Implementing a journal club in a palliative care setting : a link in the chain of evidence-based practice

This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of a journal club in a privately funded palliative care unit. Journal club meetings were initiated as part of a quality improvement process to foster the uptake of evidence-based practice. Nurses were presented with research articles each month and discussions were conducted focussing on methodological considerations of the research and implications of the research for patient care. The maximum number of attendees at any one meeting was nine and the minimum number was four. Overall, evaluations were positive about all aspects of the meetings. Attendees found that the selected articles were relevant, providing new information, stimulated discussion and reflection on clinical practice and encouraged further reading. One of the positive aspects of the meetings identified by participants was the facilitation style that enabled discussion in a safe and supportive environment. An important outcome of the meetings is the potential to explore evidence-based practices relevant to palliative care and to implement new practices or revise existing ones. As part of this process practice changes and clinical guidelines have been implemented. A dedicated facilitator with university links and a supportive organisational culture promoted club meetings as a practical way to provide clinical nurses with the opportunity to explore evidence-based research in the area of palliative care.

Construction supply chain modeling : a research review and interdisciplinary research agenda

Supply chain management has emerged as a popular and useful concept in the construction industry and research community since the mid 1990s. Research in construction supply chain management draws from a broad range of disciplines, notably: (1) Industrial organization economics to better understand market structure and forces and their effect on firm and supply chain behavior and (2) Analytic modeling of supply chains to improve supply chain performance along metrics such as speed, cost, reliability, quality, etc. Both industrial organization and analytic modeling provide useful but ultimately incomplete perspectives and prescriptions for construction supply chain management. As such, this paper proposes development of an interdisciplinary research agenda that draws from both fields. Towards that agenda, a review of research is presented to introduce the main ideas, relevant literature, and theory and methods in each of the two areas. From these independent reviews, applications that could benefit from a combined perspective are identified and used as a basis for development of an interdisciplinary research agenda.

An industrial organisation economic supply chain approach for the construction industry : a review

Understanding industries in terms of the concepts of chains, clusters and networks is becoming increasingly important in economies around the world. Supply chain management for an individual organization is an
emerging field of research in the construction management discipline, but less attention has been devoted to investigating the nature of the construction supply chains and their industrial organizational economic environment. This selected review of construction and mainstream management supply chain literature is organized around four themes; distribution, production, strategic procurement management and industrial
organization economics, and highlights the need to develop an industrial organization economic supply chain framework for construction. The merging of the supply chain concept with the industrial organization model
as a methodology for understanding firm conduct and industry structure and performance is an important contribution to both construction supply chain and construction economic theory. Much of the industrial organization supply chain literature has tended to focus upon manufacturing industries, where typically firms are permanent organizations. This raises issues as to the differences between industries founded upon temporary compared with permanent organizations. There is potential for the development of an industrial organization methodology applicable to the project based industry. Ultimately industrial organization research seeks to have direct implications for industry performance and government policies.

Construction supply chain economic policy implementation for sectoral change : moving beyond the rhetoric

The improvement of the performance of the construction industry through the improved performance of the supply chains that make up the various sectors is a difficult task and one that has had considerable international debate (London, 2005). The idea of using the supply chain concept as a normative model to improve firm behaviour and thus ultimately industry performance through the development of supply chain clusters or integrated supply chains has been discussed in many public sector policy documents and in the academic research community since the late 1990s (London, 2005). However it has been difficult to see any real examples where this concept has had any major impact – or where the improvements have been measured and/or monitored.

Construction supply chain management : a research review and interdisciplinary research agenda

Supply chain management has emerged as a popular and useful concept in the construction industry and research community since the mid 1990s. Research in construction supply chain management draws from a broad range of disciplines, notably: (1) industrial organization economics to better understand market structure and forces and their effect on firm and supply chain behavior and (2) Analytic modeling of supply chains to improve supply chain performance along metrics such as speed, cost, reliability, quality, etc. Both industrial organization and analytic modeling provide useful but ultimately incomplete perspectives and prescriptions for construction supply chain management. As such, this paper proposes development of an interdisciplinary research agenda that draws from both fields. Towards that agenda, a review of research is presented to introduce the main ideas, relevant literature, and theory and methods in each of the two areas. From these independent reviews, applications that could benefit from a combined perspective are identified and used as a basis for development of an interdisciplinary research agenda.

