dynamic priority heuristic produces schedules with lengths which are 10% to 20% over optimal on the average. The dynamic priority heuristic performs better than other researchers’ approaches for scheduling problems with the practical constraints. We conclude that it is important to consider practical constraints in the design of a scheduler and that a simple heuristic can still achieve good performance in this area

Testing the Links from Fit to Effective Use to Impact: A Digital Hospital Case

The global health sector is undergoing rapid digital transformation. Because such transformations often fail to meet expectations, researchers have begun studying the full chain from implementation to outcomes to learn what improvements are needed. Recent studies suggest that it is especially important to learn what ‘effective use’ of new systems involve, because effective use is the lynchpin between a system and its benefits. A key challenge, however, is operationalizing effective use. In this paper, we compare two approaches: theory-driven, operationalizing effective use using the ‘theory of effective use’, and context-driven, operationalizing it in terms of the workarounds users devise to achieve their goals. We compare these approaches using survey data from a multi-hospital digital transformation. The results support the theory-driven approach, while offering useful insights on workarounds

The Digital Transformation Journey of a Large Australian Hospital: A Teaching Case

With the vision of a seamless, state-wide approach to patient management, the Department of Health within the Queensland State Government of Australia embarked on a digital transformation journey. This involved the configuration and rollout of an integrated electronic medical record system (ieMR) with computerized provider order entry, ePrescribing, decision support, analytics, and research functionalities, together with new devices and work practices, to create a multi-hospital, whole-of-state digital health ecosystem. Drawing on multiple perspectives, including executives and front-line clinicians who are both optimistic and pessimistic towards the ieMR, this teaching case describes the digital transformation of the lead site, Princess Alexandra Hospital, and their experience in becoming Australia’s first large digital hospital. This case has been informed by a multi-year qualitative study involving the collection of primary (observations and interviews) and secondary data (publicly available project records) before and after the implementation. This case is relevant to undergraduate and postgraduate students in information systems, executive management, and clinical/health informatics

Place-keeping for health? Charting the challenges for urban park management in practice

There is a growing body of evidence that demonstrates the health and well-being benefits of urban green spaces. There is less evidence on the effect of the management of such spaces on our health and well-being. This paper attempts to address this gap in knowledge by calling on empirical evidence collected in the United Kingdom (UK) city of Sheffield. Interviews conducted with professionals and community groups involved in the management of six district parks are analysed using the place-keeping analytical framework. The results highlight the overriding importance of local and national policy regarding how they inform the availability of funding, which is increasingly dependent on partnerships, and governance arrangements to contribute to a park’s maintenance, which is monitored through evaluation. The findings show how policies without funding can jeopardise the effective management of parks and how the concept of making park management a statutory service might have more traction if we consider its contribution to people’s health

Did the evidence-based intervention (EBI) programme reduce inappropriate procedures, lessen unwarranted variation or lead to spill-over effects in the National Health Service?

Background Health systems are under pressure to maintain services within limited resources. The Evidence-Based Interventions (EBI) programme published a first list of guidelines in 2019, which aimed to reduce inappropriate use of interventions within the NHS in England, reducing potential harm and optimising the use of limited resources. Seventeen procedures were selected in the first round, published in April 2019. Methods We evaluated changes in the trends for each procedure after its inclusion in the EBI’s first list of guidelines using interrupted time series analysis. We explored whether there was any evidence of spill-over effects onto related or substitute procedures, as well as exploring changes in geographical variation following the publication of national guidance. Results Most procedures were experiencing downward trends in the years prior to the launch of EBI. We found no evidence of a trend change in any of the 17 procedures following the introduction of the guidance. No evidence of spill-over increases in substitute or related procedures was found. Geographic variation in the number of procedures performed across English CCGs remained at similar levels before and after EBI. Conclusions The EBI programme had little success in its aim to further reduce the use of the 17 procedures it deemed inappropriate in all or certain circumstances. Most procedure rates were already decreasing before EBI and all continued with a similar trend afterwards. Geographical variation in the number of procedures remained at a similar level post EBI. De-adoption of inappropriate care is essential in maintaining health systems across the world. However, further research is needed to explore context specific enablers and barriers to effective identification and de-adoption of such inappropriate health care to support future de-adoption endeavours

Convergence calls: multimedia storytelling at British news websites

This article uses qualitative interviews with senior editors and managers from a selection of the UK's national online news providers to describe and analyse their current experimentation with multimedia and video storytelling. The results show that, in a period of declining newspaper readership and TV news viewing, editors are keen to embrace new technologies, which are seen as being part of the future of news. At the same time, text is still reported to be the cornerstone for news websites, leading to changes in the grammar and function of news video when used online. The economic rationale for convergence is examined and the article investigates the partnerships sites have entered into in order to be able to serve their audience with video content. In-house video is complementing syndicated content, and the authors examine the resulting developments in newsroom training and recruitment practices. The article provides journalism and interactive media scholars with case studies on the changes taking place in newsrooms as a result of the shift towards multimedia, multiplatform news consumption

Evaluation of aid to diagnosis of pigmented skin lesions in general practice: controlled trial randomized by practice

Objectives: To determine whether an aid to the diagnosis of pigmented skin lesions reduces the ratio of benign lesions to melanomas excised in general practice. Design: Controlled trial randomised by practice. Setting: General practices in Perth, Western Australia. Participants: 468 general practitioners in 223 practices. Interventions: Intervention practices were given an algorithm and instant camera to assist with the diagnosis of pigmented skin lesions. All practices were given national guidelines on managing melanoma. Main outcome measures: Ratio of benign pigmented lesions to melanomas excised. Analyses conducted with and without inclusion of seborrhoeic keratoses. Results: At baseline the ratios of benign to malignant lesions were lower in the intervention group than in the control group. During the trial period the ratios were higher in the intervention group (19:1 v 17:1 without seborrhoeic keratoses and 29:1 v 26:1 with seborrhoeic keratoses). After adjustment for patients' age, sex, and socioeconomic status, the ratio was 1.02 times higher (95% confidence interval 0.68 to 1.51, P = 0.94) in the intervention group when seborrhoeic keratoses were not included and 1.03 times higher (0.71 to 1.50, P = 0.88) when seborrhoeic keratoses were included. General practitioners in the intervention group were less likely than those in the control group to excise the most recent pigmented skin lesion they managed (22% v 48%, P < 0.001) and to refer the patient to a specialist (16% v 27%, P = 0.06). Conclusions: Provision of the algorithm and camera did not decrease the ratio of benign pigmented skin lesions to melanomas excised by general practitioners