Electronic patient records: Achieving best practice in information transfer between hospital and community providers - an integration success story

Effective healthcare integration is underpinned by clinical information transfer that is timely, legible and relevant. The aim of this study was to describe and evaluate a method for best practice information exchange. This was achieved based on the generic Mater integration methodology. Using this model the Mater Health Services have increased effective community fax discharge from 34% in 1999 to 86% in 2002. These results were predicated on applied information technology excellence involving the development of the Mater Electronic Health Referral Summary and effective change management methodology, which included addressing issues around patient consent, engaging clinicians, provision of timely and appropriate education and training, executive leadership and commitment and adequate resourcing. The challenge in achieving best practice information transfer is not solely in the technology but also in implementing the change process and engaging clinicians. General practitioners valued the intervention highly. Hospital and community providers now have an inexpensive, effective product for critical information exchange in a timely and relevant manner, enhancing the quality and safety of patient care.

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum: Electronic discussion and foreign language learning

Amongst the opportunities for cross-cultural contact created by the burgeoning use of the Internet are those provided by electronic discussion lists. This study looks at what happens when language students venture out of the classroom (virtual or otherwise) to participate in on-line discussion groups with native speakers. Responses to messages and commentary by moderators and other participants on the (in) appropriateness of contributions allow us to determine what constitutes successful participation and to make suggestions regarding effective teaching strategies for this medium. A case study examines the threads started by four anglophone students of French when they post messages to a forum on the Web site of the French newspaper Le Monde. Investigation of these examples points to the ways in which electronic discussion inflects and is inflected by cultural and generic expectations. We suggest that successful participation on Internet fora depends on awareness of such cultural and generic mores and an ability to work within and/or with them. Teachers therefore need to find ways in which students can be sensitized to such issues so that their participation in such electronic discussion is no longer seen as linguistic training, but as engagement with a cultural practice.

Measuring impacts of an holistic farm business management training program

A case study approach within an action research framework incorporating qualitative and quantitative domains was adopted to explore the impact on Queensland farmers of a farm business management extension programme. Three new indices were developed to quantify changes perceived by participants. The first measure, the Bennett Change Index, provided statistically significant evidence that attitudinal and behavioural changes were more frequent in participants with less formal education, but also more frequent in participants who had high urbanisation and self-directed learning index scores. The other 2 new indices, Management Constructs Change and Management Objectives Change, provided evidence of statistically significant changes in participant beliefs about, and attitudes towards, farm business management. Although highly correlated with each other, these changes were unrelated statistically to any of 6 other commonly used biographical or psychometric indices employed; including level of formal education. It is concluded that these new measures, with context-relevant modifications, have potential as aids to programme impact evaluation in a range of agricultural and wider applications. They may provide insights into personal psychological issues that complement direct behavioural measures of change.