The Day They Buried Traditional Womanhood : Women and the Politics of Peace Protest

A history of women\u27s peace groups

Israel: health system review

The Health Systems in Transition (HiT) series consists of country-based reviews that provide a detailed description of a health system and of reform and policy initiatives in progress or under development in a specific country. Each review is produced by country experts in collaboration with the Observatory’s staff. In order to facilitate comparisons between countries, reviews are based on a template, which is revised periodically. The template provides detailed guidelines and specific questions, definitions and examples needed to compile a report. HiTs seek to provide relevant information to support policy-makers and analysts in the development of health systems in Europe. They are building blocks that can be used: • to learn in detail about different approaches to the organization, financing and delivery of health services and the role of the main actors in health systems; • to describe the institutional framework, the process, content and implementation of health-care reform programmes; • to highlight challenges and areas that require more in-depth analysis; • to provide a tool for the dissemination of information on health systems and the exchange of experiences of reform strategies between policymakers and analysts in different countries; and • to assist other researchers in more in-depth comparative health policy analysis. Compiling the reviews poses a number of methodological problems. In many countries, there is relatively little information available on the health system and the impact of reforms. Due to the lack of a uniform data source, quantitative data on health services are based on a number of different sources, including the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe’s European Health for All database, data from national statistical offices, Eurostat, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Health Data, data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank’s World Development Indicators and any other relevant sources considered useful by the authors. Data collection methods and definitions sometimes vary, but typically are consistent within each separate review. A standardized review has certain disadvantages because the financing and delivery of health care differ across countries. However, it also offers advantages, because it raises similar issues and questions. HiTs can be used to inform policy-makers about experiences in other countries that may be relevant to their own national situation. They can also be used to inform comparative analysis of health systems. This series is an ongoing initiative and material is updated at regular intervals. Comments and suggestions for the further development and improvement of the HiT series are most welcome and can be sent to [email protected]. HiTs and HiT summaries are available on the Observatory’s web site http://www.healthobservatory.eu

Israel’s rapid rollout of vaccinations for COVID-19

As of the end of 2020, the State of Israel, with a population of 9.3 million, had administered more COVID-19 vaccine doses than all countries aside from China, the US, and the UK. Moreover, Israel had administered almost 11.0 doses per 100 population, while the next highest rates were 3.5 (in Bahrain) and 1.4 (in the United Kingdom). All other countries had administered less than 1 dose per 100 population. While Israel’s rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations was not problem-free, its initial phase had clearly been rapid and effective. A large number of factors contributed to this early success, and they can be divided into three major groups. The first group of factors consists of long-standing characteristics of Israel which are extrinsic to health care. They include: Israel’s small size (in terms of both area and population), a relatively young population, relatively warm weather in December 2020, a centralized national system of government, and well-developed infrastructure for implementing prompt responses to large-scale national emergencies. The second group of factors are also long-standing, but they are health-system specific. They include: the organizational, IT and logistical capacities of Israel’s community-based health care providers, the availability of a cadre of well-trained, salaried, community-based nurses who are directly employed by those providers, a tradition of effective cooperation between government, health plans, hospitals, and emergency care providers – particularly during national emergencies; and support tools and decisionmaking frameworks to support vaccination campaigns. The third group consists of factors that are more recent and are specific to the COVID-19 vaccination effort. They include: the mobilization of special government funding for vaccine purchase and distribution, timely contracting for a large amount of vaccines relative to Israel’s population, the use of simple, clear and easily implementable criteria for determining who had priority for receiving vaccines in the early phases of the distribution process, a creative technical response that addressed the demanding cold storage requirements of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, and well-tailored outreach efforts to encourage Israelis to sign up for vaccinations and then show up to get vaccinated. While many of these facilitating factors are not unique to Israel, part of what made the Israeli rollout successful was its combination of facilitating factors (as opposed to each factor being unique separately) and the synergies it created among them. Moreover, some high-income countries (including the US, the UK, and Canada) are lacking several of these facilitating factors, apparently contributing to the slower pace of the rollout in those countries

Evaluation of complication rates after coronary artery bypass surgery using administrative data

Our objectives were (1) to determine if studying hospital complication rates after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery provides information not available when only mortality is studied, and (2) to reexplore the utility of ICD-9-CM administrative data for CABG outcomes assessment. Using data from Massachusetts, we identified CABG cohorts from 1990 and 1992 to respectively develop and validate multivariate risk adjustment models predicting in-hospital mortality and complications. The resulting models had good discrimination and calibration. In 1992, adjusted hospital complication rates ranged widely from 13.0% to 57.6%, while mortality rates ranged from 1.4% to 6.1%. Hospitals with high complication rates tended to have high mortality (r = 0.74, p = 0.006), but 2 of the 12 hospitals studied ranked quite differently when judged by complications rather than mortality. We conclude that (1) complications after CABG occur frequently and may provide information about hospital quality beyond that obtained from hospital mortality rates, and that (2) administrative data continue to be a promising resource for outcomes research

Induction of heat-shock proteins does not prevent renal tubular injury following ischemia

