Examining the relationship between job enrichment and performance: A case study of nurses

Background: Nurses are the largest group of health care professionals whose performance plays a significant role in improving health care services. One way to increase performance and job satisfaction in nurses is job enrichment. Job enrichment seeks improving performance and employees� satisfaction by broadening the scope of one�s performance and giving more opportunities for individual success and growth. The present study aims at investigating the relationship between job enrichment and its dimensions on nurses� performance. Research Methodology: The present analytical research was done in a public hospital on 160 nurses in Tehran in 2012. The instrument was a questionnaire consisting of two sections of nurses� demographic information and JDS questionnaire with 21 items. The employees� assessment was based on official assessment and self-assessment. The data was analyzed by SPSS.19 and descriptive statistics of mean, standard deviation, frequency, percentage, and comparative tests of qualitative data (Chi-square). Results: The score of all nurses� performance, whether the formal or official score of performance assessment or the assessment score itself, indicated a high level of performance score and more than half of the nurses had a performance score of 81 to 90. Among the seven dimensions of job enrichment, the lowest mean was related to job independence and the highest was related to interaction and subsequently. In general, there was no statistically significant importance between job performance and job enrichment (P=0.212). Conclusion: Regarding the research limitation (the criterion for assessing nurses� performance was their self-assessment score); it seems that assessing performance score more accurately studies the relationship between these two factors with more precision. In addition, with respect to the deep influence of nursing care on patients� health, utilizing other methods of empowerment for improving nurses� performance is essential in this hospital. © 2015, Canadian Center of Science and Education. All rights reserved

Organizational culture and the organizational commitment; Correlational study in hospital staffs

Organizations need the committed manpower to provide effectiveness and progress which is an important factor in order to achieve organizational goals. According to this, organizational culture increases employees commitment in the organization by their accepted norms and values. Actually, the organization environment & its prevailing culture, affects on the organizational commitment of staff. This study was conducted to assess relationship between the organizational culture and the organizational commitment among staff of elected hospirals in Tehran University of Medical Sciences. This descriptive study accomplished at 2013. The study population was hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences included the two hospitals �Vali Asr� & �farabi�. Also in hospitals, study populations were all hospital staffs (Administrative and Clinical). Data collection was done using a three parts questionnaire including: the first one contains background information, the second part consists of questions related to organizational culture based on Denison model and the third part includes questions related to organizational Commitment based on Porter model. Validity and reliability were confirmed through getting the opinions of experts and using Cronbach�s alpha. Data analysis was done by SPSS software using Pearson correlation test and the test �t� to determine the relation between the areas of culture and commitment to the type of hospitals. In organizational culture, maximum average & standard deviation has been seen in professional identity (4.74±1.38). Except for the two dimentions of conflict & communication patterns, a significant relation between the organizational culture dimentions and two hospitalas was seen. Also, in the organizational commitment, the maximum average & standard deviation was seen in continuous commitment scope. Overally, average & standard deviation (3.18±0.76) has been obtained for organizational commitment component; also there was significant relation between the emotional commitment dimention & the type of the hospital. This relationship wasn�t meaningful in another dimentions. Except for the conflict dimension, there was significant correlations between the organizational culture dimension& the organizational commitment (p<0.05). Also, this correlation was between the organizational culture and the organizational commitment (r=0.552) Designing an appropriate and justified "reward mechanism" and development of "teamwork" skills between employees can increase their organizational commitment positively and improve hospital performances. © 2015, Canadian Center of Science and Education. All right reserved

Relationship between social well-being and health related quality of life level among senior retirees of tehran university of medical sciences

Introduction: Senior citizens or the elderly people are a group of people in the society considered as a growing population with special needs in the developed contemporary world. Since they have special needs, it is essential to care about the quality of their life because of the dangers which threaten them. Since the social health of the retirees is decreased as a result of exiting from the workplace and directly affecting their life quality, the researcher has done the present study. Methodology: This paper which is a descriptive- analytic study has been periodically done in the second half of 2013. The participants were 227 senior retirees of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The data have been collected through a reliable and valid questionnaire of life quality related to health (sf-36) and social well-being of KEYES. The data then were analyzed using SPSS.19 and descriptive statistics and paired t-test, one way ANOVA test and Pearson correlation were use as well. Findings: There is a significant linear relation between life quality variable related to the health and social well-being components (P<0.05). There is also a significant correlation between the variables like age, sex, marital status, duration of employment and life quality. Results: Regarding the findings of the study, it seems that the policy makers and planners need to create a kind of active integration and balance in society according to the available devices and facilities, and try to apply a proper information system to eliminate the cultural problems, reinforce the social relations and coherences in order to increase the life quality of senior retires. © 2015, Canadian Center of Science and Education. All rights reserved

