Proposal For Applying Quality Management Techniques To Manage Welfare Facilities For The Elderly

In recent years, the quality of services at welfare facilities for the elderly has come into question and differences in concepts and ways of approach toward quality are affecting facility performances. In the context of quality management, the concept of quality has extended from a mere focus on service to business processes, and now focuses specifically on quality in welfare facility management. Care workers have typically been responsible for the quality of care in welfare facilities. However, as it has become difficult to retain already-trained care workers and also source fresh, competent care workers to provide care for the elderly in welfare facilities, there is a pressing need to adopt measures to find, train, and retain skilled care workers. We propose a quality management model to effectively manage welfare facilities for the elderly with an emphasis on improving the intellectual productivity of care workers in these facilities. This model is centered mainly on information sharing to secure and develop skilled human resources in order to ensure the delivery of high quality services in these facilities. Moreover, in this model, it is conditional that CS, ES, SS are met under stable management and environment that same quality and optimal services are offered. Further, we report examples of the application of this model and its effectiveness

Structure Modeling Of Improvement In The Quality Of Welfare Service And Research Trends On Welfare Industry In Japan

In Japan, the quality of service provided in elder care facilities is drawing special attention after the enforcement of the Long-term Care Insurance Act in 2000. This study is aimed at proposing a structure model on improvement in quality of welfare service and clearing a research trend on welfare industry in Japan by systematic review. At first, Key words regarding to the quality of welfare service were taken by related papers. And then we discussed those key words using KJ method and developed the structure model composed of four areas and three-layer structure. Second, a literature search was exhaustively performed with 12 keywords on Cinii and Google Scholar databases for papers published between 1991 and 2010. From the papers returned by the search, the 63 original papers were examined. This study showed that the staff’s care burden and nursing consciousness were featured themes. On the other hand, there were few researches as a customer satisfaction or information management. In addition, these researches only considered short-term effects.

Tesmin, Metallothionein-Like 5, is Required for Spermatogenesis in Mice

In mammals, more than 2000 genes are specifically or abundantly expressed in testis, but gene knockout studies revealed several are not individually essential for male fertility. Tesmin (Metallothionein-like 5; Mtl5) was originally reported as a testis-specific transcript that encodes a member of the cysteine-rich motif containing metallothionein family. Later studies showed that Tesmin has two splicing variants and both are specifically expressed in male and female germ cells. Herein, we clarified that the long (Tesmin-L) and short (Tesmin-S) transcript forms start expressing from spermatogonia and the spermatocyte stage, respectively, in testis. Furthermore, while Tesmin-deficient female mice are fertile, male mice are infertile due to arrested spermatogenesis at the pachytene stage. We were able to rescue the infertility with a Tesmin-L transgene, where we concluded that TESMIN-L is critical for meiotic completion in spermatogenesis and indispensable for male fertility