Induction of heat-shock proteins does not prevent renal tubular injury following ischemia. The possible protective effect of heat-shock proteins (HSPs) on ischemic injury to renal cells was assessed in two different experimental models: ischemia-reflow in intact rats and medullary hypoxic injury as seen in the isolated perfused rat kidney. Heat shock was induced by raising the core temperature of rats to 42°C for 15 minutes. Following this, Northern blots showed enhanced gene expression of HSP70, HSP60 and ubiquitin at one hour and reaching a maximum by six hours after heat shock in all regions of the kidney, but most prominently in medulla and papilla. The HSP70 protein in the kidney, estimated by immunohistochemical means, was detectable 24 hours following heat shock and further increased at 48 hours following heat shock. In the first set of experiments, the animals underwent uninephrectomy followed by cross clamping of the remaining renal artery for 40 minutes prior to reflow. Serum creatinine and urea nitrogen rose to 3.15 ± 0.98 and 126.4 ± 62.5 mg/dl at 24 hours. No significant differences were observed at 24, 48 and 72 hours after reflow between these values in control rats and rats pretreated with heat shock 48 hours earlier. Severe morphological damage to proximal tubules of the renal cortex was observed to the same extent in both groups. In a second set of experiments, the right kidney was removed either 24 or 48 hours after heat shock and perfused in isolation for 90 minutes. Functional and morphological parameters were compared with those of isolated perfused kidneys obtained from animals that had not been subjected to heat shock. No difference was observed in the degree or extent of hypoxic injury to the medullary thick ascending limb, characteristically observed in the isolated perfused rat kidney, nor did prior induction of HSPs modify the progressive decline in glomerular filtration rate or fractional reabsorption of glucose seen in perfused kidneys. Fractional reabsorption of sodium was slightly higher in kidneys from rats earlier exposed to heat shock. These results do not support the hypothesis that heat shock proteins prevent ischemic renal injury

Brain MR Spectroscopy Changes Precede Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration Phenoconversion in Mapt Mutation Carriers.

Background and purposeThe objective of this study was to longitudinally investigate the trajectory of change in 1 H MRS measurements in asymptomatic MAPT mutation carriers who became symptomatic during follow-up, and to determine the time at which the neurochemical alterations accelerated during disease progression.MethodsWe identified eight MAPT mutations carriers who transitioned from asymptomatic to symptomatic disease during follow-up. All participants were longitudinally followed with an average of 7.75 years (range 4-11 years) and underwent two or more single voxel 1 H MRS examinations from the posterior cingulate voxel, with a total of 60 examinations. The rate of longitudinal change for each metabolite was estimated using linear mixed models. A flex point model was used to estimate the flex time point of the change in slope.ResultsThe decrease in the NAA/mI ratio accelerated 2.09 years prior to symptom onset, and continued to decline. A similar trajectory was observed in the presumed glial marker mI/Cr ratio accelerating 1.86 years prior to symptom onset.ConclusionsOur findings support the potential use of longitudinal 1 H MRS for monitoring the neurodegenerative progression in MAPT mutation carriers starting from the asymptomatic stage

A multilevel study of leadership, empowerment, and performance in teams.

A multilevel model of leadership, empowerment, and performance was tested using a sample of 62 teams, 445 individual members, 62 team leaders, and 31 external managers from 31 stores of a Fortune 500 company. Leader-member exchange and leadership climate related differently to individual and team empowerment and interacted to influence individual empowerment. Also, several relationships were supported in more but not in less interdependent teams. Specifically, leader-member exchange related to individual performance partially through individual empowerment; leadership climate related to team performance partially through team empowerment; team empowerment moderated the relationship between individual empowerment and performance; and individual performance was positively related to team performance. Contributions to team leadership theory, research, and practices are discussed. Keywords: teams, leadership, motivation, multilevel, performance As a result of the widespread move to team-based organizations in industry, managers are often asked to lead and motivate not only individuals but also teams as a whole Perhaps owing to these same trends in industry, researchers have primarily focused their efforts at the team level of analysis without considering important individual-level processes in team contexts Accordingly, the main purpose of our study was to extend previous research and answer these theoretically and practically relevant calls for multilevel team leadership and motivation research. We do so by examining team leader behaviors and employee motivation simultaneously at both the individual and team levels of analysis. In particular, we develop and test a multilevel model of leadership and motivation through the lens of employee empowerment, a motivational concept that, over the last two de

A systematic approach to educating elderly patients about their medications

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a pharmacist-initiated, total package, patient education program based on the concepts described in the PRECEDE model. This program was directed towards 94 therapeutically complex elderly patients and consisted of a medication history, therapeutic evaluation, patient education needs assessment, patient education session, and a patient feedback/ satisfaction telephone interview. Pharmacists identified on average 5.6 medication-related problems and provided an average of 6.2 recommendations. Problems commonly identified involved inadequate drug knowledge (25.5%), noncompliance (22.7%), and inappropriate drug use (17.4%). Typical recommendations included altering drug use (35.9%), improving compliance behavior (18.1%), and improving communication with health professionals (18.1%). Patient satisfaction with the education session was overwhelmingly positive. Based on the findings of this study, it is apparent that a patient education program based on the PRECEDE model can be used successfully by pharmacists to prepare education plans that would benefit the therapeutically complex elderly patient.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/30215/1/0000606.pd