Purposes, Uses, and Practices of Leadership Assessment in Education

Explores recent research literature dealing with personnel evaluations, professional learning, accountability, and the relation of leadership to learning, in order to clarify how leadership assessment practices impact student achievement

A Framework for Developing a Substance Use, Abuse, and Recovery Web-Based Application

Many community programs are launched with all of the hope and promise of success. Such programs seem to have ample human and fiscal resources. Oftentimes, however, it is not until reporting is required or the community program is no longer scalable that organizers realize that methods of data collection, often paper or spreadsheet, are not sustainable. As part of a larger accountable care communities initiative, Jefferson County, Alabama, has launched a recovery resource center for substance users, abusers, those in recovery, and their families. We combined a design science approach with a community based participatory research approach resulting in a framework that guided the design, development, and evaluation of a prototype of a substance use, abuse, and recovery web-based application. Findings suggest that using this framework creates a sustained alignment between requirements and development at every phase and saves time in the overall development cycle

Barriers and Facilitators to PDMP IS Success in the US

Background: Approximately 118 thousand global deaths associated with opioid use disorder occurred in 2016, and an increasing proportion of those deaths is due to prescription opioids.[1] The United States (US) had the highest narcotic drug consumption in the world in 2014, according to the International Narcotics Control Board.[2] “Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) collect, monitor and analyze electronically transmitted prescribing and dispensing data submitted by pharmacies and dispensing practitioners” to reduce prescription drug abuse and diversion.[3] Although PDMPs help battle prescription drug abuse and diversion, PDMPs face many challenges that hinder their success.[4, 5] Objective: To search the literature to determine if there are any common barriers and facilitators to PDMP Information System (IS) success in the United States. Model: The Delone and McLean IS Success Model was used to categorize barriers and facilitators to PDMP IS success. Methods: Scopus, PubMed and Embase databases were searched due to their relevance to information technology, education and research. The PRISMA framework guided the search process. Key Findings: There were 151 and 182 barriers and facilitators to PDMP IS success found in 55 peer reviewed articles, respectively. Some barrier themes reported were PDMP data not being available from other states, PDMP data being delayed, the PDMP being too time consuming, not being able to delegate PMDP access, lack of knowledge or awareness of the PDMP, and the PDMP being difficult to use due to not being integrated with the EHR. Some facilitator themes reported were increasing PMDP interoperability between state lines, making PDMP data more timely or available in “real-time”, integrating PDMP data with EHR data, and delegating PDMP access. Conclusion: Practice should use these findings to assess current barriers to PDMP success in the US and should draw possible solutions from the list of facilitators. Some facilitators contradict others. PDMP users and administrators should consider the context of their organization and state when determining which facilitators would most promote PDMP IS success. Combining facilitators may be the best route to PDMP IS success in specific situations

Patient experience in outpatient clinics: Does appointment time impact satisfaction?

The objective of this study is to understand patient experience by appointment time by analyzing the Consumer Assessment of Hospital Provider and Systems (CAHPS) scores at a granular level across pre-determined time periods (AM and PM). This study utilized quantitative and qualitative methods. A deidentified secondary data set from the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Press Ganey website was used to analyze the difference in CAHPS scores across AM and PM time periods. Unstructured survey responses were analyzed as a way to further enrich the quantitative findings. The data sample consisted of 821 responses from a dermatology clinic for the period of May 2017 to May 2018. Results suggested more positive patient experience for AM appointments when compared to PM appointments. The only positive experience for PM appointments was associated with the support staff and timeliness of care. This study indicated that time of day of the appointment is one of the contributing factors for patient satisfaction in the outpatient setting. While this study was conducted in a dermatology setting, it has applicability to the broader outpatient environment. Experience Framework This article is associated with the Infrastructure & Governance lens of The Beryl Institute Experience Framework. (http://bit.ly/ExperienceFramework) Access other PXJ articles related to this lens. Access other resources related to this lens

User perceptions about sharing exposure notification information for communicable diseases

BackgroundThe (GuideSafe™) Exposure Notification System (ENS) was built and deployed in (Alabama) for anonymous sending and receiving of COVID-19 exposure alerts to people who have been in close contact with someone who later reports a positive COVID-19 test. Little is known about how the demographic groups perceive recent privacy-preserving the ENS innovations, including their usability, usefulness, satisfaction, and continued interest in sharing COVID-19 exposure information. The purpose of this study was to investigate how users across the demographic groups perceive the sharing of exposure information with various types of organizations and to investigate how end-user perceptions of the ENS usability, usefulness, and satisfaction differ across the demographic groups within the context of a statewide deployment of an exposure notification system.MethodsA survey was administered to (state residents blinded for review) (N = 1,049) to assess propensity to share COVID-19 infection data and evaluate end-user perceptions about usability, usefulness, and satisfaction with the (Alabama) ENS. The ANOVA and the Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference (HSD) post-hoc tests were conducted to assess the demographic group differences.ResultsThe ENS survey participants had a high awareness of contact tracing, exposure notifications, and the (GuideSafe™) ENS and reported having downloaded the app. Survey results revealed the majority of participants rated the app as useful (n = 490, 79%), easy to use (n = 490, 79%), and reported satisfaction with its use (n = 546, 88%). Other results suggest that ethnicity and age may be important factors for trust in sharing exposure information.ConclusionThe (GuideSafe™) system was one integrated component of comprehensive education and work re-entry strategy across (Alabama) that reached a broad user base. Users across the different demographic groups perceive the sharing of information about their communicable disease exposures differently. Furthermore, demographic factors play a role in which types of organizations individuals are willing to share their communicable disease exposure information. Public health institutions, employers, schools, healthcare providers, and technology designers may want to consider these findings as they construct technologies and perform outreach campaigns aimed at reducing infection rates with the ENS and related technologies

Improving IT Enabled Continuity of Care Across Pre- Hospital and Hospital Settings

Pre-hospital Emergency Medical Services (EMS) are often the patients’ first contact with the health care system. These services are a collaborative effort between several organizations providing different levels of care. These services are also multi-organizational, process oriented, and information dependent. As a result, a significant challenge exists in these fastpaced environments in terms of collecting and handing-off accurate and timely patient information from one care provider to the next. Consequently, there is a significant need for technology-enabled process improvement initiatives and guiding frameworks for streamlining information hand-offs across pre-hospital and hospital settings. This multi-method study explores the current state and potential improvements of technology-enabled pre-hospital to hospital information hand-offs in the State of California (CA). A questionnaire was administered to EMS leaders across the State. Qualitative interviews and focus group discussions were then conducted on two CA county EMS systems to explore potential improvements and to construct a set of principles to guide system development to support emergency care processes. A set of design principles, guidelines, themes, and end-user needs are presented and future research directions discussed