Analysis of development levels in the cities of Tehran province regarding health infrastructural index: The strategy of standardized score and Morris' inequality index

Background: One of the main indexes of development is health index or the degree to which a society enjoys health and therapeutic services. The present study was done with the aim to analyze development levels in cities in Tehran regarding health infrastructural index using the standardized score and Morris' model. Methods: This is a descriptive and pragmatic study which ranks 14 cities in Tehran province using the standardized score and Morris' models based on 10 selected health indexes. The required data were gathered using a researcher-made information list and the information gathered from the Statistics Center and Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The data were analyzed using Excel software. Results: The development coefficient in the studied cities varies from 0.595 to -0.379 so that Rey city has the highest level of development and Pishva city has the lowest level of development among the studied cities. The more number of the cities (43) was among the rather undeveloped group and none of the cities (0) was in the rather developed group. Conclusion: Regarding the findings, there is a big gap and difference regarding enjoying health and therapeutic infrastructural indexes among the cities in Tehran province. Therefore, it is suggested that development-oriented plans consistentent with development levels should be implemented in these cities

Factors affecting intensive care units nursing workload

Background: The nursing workload has a close and strong association with the quality of services provided for the patients. Therefore, paying careful attention to the factors affecting nursing workload, especially those working in the intensive care units (ICUs), is very important. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the factors affecting nursing workload in the ICUs of the hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional and analytical-descriptive study that has done in Iran. All nurses (n = 400) who was working in the ICUs of the hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 2014 were selected and studied using census method. The required data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire which its validity and reliability were confirmed through getting the opinions of experts and using composite reliability and internal consistency (α = 0.89). The collected data were analyzed through exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and using SPSS 18.0 and AMOS 18.0. Results: Twenty-five factors were divided into three major categories through EFA, including structure, process, and activity. The following factors among the structure, process and activity components had the greatest importance: lack of clear responsibilities and authorities and performing unnecessary tasks (by a coefficient of 0.709), mismatch between the capacity of wards and the number of patients (by a coefficient of 0.639), and helping the students and newly employed staff (by a coefficient of 0.589). Conclusions: The nursing workload is influenced by many factors. The clear responsibilities and authorities of nurses, patients' admission according to the capacity of wards, use of the new technologies and equipment, and providing basic training for new nurses can decrease the workload of nurses. © 2014, Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal; Published by Kowsar Corp

Patient safety culture in university hospital's emergency departments: A case study

Background: Improving patient safety culture in healthcare organization is the first step in reducing medical errors and improving patient safety. The aim of the study was to determine and to compare patient safety culture dimensions in emergency departments of selected educational hospitals of Kerman University of Medical Sciences. Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was conducted in 2018 in the emergency departments Shahid Bahonar, Afzalipour, Shahid Beheshti, and Shafa hospitals. Data collection was carried using the Hospital Survey of Patient Safety Culture questionnaire which includes 42 questions and 12 dimensions. Data were analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics. Results: The highest and lowest mean related to the organizational learning (3.96 ± 0.34) and handoffs and transitions (2.27 ± 0.55). According to independent t test, there was a significant relationship between nurse's gender and patient safety culture. Also, according to analysis of variance test, there was a significant relationship between work experience and patient safety culture. Conclusions: The situation of patient safety culture was average at a moderate level. Development of reporting system and encouraging staff to report errors and adjusting nursing number and workload is suggested. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Designing a Tool Related to Strategic Control in Hospital Centers

Introduction: One of the important requirements of health care systems in providing quality and safe services is developing appropriate strategies, effective implementation of these strategies, and controlling the results of the implementation. The design and implementation of a strategic control system ensures that the organization's performance in relation to the strategic management steps is correct. The purpose of this study was to identify and explore factors related to strategic control in the hospital systems. Methods: This analytical study was conducted in 2016 on 425 experts from the Strategic Planning Committee of educational hospitals affiliated to Tehran and Iran University of Medical Sciences and experts in the field of strategic planning. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. Data analysis was performed based on exploratory factor analysis with SPSS 21 software. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. Data analysis was conducted based on exploratory factor analysis using the SPSS software version 21. Results: Results of the exploratory factor analysis showed that factors related to strategic control in the hospital system were five independent factors including infrastructure and external support (variance percentage 13.3), vision clarification and strategy and conversion to action (variance percentage 12.2), sharing and establishing data and knowledge flow (variance percentage 10.3), planning and setting goals (variance percentage 9.2), and strategic learning and feedback (variance percentage 7.5). Conclusion: The results of the study showed that the strategic control questionnaire used in this study could be useful as a tool for assessing the accuracy of designing, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of strategies in the hospital systems. © 2020. All Rights Reserved

