Barriers to preparedness amongst emergency medical personnel towards radiation emergency

Significant policy implementation programmes has been made at national level to prepare the medical providers towards radiation emergency. However, it is unclear what impact these initiatives have had. As part of policy implementation programme evaluation, this article attempted to identify the dominant factors that hinder their preparedness. In the past, most available measurements for preparedness were conducted qualitatively through drills and exercises. This research proposed the measurement to be conducted quantitatively using an instrument which had went through necessary stages of validation process by experts and statistical software to ensure the data and the results produced were valid. The samples were selected using purposive sampling method involving medical personnel of emergency departments in Klang Valley hospitals. The assessment focused on three criteria of preparedness namely: able, willing, and ready. The findings showed that the main barriers to preparedness were inadequacy of knowledge and skills on response operation, and fear of radiation threat. Several suggestions were proposed to lessen these barriers, and strengthening the policy implementation towards radiation emergency preparedness

Survey instrument for measuring level of preparedness amongst healthcare personnel in radiation emergency

Drills and exercises are globally practiced to investigate the level of preparedness towards disaster events. However, these activities are rarely conducted because they require substantial investment, specifically to budget and time. A self-reported survey may serve as an alternative approach, although it may not be as effective as drills and exercises. As part of the survey development process, this article discusses preliminary validation of a survey instrument to measure the level of preparedness towards radiation emergency amongst healthcare personnel. Prior to this validation process, extensive literature reviews pointed out that the instrument consists of three constructs of preparedness, namely readiness, willingness, and ability. A total of seven subject matter experts were invited to judge the contents for verification purposes. Randolph Kappa analysis was then conducted to analyse their judgment to allow irrelevant items to be filtered from the rest prior to any improvements. Initially, the survey instrument consisted of 69 items; however, the analysis omitted 16 of them. The following values for each preparedness construct were: Readiness (0.77), Willingness (0.70), and Ability (0.73). These findings indicate that contents of the instrument are valid. Further analysis should be fulfilled to complete validation process to ensure its practicality prior to using it as an evaluation tool

A Preliminary Study on Prepared Culture Amongst Healthcare Practitioners for Nuclear and Radiological Emergency in Malaysia

AbstractThis article highlighted prepared culture amongst healthcare practitioners in managing radiological emergency. The respondents are healthcare practitioners from selected government hospital and departments. Data are collected through interviews and observations for three months. They were analyzed using content analysis. There are two incidents involving radiation spillages. The parties differ in opinion towards preparedness culture and give varying reasons in response. Knowledge, skill and culture are fundamental factors that could promote a prepared culture. Considering the critical roles of healthcare practitioners, the study recommends for further study on the evaluation of preparedness level amongst healthcare practitioners for nuclear and radiological emergency

Fundamental of collective bargaining in industrial relation

Bargaining plays a vital role in the economic process and it has received large attention in the economic literature. Industrial relation is a field that studies about the employment relationship which it’s an interrelation between the employer and employee or the organization and the trade union. Collective bargaining is defined as the dispute between the employer and employee where this dispute can be settled through discussion and negotiation where both parties can come to a mutual agreement and also as one decision (Edmund Heery, Nicholas Bacon, Paul Blyton & Jack Fiorito, 2010). Usually the trade union represent the employee’s interests towards the employer which the employee belongs to the trade union as well. The collective bargaining is usually about the wages scales, working hours, healthcare and safety and also training. Collective bargaining is adapt more easily when the employees demand meets the employers flexibility and easier when the firms boundary is changed accordingly. In collective bargaining wages is a topic that’s regularly being discussed or negotiated between the employer and employee (Arun, 2000; Sinha, 2000)

The effectiveness of organisation disciplinary actions at workplace

Discipline is a presence of laws and actions that are introduce to establish and monitor a matter accordingly. Idris & Alegbeleye (2015) noted that some academics view discipline as good behaviour and adhere to laws and regulations while others view discipline as a form of punishment that brings fear also disgrace when wrongly engaged in wrongdoing

