Assessing the Effectiveness of a Performance Evaluation System in the Public Health Care Sector: Some Novel Evidence from the Tuscany Region Experience

Since 80's the introduction of New Public Management principles has promoted the use of performance measurement to drive a more efficient, effective and accountable public sector. The adoption of a sophisticated and comprehensive multidimensional performance measurement system, which looks beyond traditional financial measures, based on organization strategies, such as the balanced scorecard, has thus been suggested. This revolution in the public management came together with the devolution processes that involved most European public health systems. Set within this context, in the last decade, each of the twenty Italian regions developed its own management tools. Among others, the Tuscan performance evaluation system (PES) has been valued as a particularly innovative and comprehensive system. This paper reports the novel experience of the Tuscan PES; in particular, it measures PES effectiveness and discusses the critical factors that could have led to the PES success. Five are the critical success factors identified by researchers: the visual reporting system, the linkage between PES and CEO's reward system, the public disclosure of data, the high level of employees and managers involvement into the entire process and the strong political commitment. All those factors run together to achieve better results; however, the process of development of the system plays a pivotal role. Scholars suggest the use of a constructive approach in order to gain effective changes in human organization. According to this stream of literature, this paper contributes by the novel experience of the Tuscan PES in addressing as a further fruitful application of the constructivist approach in healthcare

The Emergence of Hospital Federations: An Integration of Perspectives from Organizational Theory

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68464/2/10.1177_107755878704400206.pd

Design indicators for better accommodation environments in hospitals: inpatients’ perceptions

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Intelligent Buildings International, 2012, [© Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17508975.2012.701186Several studies have found an association between the physical environment and human health and wellbeing that resulted in the postulation of the idea of evidence-based and patient-centred design of healthcare facilities. The key challenge is that most of the underpinning research for the evidence base is context specific, the use of which in building design is complex, mainly because of the difficulties associated with the disaggregation of findings from the context. On the other hand, integrating patients’ perspectives requires an understanding of the relative importance of design indicators, which the existing evidence base lacks to a large extent. This research was aimed at overcoming these limitations by investigating users’ perception of the importance of key design indicators in enhancing their accommodation environments in hospitals. A 19-item structured questionnaire was used to gather inpatients' views on a 5-point scale, in two Chinese hospitals. A principal component analysis (PCA) resulted in five constructed dimensions with appropriate reliability and validity (Cronbach’s alpha=0.888). The item, design for cleanliness, was ranked as most important, closely followed by environmental and safety design indicators. The item, entertainment facilities, was ranked lowest. The indicator, pleasant exterior view had the second lowest mean score, followed by the item, ability to customise the space. Age, accommodation type and previous experience of hospitalisation accounted for statistically significant differences in perceptions of importance of various constructed design dimensions

The Future Of Doctoral Education In Health Administration And Policy.

Doctoral education in health administration and policy has exhibited stagnation over the past decade in terms of enrollment, graduates, curricula, etc. However, this apparent overall stagnation masks some significant changes that should accelerate in the years ahead. This paper examines the current challenges for doctoral programs in health administration and policy in terms of program orientation, program content, student profiles, and the job market. Given these challenges, predictions are made concerning future enrollment growth in various types of doctoral programs over the next ten years. Finally, recommendations concerning program orientation, program content, student profiles, and the job market are provided overall and by program type. The two most important recommendations that apply across-the-board are to update data on doctoral education and to seek foundation support for a fundamental reassessment of doctoral education for the twenty-first century

A Framework For Doctoral Education In Health Administration And Policy.

The fundamental building block upon which the whole edifice of education for health services administration rests is doctoral education. Programs can be no better than the quantity and quality of doctoral graduates available to them. In turn, these graduates can be no better than the programs in which they were trained. The purpose of the present paper is to propose a framework for analyzing five different types of doctoral programs in health services administration and policy. First, five models of doctoral education in health services administration and policy are proposed and described. Second, the advantages and disadvantages of each of these models are described fro the viewpoint of the producer. Third, the most appropriate matches of program types and customer orientations are outlined. The basic premise of the paper is that the employers of doctoral graduates occupy (implicitly or explicitly) a limited set of market niches. No single doctoral program can meet the needs of all potential employers. Nor should the potential employer expect that all program types will produce graduates equally capable of meeting their needs