Evaluating Pattern of Prescribing Antibiotics in Surgical Wards of Shahid Rahnemon Hospital Compared to Standard Methods in 2015

Introduction: Antibiotics are regarded as one of the most widely consumed drugs, which have abundantly contributed to the treatment of diseases, though their incorrect prescription as well as indiscriminate use can cause such complications as drug resistance and failure in patients’ treatment. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the pattern of prescribing antibiotics in surgical wards of Shahid Rahnemon Hospital compared to standard Methods. Methods: This is an analytical study conducted on 154 patients undergoing surgey in 4 surgery wards (General surgery, urology, neurosurgery and orthopedics) of Shahid Rahnemon hospital in Yazd in 2015. In order to glean the study data, a researcher-made data collection form was applied. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software (ver-19) applying descriptive statistics (frequency and perrentage) and Chi-square test. Results: 24% of patients had consumed Ceftriaxone, 72.1 % Keflin and 3.9% had recievd Cefazolin. The prescribed dose results showed 87% of compatibility with the guidelines. Regarding the prescription method, 86.4% compatiblity was reported with the guidelines. In total, 68.8% of the prescribed antibiotics were matched with managed care instruction of number (8) in terms of their type. Conclusion: The present study findings revealed that in 68.8% of the operations, the prescribed antibiotics were compatible with the guidelines in all the cases. Hence, taking antibiogram bacteria isolated from patients into account, developing standard treatment guidelines, and possibly providing oral forms of antibiotics can be effective in rationalizing the use of injectable antibiotics

study of most important factors influencing the effectiveness of teaching from viewpoint of graduate students: AHP model approach

Abstract Introduction: To achieve an effective learning environment, it is of high priority to identify factors affecting teaching methods employed by a teacher and to deal with them from students’ perspective. The objective of this study is to determine the most important factors that influence the effectiveness of academics’ teaching methods from his/her graduate students’ point of view. Methods: This is a cross sectional-analytic study conducted in 2014. The participants were selected by census method according to the Registrar data of the School of Allied Medical Sciences, Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The data collection tool was a questionnaire containing demographic questions as well as nine questions about effective factors on teaching. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire were assessed, and the data was analyzed using analytic hierarchy process and Expert Choice V. 11 software. Results: According to the students participating in the study, the eloquent, simple expression and clear conveyance of the subject were the most important factors (0.216), while the assessment of students at each session, in the mid-term exam, and in the final exam was of the lowest importance regarding the effectiveness of academic teaching (0.057). No significant difference was found between male and female students considering factors affecting effective teaching. Conclusion: Results indicated that the eloquent and simple expression of subjects has the greatest impact on teaching effectiveness. Therefore, to promote the current situation, the high-ranking educational authorities of the university are required to take into account the quality of teaching effectiveness, for instance, to organize appropriate and purposeful training courses

A supplier selection model for hospitals using a combination of artificial neural network and fuzzy VIKOR

The supply chain management of medical equipment and consumer goods is full of uncertainties and unexpected issues and one of the major challenges of hospitals is the suppliers� evaluation and selection. study aimed to provide a model for selecting the best supplier in a hospital using a combination of artificial neural network and fuzzy VIKOR. This was a descriptive study conducted in a military hospital in three phases in 2016. The results showed that the most effective factor in supplier selection was �quality� (weight = 0.165). After that, the highest weights were, respectively, related to �price�, �timely delivery�, �packaging and transporting quality�, �the supplier's background� and �payment terms�. According to the results of the present study, the most important factor influencing the supplier selection was �quality�. Given the direct impact of medical equipment and consumer goods on patients� recovery and nurses and physicians� proper functioning and performance, it can be recommended that the hospital managers and the staff of purchasing unit should develop the quality assessment protocol of equipment and supplies and it should be evaluated periodically by nurses, physicians and patients. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group