38 research outputs found

    An audio personal health library of clinic visit recordings for patients and their caregivers (HealthPAL): User-centered design approach

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    Background: Providing digital recordings of clinic visits to patients has emerged as a strategy to promote patient and family engagement in care. With advances in natural language processing, an opportunity exists to maximize the value of visit recordings for patients by automatically tagging key visit information (eg, medications, tests, and imaging) and linkages to trustworthy web-based resources curated in an audio-based personal health library. Objective: This study aims to report on the user-centered development of HealthPAL, an audio personal health library. Methods: Our user-centered design and usability evaluation approach incorporated iterative rounds of video-recorded sessions from 2016 to 2019. We recruited participants from a range of community settings to represent older patient and caregiver perspectives. In the first round, we used paper prototypes and focused on feature envisionment. We moved to low-fidelity and high-fidelity versions of the HealthPAL in later rounds, which focused on functionality and use; all sessions included a debriefing interview. Participants listened to a deidentified, standardized primary care visit recording before completing a series of tasks (eg, finding where a medication was discussed in the recording). In the final round, we recorded the patients\u27 primary care clinic visits for use in the session. Findings from each round informed the agile software development process. Task completion and critical incidents were recorded in each round, and the System Usability Scale was completed by participants using the digital prototype in later rounds. Results: We completed 5 rounds of usability sessions with 40 participants, of whom 25 (63%) were women with a median age of 68 years (range 23-89). Feedback from sessions resulted in color-coding and highlighting of information tags, a more prominent play button, clearer structure to move between one\u27s own recordings and others\u27 recordings, the ability to filter recording content by the topic discussed and descriptions, 10-second forward and rewind controls, and a help link and search bar. Perceived usability increased over the rounds, with a median System Usability Scale of 78.2 (range 20-100) in the final round. Participants were overwhelmingly positive about the concept of accessing a curated audio recording of a clinic visit. Some participants reported concerns about privacy and the computer-based skills necessary to access recordings. Conclusions: To our knowledge, HealthPAL is the first patient-centered app designed to allow patients and their caregivers to access easy-to-navigate recordings of clinic visits, with key concepts tagged and hyperlinks to further information provided. The HealthPAL user interface has been rigorously co-designed with older adult patients and their caregivers and is now ready for further field testing. The successful development and use of HealthPAL may help improve the ability of patients to manage their own care, especially older adult patients who have to navigate complex treatment plans

    Personal epistemologies and disciplinarity in the workplace: implications for international students in higher education

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    Workplace experiences for international students undertaking higher education programs are important aspects of their university experience. This is because many of the programs in which they are enrolled are directed towards particular occupations. Nevertheless, these workplace experiences can be both engaging and daunting for all, but perhaps no more so than for international students, who may be unfamiliar with Australian workplace mores and practices, and therefore less able to understand and negotiate with them than their domestic counterparts. Not only do international students have to become familiar with the requirements of their selected profession but also need to understand and negotiate unfamiliar cultural environments. These students often have to engage in complex and demanding learning processes when engaging in work placements, perhaps more so than their domestic peers. Because of these discipline-based and workplace environmental challenges, it is necessary for these students and their mentors or supervisors to try and effectively mediate their participation and learning in the work placements. If all of those involved in work placements are aware of these factors, then the experiences and outcomes should potentially be more beneficial for all parties (i.e., students, supervisors, university staff, and workplaces). These issues are explored in this chapter through the notions of disciplinarity, which attends to the epistemological nuances of particular study or knowledge areas and how students develop skills as disciplinary professionals. With a focus on international students, the elaborations of these issues are explored through consideration of interculturalisation and how both the experiences and experiencing of international students impacts upon the success of their work placements. Using these concepts as explanatory bases stands to permit the illumination and elaboration of the complexity of factors and processes occurring as these students learn about, and participate in, their selected professional discipline and the cultural environment of its practice

    Refugee immigrants: addressing social exclusion by promoting agency in the Australian VET sector

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    Refugee immigrants\u27 past traumatic personal histories as well as their present social exclusion experiences are likely to adversely affect their exercise of personal agency and resettlement in Australia. Efforts to improve their capability to exercise agency and resettlement should be premised on social structural affordances and environments that support their participation and contribution to Australian society. One way that these supportive affordances could be created is through refugee immigrants\u27 improved access to and meaningful engagement with the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector and its technical and further education (TAFE) institutes. This paper identifies significant agentic factors associated with refugee immigrants\u27 past personal histories as well as social exclusion experiences linked to their present resettlement, and explores ways that the VET sector and publicly funded TAFE institutes could address these issues. In conclusion, a set of recommendations are provided as guidelines on how the VET sector and TAFE institutes could address personal agency and social exclusion challenges for refugee immigrants in Australia

    The OCED transfer pricing guidelines: an analysis of their application in the South Africian legal regime