Issue of hiring a criminal

Hiring a criminal. Criminal refers to a person who has committed to the crime. In some other words, there is a crime that called as felony. Felony is a crime that classified as the most serious type of offenses such as fraud, physical harm or large scale of theft. Thus, hiring a criminal is defined as company wanted to hire a person who has criminal records background as an employee. Nowadays, criminal history is quite common in the country like USA, which has over 6.6 million people been under correctional supervision such as jail, prison and parole. According to Kurlychek, Bushway, & Denver (2019), employers were asked questions regarding to the criminal history and use various methods and sources to collect the criminal background information. In contrast, some companies would prefer to hire people who are nominated and found that prison record of felony convictions reduced the employer’s motivation to hire an employee (Griffith & Young, 2017). Thus, employers are making decision based on the criminal history and checks for the record to make the hiring decisions (Young & Ryan, 2019) even though the connection between the criminal records and the employment is still at the infancy stage (Griffith, Rade, & Anazodo, 2019). In recent years, the policy attention is focus on the employment for the people who has criminal background (Agan & Starr, 2017). Consequently, “Ban the Box” policies has created to revise when and how the criminal histories were disclosed to move forward to the fair chance of employment selection process (Griffith & Young, 2017) to prevent the inequalities of economics and racial problems (Agan & Starr, 2017)

RWA scale of preparedness for healthcare personnel towards radiation emergency

The article discussed the development of the 'Ready, Willing and Able' (RWA) Scale for the use of Malaysia healthcare personnel involved in radiation emergency focusing on medical response team only. Usually the members of medical emergency response team are doctors, medical assistances, nurses and hospital attendances. The scale is based on RWA framework by McCabe et al., with necessary modification to fit the local circumstances. It is to improve public health emergency preparedness system. The study is exploratory in nature as it investigates factors of each RWA construct. The scale is expected to reveal the level and profile of preparedness behaviour amongst personnel. The scale is insightful in offering guidance to healthcare providers on the development of possible educational and training programmes. These programmes are essential to motivate personnel in providing medical emergency response before the real radiation emergency strikes. Results of the study demonstrate eleven sub- constructs and multiple items of the RWA Scale. The study shall put forward some recommendation to ensure the validity of measurement scale

Leadership competency

Leadership is a procedure by which an individual impacts other to achieve a target and coordinates the association such that makes it increasingly firm and cognizant (Sharma & Jain, 2013). This definition is like Northouse's (2007) definition — Leadership is a procedure whereby an individual impact a gathering of people to accomplish a shared objective

Cell phone at your workplaces

Digital technology has become an integral part of people life because of it always ask the people to gain a new information search and learn the new things such as they can communicate very well with another people at organization. The benefit of digital technology is there are most frequently used electronics tool among young people and workers (Colbert, Yee & George, 2016). They have good competency character in course among them and give positive feedback with technology by worker distribution. Then, it will give the company positive impact because of their skill and be comfort easier to achieve more of using technology. Then, it will help and give benefit to organizations because they can work well

Disaster risk in underground utility development: a matter of perception

The risk of development (or disaster) depends on the nature of the development itself and the potential disaster in the development area. However, the risk of disasters is a matter of perception. It depends on how an individual or group of individuals see or assess the characteristics of a phenomenon. Even it is subjective; it is vital to understand what risks people consider to be acceptable, especially the local players involved in the development works. Therefore, this paper presents how the local players perceive disaster risk in underground utility development. These local players were the authorities at the federal and state level, industry players, and academicians. Series of focus group discussions were conducted for data collection purposes, and the data was analyzed narratively. One aspect is the perception of disaster risk occurrence; either the disaster affects the development or otherwise. In turn, this evidence-based information could be one of the essential feeders to policymakers and disaster managers on what disaster risk reduction programmes have a better chance of being accepted by the local players. The success of this kind of programme is essential for sustainable underground utility functions for the future