Assessing Service Quality in the Ghanaian Private Healthcare Sector: The Case of Comboni Hospital.

The healthcare industry has become a paramount concern for most people in Ghana and the quality of services rendered to the patients in the private hospitals cannot be overemphasized. Patients need quality of services most and are willing to seek better services. The government has been the main provider of health care services in Ghana but recently, some Non-Governmental Organization’s (NGO’s), private individuals and stakeholders also provide health care services which has surged the competitiveness in creating more healthcare facilities in Ghana. This study seeks to explore patients' choice of selecting quality healthcare services and the factors that affect patient satisfaction in private hospitals using the case of Comboni Hospital in Sogakope, Ghana. The study therefore used the quantitative research method to collect the data and SPSS version 22 was used to analyze the data on high-quality healthcare. The SERVQUAL model was used as the measurement scale. Multiple regression analysis was used to reveal the effect of the independent variables (reliability, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, and tangibility) on the dependent variable (patient satisfaction). A detailed description in the analysis and the data processing identified the main factors affecting the general perceptions and patient preferences about their healthcare in the private hospital. The study revealed that there exist a positive result and perception for quality healthcare services without a negative expectation of the patient healthcare being compromised. The study recommends that both the government and the private agencies should consider the important aspects of the hospital’s healthcare management and also the policy and decision makers should have an efficient and effective standard that impact the quality of healthcare assessment in Ghana

Is margin lending marginal?

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Rules of the game: book review

In Trading & Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners, SEC Chief Economist Larry Harris has written a must-read for anyone interested in the good, the bad, and the ugly of securities trading.Securities ; Stock market

Open plan and academe: pre- and post-hoc conversations

There now exists a strong body of evidence that creative workplaces can, in certain circumstances, exert beneficial influences on organisational cultures and outputs. Academia tends to resist such spaces and faculty buildings. The reasons are explored but the reactions of staff are not found to be different from those reported in the literature on general creative spaces. The success or failure of team oriented workspaces is in large part a socially constructed perception influenced by the manner of implementation and management. As elsewhere new workplaces are about new conversations. The cases studied lead to a model of the tensions inherent in workplace redesign.</p

The effect of mixing, radiation, and finite rate combustion upon the flow field and surroundings of the exhaust plumes of rocket engines burning RP1 /kerosene/ and liquid oxygen

Shear layer mixing, hydrocarbon oxidation, and carbon cloud radiation models for liquid rocket engine exhaust plume analysi

Nutrient cycling on organic farms

This paper examines the sustainability of nutrient cycling on organic farms. After a brief consideration of the principles of nutrient cycling in organic agriculture, data on soil P and K indices and farm nutrient budgets is used to assess the integrity of nutrient cycling, including some consideration of losses to the environment. An attempt is made to assess the wider sustainability of organic farming in the context of the limited amount of recycling possible

Efficiency Effects Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Mechanization and Fast Track Land Reform Programme: A Stochastic Frontier Approach

A development goal pursued by the Zimbabwean government even before the much-maligned fast track land reform programme (FTLRP) was expansion of agricultural production through agricultural mechanization. This goal has been pursued through the acquisition and use of tractors by arable crop farmers in communal and resettlement state land delineated during the period following the launch of the FTLRP. This research project investigated the combined impacts of mechanization and an unplanned land reform on agricultural productivity in the Bindura district of Zimbabwe. The existing land policy and the issue of technical efficiency in agricultural productivity are assumed to be the drivers of the programme. It is likely that these issues will be important considerations in determining the sustainability of the mechanization policy. A multistage sampling technique was used to randomly select 90 farmers in the study area and structured questionnaires were used to collect demographic, investment and production data which were subsequently fitted by means of the Stochastic Frontier Model. Results revealed that mechanization was an important factor in the performance of the farmers who participated in the programme. The results also suggest that availability of land and access to production resources are crucial to farm productivity. Despite these, overall production and productivity remain low and the hyperinflationary situation triggered by supply constraints are only beginning to slightly ease. As the national unity government grapples with the huge task to restore growth in the Zimbabwean economy, it is important that these issues are borne in mind.Technical Constraints, Market Access, Agricultural Development, Induced Innovation Model, The Stochastic Frontier model, The Productive Efficiency and Mandate of Extension, Farm Management,

Performance of Smallholder Agriculture Under Limited Mechanization and the Fast Track Land Reform Program in Zimbabwe

agricultural mechanization, fast track land reform, agricultural development, Stochastic Frontier model, technical efficiency, agribusiness management, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, International Development, Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

How to Sow and Reap as You Go: a Simple Model of Cyclical Endogenous Growth

In this paper, we present a simple endogenous growth model that allows for the occurrence of innovations that can develop into General Purpose Technologies (GPTs), which are the result of basic R&D. The model incorporates the main features of the Romer (1990) model and the Aghion and Howitt (1992) model by using multi-level Ethier functions on the one hand, and Poisson processes to describe the arrival of innovations produced by performing basic R&D and applied R&D. Through basic R&D the core of a potentially new GPT enters the economic system. This core offers the possibility for further expansion of the potential GPT through applied R&D by adding peripherals to this core. The characteristics of the new potential GPT that is represented by the core are randomly distributed. These characteristics include intrinsic profitability, scope for expansion, as well as R&D opportunities and efficiency of the corresponding applied R&D process. By using some illustrative simulations with the model, we show that the arrival of a successful GPT does indeed bring about a reallocation of R&D activities towards applied R&D, thus postponing the moment of arrival of the next GPT. Meanwhile, applied R&D raises the productivity of the GPT as a whole. But the profitability of finding the next/marginal peripheral falls in the process. This fall in marginal profits diminishes the incentives to engage in further applied R&D and increases the incentives to move into basic R&D activities again. Thus, we obtain a cyclical pattern in output growth that is not only partly driven by the arrival of the new potential GPTs but also by the continuing development of existing GPTs in the absence of the arrival of new ones. In periods that do not give rise to the arrival of new successful GPTs we find instances of alternating expansions of existing GPTs that have the character of a GPT-race.economic development an growth ;