The Amsterdam Studies of Acute Psychiatry - II (ASAP-II): a comparative study of psychiatric intensive care units in the Netherlands

Background The number of patients in whom mental illness progresses to stages in which acute, and often forced treatment is warranted, is on the increase across Europe. As a consequence, more patients are involuntarily admitted to Psychiatric Intensive Care Units (PICU). From several studies and reports it has become evident that important dissimilarities exist between PICU's. The current study seeks to describe organisational as well as clinical and patient related factors across ten PICU's in and outside the Amsterdam region, adjusted for or stratified by level of urbanization. Method/Design This paper describes the design of the Amsterdam Studies of Acute Psychiatry II (ASAP-II). This study is a prospective observational cohort study comparing PICU's in and outside the Amsterdam region on various patient characteristics, treatment aspects and recovery related variables. Dissimilarities were measured by means of collecting standardized forms which were filled out in the framework of care as usual, by means of questionnaires filled out by mental health care professionals and by means of extracting data from patient files for every consecutive patient admitted at participating PICU's during a specific time period. Urbanization levels for every PICU were calculated conform procedures as proposed by the Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS). Discussion The current study may provide a deeper understanding of the differences between psychiatric intensive care units that can be used to promote best practice and benchmarking procedures, and thus improve the standard of care

How do plural-sourcing firms make and buy the impact of supplier portfolio design

This paper uses the notion of contracting strategy to advance research in plural sourcing. We develop and test a theoretical framework to explain how plural-sourcing firms strike the make-and-buy balance depending on their contracting strategy. The focal firm’s choice of a contracting strategy is associated with a specific supplier portfolio design, with a bargaining-based strategy resulting in many, narrowly capable suppliers with short tenure, and a relationship-based contracting strategy resulting in fewer, broadly capable suppliers with long tenure. Focal firms with the latter strategy incur lower overall contracting costs than those with the former, and therefore outsource more. Focal firms seek to influence contracting costs associated with their supplier portfolio for “nearly the same inputs” and “nearly the same suppliers”. Empirical analysis corresponding to the two levels, namely patent prosecution and legal services at Fortune 500 firms, provide consistent support for our theory