Decision making to support an integrated infrastructure supply chain industrial ecological approach within public private partnerships

Supply chains are complex adaptive systems for which final performance depends upon numerous interdependent decisions made by numerous firms which synthesise inputs from various resources systems.  The dynamic interdependent behaviour of social, economic, material and informational resource systems within eco-industrial settings that support the built environment life cycle supply chains can be studied at the supply chain level.  The impact of megaprojects is significant and holds promise to explore the impact of decisions on various systems as it combines project and system boundaries.  Megaoprojects considered as major events within systems can produce critical revolutionary impacts on the systems within which they are embedded.  The decisions that are made on megaprojects are central to risk management.  typically major infrastructure projects are procured through a form of public private partnership (PPP).  The core principle of PPP is value for money which refers to the best available outcome attempting to take account of all benefits, costs and risks over the whole life of the procurement.  In this paper the focus is on Australia where there has been considerable acitivity in the use of PPPs.  With recent national infrastucture packages proposed to stimulate the economy due to the global financial crisis, decision modelling on risks is a revelant and critical matter not only in practice but also in the research community.  PPPs encourage the whole-of-lifecycle approach in the procurement and management of public sector assets by transparently recognising the costs and risks associated with the whole life of the required service or facility, thus integrated whole of life supply chains can be considered.  By creating a single point of responsibility for an entire project from inception through operation, a strong incentive is created for thinking about the effects that a design or construction decision will have on the effectiveness and efficiency of managing and maintaining a facility during its operational life.  The decision to procure holistic supply chains becomes a much more viable commercial reality in the PPP environment than previously considered in the usual commercial construction spot transactional approach.  These types of decisions tend to be imprecise, approximate and complex requireing justification and reasoning logic rather than the classical 'truth' logic.  The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical decision framework which combines interdependency and multi-values logic for supply chain procurement modelling.

Construction supply chain modeling : a research review and interdisciplinary research agenda

Supply chain management has emerged as a popular and useful concept in the construction industry and research community since the mid 1990s. Research in construction supply chain management draws from a broad range of disciplines, notably: (1) industrial organization economics to better understand market structure and forces and their effect on firm and supply chain behavior and (2) Analytic modeling of supply chains to improve supply chain performance along metrics such as speed, cost, reliability, quality, etc. Both industrial organization and analytic modeling provide useful but
ultimately incomplete perspectives and prescriptions for construction supply chain management. As such, this paper proposes development of an interdisciplinary research agenda that draws from both fields. Towards that agenda, a review of research is presented to introduce the main ideas, relevant literature, and theory and methods in each of the two areas. From these independent reviews, applications that could benefit from a combined perspective are identified and used as a basis for development of an
interdisciplinary research agenda.

Supply chain management security : the weak link of Australian critical infrastructure protection

Secure management of Australia’s commercial Critical Infrastructure presents ongoing challenges to both the owners of this infrastructure as well as to the Australian Federal government. The security management process is currently managed through high-level information sharing via collaboration, but does this situation suit the commercial sector? One of the issues facing Australia is that the majority of critical infrastructure resides under the control of the business sector and certain aspects such of the critical infrastructure such as Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems are distributed entities that span a number of commercial organisations. Another issue is that these SCM systems can be used for the transportation of varied items, such as retail items or food. This paper will explore the security issue related to food SCM systems and their relationship to critical infrastructure. The paper will focuses upon the security and risk issues associated with SCM system protection within the realms of critical infrastructure protection. The paper will review the security standard ISO 28000 - Supply Chain Security Management Standard. The paper will propose a new conceptual security risk analysis approach that will form the basis of a future Security Risk Analysis approach. This new approach will be aimed at protecting SCM systems.