Clinical Leadership as an Agent for Change:A Health System Improvement Intervention in Curacao

Introduction: The healthcare system in Curaçao is complex, fragmented, and poorly organized and typifies a system in a resource-limited environment. Deficits in competencies and local cultural barriers are factors that hinder sustainable healthcare in such settings and a failure to meet WHO sustainable development goals. This study reports the potential cost-effectiveness and improved health outcomes of the first stage of a healthcare improvement project. The intervention, which is a multidisciplinary team-based leadership training program (MLP), reflects a promising strategy to tackle local healthcare needs. Methods: A Multidisciplinary group of healthcare professionals in St. Elisabeth hospital, Curaçao, was selected to 1) participate in the MLP and 2) co-design a healthcare pathway on the management of decubitus ulcers. Using a qualitative research methodology, we conducted interviews to assess the perceived leadership growth, teamwork, and the barriers to the introduction of the new care pathway in their setting. Six themes were identified that explained the perceived leadership development and interprofessional collaboration. These included 1) Professional background, 2) Healthcare pathway design, 3) Resources, 4) Personal development, 5) Collaboration 6) Execution. Conclusion/Implication: The participants valued the interdisciplinary approach of this health improvement project and acknowledged the added value of a training program that also addressed personal growth. This study shows how MLPs for health professionals can also serve as catalysts for health improvement efforts in resource-limited environments

Characteristics of Different Systems for the Solar Drying of Crops

Solar dryers are used to enable the preservation of agricultural crops, food processing industries for dehydration of fruits and vegetables, fish and meat drying, dairy industries for production of milk powder, seasoning of wood and timber, textile industries for drying of textile materials. The fundamental concepts and contexts of their use to dry crops is discussed in the chapter. It is shown that solar drying is the outcome of complex interactions particular between the intensity and duration of solar energy, the prevailing ambient relative humidity and temperature, the characteristics of the particular crop and its pre-preparation and the design and operation of the solar dryer

Serious games as an educational strategy for management and leadership development in postgraduate medical education - an exploratory inquiry

Contains fulltext : 194894.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Novel approaches to the analysis and model synthesis of ultra-wide-band horn-type antennas

Model problems in the theory of ultra-wide-band horn-type antennas are initial boundary value problems in infinite domains with locally inhomogeneous and perfectly conducting compact scattering objects. The key to their efficient solution lies in the correct truncation of a computational domain, which on the one hand, reduces the fundamentally open problem to the closed one, and on the other hand, has little or no effect on the accuracy and reliability of resulting numerical data

Clinical Leadership as an Agent for Change: A Health System Improvement Intervention in Curacao

Introduction: The healthcare system in Curaçao is complex, fragmented, and poorly organized and typifies a system in a resource-limited environment. Deficits in competencies and local cultural barriers are factors that hinder sustainable healthcare in such settings and a failure to meet WHO sustainable development goals. This study reports the potential cost-effectiveness and improved health outcomes of the first stage of a healthcare improvement project. The intervention, which is a multidisciplinary team-based leadership training program (MLP), reflects a promising strategy to tackle local healthcare needs. Methods: A Multidisciplinary group of healthcare professionals in St. Elisabeth hospital, Curaçao, was selected to 1) participate in the MLP and 2) co-design a healthcare pathway on the management of decubitus ulcers. Using a qualitative research methodology, we conducted interviews to assess the perceived leadership growth, teamwork, and the barriers to the introduction of the new care pathway in their setting. Six themes were identified that explained the perceived leadership development and interprofessional collaboration. These included 1) Professional background, 2) Healthcare pathway design, 3) Resources, 4) Personal development, 5) Collaboration 6) Execution. Conclusion/Implication: The participants valued the interdisciplinary approach of this health improvement project and acknowledged the added value of a training program that also addressed personal growth. This study shows how MLPs for health professionals can also serve as catalysts for health improvement efforts in resource-limited environments

Intracranial repair of posttraumatic cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhea associated with recurrent meningitis

PMID = 2546989