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    The provisions of S 31 of the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 governing certain crossborder transactions amongst entities form the basis of transfer pricing legal regulatory regime in South Africa. The arm's length principle forms the backbone of applying the provisions of the section. The existing legislation is wide in scope hence difficult to apply on the taxpayer's hand; consequently, in some instances it does not serve its intended purpose. For this reason, the South Africa Revenue Service (SARS) has provided a practice note (SARS practice note No. 7 of 1999) which gives guidance on the determination of taxable income of certain persons from nternational transactions. The practice note is largely based on the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) comprehensive transfer pricing guidelines. These guidelines are found in the OECD Report, Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations (1997).These guidelines have increasingly been adopted by many states. South Africa is a non-member state of OECD Model Tax Convention but has however adopted the transfer pricing guidelines therein. This study, examines the OECD transfer pricing guidelines, with a view of analysing the manner and extent to which South Africa has adopted them in its current transfer pricing policy. The unique South African economic situation is taken into account. The rationale and extent to which such guidelines have been adopted is relevant and critical in determining efficacy. The findings of this study are threefold. Firstly, the OECD transfer pricing guidelines provide globally accepted standards and methodology by which tax authorities act in common interest to share satisfactorily in the tax which is properly due to them from the taxpayer. Secondly, South Africa has, to a larger extent,managed to keep abreast with the international developments in transfer pricing and compares favourably with the OECD guidelines. Finally, existing legislation has shortcomings such as regulation of financial intra-group assistance services especially the characterisation of certain intra-group debt for transfer purposes. This suggests deviations from the OECD guidelines. Therefore, whether existing law suites local circumstances is doubtable

    Productivity in the Workplace Identifying Factors that Impact on Productivity in the Workplace a Case Study of Commercial Bank of Africa

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    A Research Project Report by Onsando Caroline Wanjiku, Submitted to the Chandaria School of Business in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Master in Management and Organization Developmen

    Integrating a Company's Growth Strategy and Compliance Programme for Business Optimisation in High Risk Compliance Countries: Solutions for Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG in China

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    With the ever increasing global competitive business environment, capturing new lucrative markets has taken the forefront for Multinational Entities (MNE’s). In the recent past, emerging countries have gained prominence as a focal growth destination for many MNEs. Despite the business opportunities that they offer, they still remain complex markets in which to do business. Consequently, for the MNEs that have made entry into these markets, adequate growth strategies designed to include sets of activities that deliver a unique mix of value to the organization are imperative.1 This therefore calls for such organisations to adapt their existing growth strategies in emerging markets to various demands. This is in order to maximise performance through well-orchestrated growth agendas that work in concert with the overall corporate strategy. Nevertheless, for overall success, businesses are becoming more aware that operational and control failures can be extremely costly.2 This is because growth comes with increased risks hence a need for new solutions to mitigate and manage the risks. Consequently, the discipline of compliance which is designed to mitigate risks through adherence of; legal requirements, internal and external policies is no longer a second-thought function that requires action down the road. Corporate leaders now recognize that it is important for business expansion and the protection of shareholder value.3 In these markets, compliance related issues have proved to be difficult hurdles for many organisations and they are widely viewed high risk compliance markets. 4 Despite this, many MNEs that venture into such markets fail to integrate their growth strategies and compliance programmes/strategies. This paper explores the hypothesis that for organisations to optimise performance, their compliance programmes/strategies should work in concert with their broader strategic goals, e.g. growth. This thesis aims to show how the two can be integrated by using Rolls-Royce Power Systems’ AG (RRPS) growth strategy in China and its compliance programme as a case study. The hypothesis is that, if successfully integrated, RRPS can maximise its growth performance in China. Secondly the study seeks to provide a flexible check list or template that RRPS can adapt in its future Integrated Sales Road Maps (ISRMs) in other targeted countries or regions

    Longitudinal Evidence on Educational and Occupational Outcomes Amongst South Sudanese Men from Refugee Backgrounds Living in Urban and Regional Southeast Queensland

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    Australia has continued to benefit from the human, social and economic capital contributed by immigrant resettlement over many years. Humanitarian entrants have also made significant economic, social and civic contributions to the Australian society. Since 2000, approximately 160,000 people have entered Australia under the refugee and humanitarian resettlement program; around 15% have come from South Sudan and one third of these are adult males.\ud \ud In response to the 2003 evaluation of the Integrated Humanitarian Settlement Strategy (IHSS), which recommended to seek further opportunities to settle humanitarian entrants in regional Australia, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) has since encouraged regional settlement to “address the demand for less skilled labour in regional economies and to assist humanitarian entrants to achieve early employment”. There is evidence, however, of the many challenges faced by humanitarian arrivals living in regional areas. This chapter focuses on the educational and occupational outcomes among 117 South Sudanese adult men from refugee backgrounds. In particular, the chapter uses both cross-sectional (at first interview) and longitudinal data (four interviews with each participant at six-month intervals) to compares outcomes between men living in Brisbane and those living in the Toowoomba–Gatton region in Southeast Queensland
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