The Mediating Role of Staffing on Quality of Care in Nonprofit and For-Profit Nursing Homes in Indiana

This study attempts to disentangle the relationships between ownership, staffing, and nursing home quality using Indiana nursing home data. Typical Indiana nursing homes are known to be below average on health inspection and overall quality ratings. This is alarming because Indiana’s population aged 85 years or older is increasing and these individuals are likely to need long-term care services. With an ultimate goal of addressing the poor quality of long-term care institutions, this study analyzed the Nursing Home Compare data collected from 2010 to 2012 by utilizing chi- square tests, one-way ANOVAs, and correlation analysis. The results revealed that nonprofit nursing homes have superior quality and record a greater number of registered nurse and certified nursing assistant hours per resident day compared to for-profit nursing homes. In addition, higher staffing hours were positively associated with overall rating. These findings imply a possibility that higher staffing levels in nonprofit nursing homes have a mediating effect on the relationship between ownership and nursing home quality. In order to improve nursing home quality, registered nurse and certified nursing assistant staffing levels need to be boosted. Enactment of state staffing standards and the Medicaid wage pass-through policy could help to address this issue

Sharing Health Risk and Income Risk within Households: Evidence from Japanese Data

We examine the question of which household members should consume medical services, and in what quantities, by using Japanese household-level data. We employ two key concepts, health risk and income risk, and investigate whether family heads or dependents bear these risks. Health risk is the risk that a household member falls ill, while income risk is the risk that future household income decreases. We find that both heads and dependents make fewer visits to doctors as household size increases. We also find that only dependents visited doctors less frequently following the reform of the public health insurance system, which raised the co-payment rate of family heads from 10% to 20%. These findings imply that heads and dependents share health risk but dependents bear income riskco-payment; health risk; income risk; public health insurance

Bank lending and monetary policy: the effects of structural shift in interest rates

This paper provides evidence to show that the interest rate regime adopted by the monetary authority plays an important role in determining the effectiveness of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy via bank lending channel using Malaysian data. As part of the strategy to deal with the recent financial crisis, the Malaysian government introduced capital control measures which subsequently led to a structural shift in interest rates. Before the shift, interest rates were relatively high. The contractionary monetary policy achieved desirable results through the bank lending channel. However, responses of bank lending to interest rate changes were limited after the structural shift which characterises a period of low interest rate regime, rendering the bank lending channel ineffective.bounds test

Conceptualization of Organizational Empowerment: A Study of North Korean Refugee Organizations

Session 3: International. Presenter: Sook Hyun Kim, Ph.D., Boston University (2011) - "Conceptualization of Organizational Empowerment: A Study of North Korean Refugee Organizations".The Ohio State University College of Social Wor

A surjectivity result for quasibounded operators

AbstractUsing a degree theory for countably 1-contractive operators, we show a surjectivity theorem for such quasibounded operators. Moreover, the existence of an eigenvalue for these operators is presented

Predicting occurrence of and responses to psychological difficulties: the interplay between achievement goals, perceived ability and motivational climates among Korean athletes

The present study investigated the interrelationship of goal orientations, perceived ability, and perceived motivational climate to the experience of stress, perceived controllability, and choice of coping strategies. A total of 404 Korean intercollegiate athletes participated in the study. The results from moderated multiple regression analyses revealed that the experience of psychological difficulties was positively predicted by a perceived ego-involving climate and negatively predicted by perceived ability. The perceived controllability over stress was highest among athletes who had higher levels of task and ego orientation in a more taskinvolving atmosphere. Athletes used more approach coping as they perceived a higher level of task orientation regardless the level of perceived ability, and when they indicated higher task orientation scores in a low ego-involving environment. The avoidance/withdrawal coping strategies were positively related to an ego-involving climate. The findings implied that an examination of cultural variations in motivational factors and coping process among sport participants in a different culture may further extend theoretical applicability across diverse populations

Analysis of determinant factors of a convention and visitors bureau website service quality: Perspectives of meeting planners

Website service quality is widely accepted as one of the key determinants of online business success. Several studies identified key factors that determine the website service quality factors appropriate for online business environments (Kaynama & Black, 2000; Van Riel, Liljander, & Jurriens, 2001). A convention and visitors bureau (CVB) website is a service portal that delivers information online about a destination so users can develop an overall image of the location; CVBs struggle to deliver positive destination images because the competition among destinations to host conventions is intense. In spite of the important role of CVBs and the beneficial spillover effect of CVBs, there are few studies available reporting on the unique service qualities of a CVB website; The primary purpose of this study was to examine the determining factors that are appropriate for CVB websites from the meeting planners\u27 perspective. The research questions are: What are the determining factors of service quality of a CVB website? Do the determining factors of CBV website service quality positively influence meeting planners\u27 satisfaction? The new conceptual framework was developed from a variety of destination marketing and Internet marketing concepts: e-servicescape management, web community network, Internet service encounter management, and online system quality; Empirical results indicate that three of the four factors, that is, e-servicescape, web community network, and online system quality are important determinants in evaluating CVB website service quality. The findings also show that three determinants have significant and positive influence on meeting planners\u27 satisfaction. The findings from this study will provide meaningful advice for CVB website quality management. To enhance the CVB website service quality and satisfaction level of meeting planners, these three determinants should be considered of the utmost strategic importance and priority

Abandoned Babies: The Backlash of South Korea\u27s Special Adoption Act

South Korea amended its adoption law to reduce the number of foreign adoptions and to keep children with their biological families. However, since the amendment took effect in August 2012, more babies have been abandoned. The amendment (hereinafter the “Special Adoption Act”) created three conditions on birthparents who wish to place their child up for adoption. First, birthparents must wait at least seven days after their child is born before they may consent to placing their child up for adoption. Second, birthparents must receive counseling on the various resources that would be available to them if they choose to raise the child themselves. Finally, birthparents must go through family court to place their child up for adoption, meaning that the adoption would be a part of government records. The legislative intent behind the Special Adoption Act was to keep children with their biological families, reduce the number of foreign adoptions, and encourage more domestic adoptions. The legislature intended to accomplish these goals by making the adoption process more transparent and by making available information deemed “necessary to promote domestic adoption.” However, after the Special Adoption Act took effect, an unexpected problem emerged: more infants are being abandoned, particularly those born to unwed mothers. This comment examines South Korea’s Special Adoption Act in the context of the Korean culture and history. It proposes that the biggest weakness of the Act is that it attempts to keep children with their biological families by making the adoption process more burdensome on the birthparents. This comment further suggests that the Act should instead resort to more effective and permanent means of encouraging birthparents to raise their children, such as fighting the social stigma surrounding adoptions, children born out of wedlock, and single mothers. In fact, even though South Korea overhauled its constitution to guarantee gender equality in the mid-1980s, a legacy remains of decades of discrimination against women, and women today still struggle to raise children born out of wedlock