THE MEASUREMENT OF HUMANISTIC AND DEHUMANISTIC BEHAVIORS IN HOSPITAL NURSING ENVIRONMENTS

The purpose of this investigation was to develop a reliable scale to measure the social environment of hospital nursing units according to the degree of humanistic and dehumanistic behaviors as perceived by nursing staff in hospitals. The study was based on a conceptual model proposed by Jan Howard, a sociologist. After reviewing the literature relevant to personalization of care, analyzing interviews with patients in various settings, and studying biological, psychological, and sociological frames of reference, Howard proposed the following necessary conditions for humanized health care. They were the dimensions of Irreplaceability, Holistic Selves, Freedom of Action, Status Equality, Shared Decision Making and Responsibility, Empathy, and Positive Affect.^ It was proposed that a scale composed of behaviors which reflected Howard's dimensions be developed within the framework of the social environment of nursing care units in hospitals. Nursing units were chosen because hospitals are traditionally organized around nursing care units and because patients spend the majority of their time in hospitals interacting with various levels of nursing personnel.^ Approximately 180 behaviors describing both patient and nursing staff behaviors which occur on nursing units were developed. Behaviors which were believed to be humanistic as well as dehumanistic were included. The items were classified under the dimensions of Howard's model by a purposively selected sample of 42 nurses representing a broad range of education, experience, and clinical areas. Those items with a high degree of agreement, at least 50%, were placed in the questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 169 items including six items from the Marlowe Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Short Form).^ The questionnaire, the Social Environment Scale, was distributed to the entire 7 to 3 shift nursing staff (603) of four hospitals including a public county specialty hospital, a public county general and acute hospital, a large university affiliated hospital with all services, and a small general community hospital. Staff were asked to report on a Likert type scale how often the listed behaviors occurred on their units. Three hundred and sixteen respondents (52% of the population) participated in the study.^ An item analysis was done in which each item was examined in relationship to its correlation to its own dimension total and to the totals of the other dimensions. As a result of this analysis, three dimensions, Positive Affect, Irreplaceability, and Freedom of Action were deleted from the scale. The final scale consisted of 70 items with 26 in Shared Decision Making and Responsibility, 25 in Holistic Selves, 12 in Status Equality, and seven in Empathy. The alpha coefficient was over .800 for all scales except Empathy which was .597.^ An analysis of variance by hospital was performed on the means of each dimension of the scale. There was a statistically significant difference between hospitals with a trend for the public hospitals to score lower on the scale than the university or community hospitals. That the scale scores should be lower in crowded, understaffed public hospitals was not unexpected and reflected that the scale had some discriminating ability. These differences were still observed after adjusting for the effect of Social Desirability.^ In summary, there is preliminary evidence based on this exploratory investigation that a reliable scale based on at least four dimensions from Howard's model could be developed to measure the concept of humanistic health care in hospital settings. ^

A guide for studying the utilization of nursing service personnel in Veterans Administration hospitals.

Cover title.

Hospital occupational health services study.

Includes bibliographical references.

Better queue management in a busy public hospital of a developing country without appointment system::an application using data envelopment analysis

Queuing is a key efficiency criterion in any service industry, including Healthcare. Almost all queue management studies are dedicated to improving an existing Appointment System. In developing countries such as Pakistan, there are no Appointment Systems for outpatients, resulting in excessive wait times. Additionally, excessive overloading, limited resources and cumbersome procedures lead to over-whelming queues. Despite numerous Healthcare applications, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has not been applied for queue assessment. The current study aims to extend DEA modelling and demonstrate its usefulness by evaluating the queue system of a busy public hospital in a developing country, Pakistan, where all outpatients are walk-in; along with construction of a dynamic framework dedicated towards the implementation of the model. The inadequate allocation of doctors/personnel was observed as the most critical issue for long queues. Hence, the Queuing-DEA model has been developed such that it determines the ‘required’ number of doctors/personnel. The results indicated that given extensive wait times or length of queue, or both, led to high target values for doctors/personnel. Hence, this crucial information allows the administrators to ensure optimal staff utilization and controlling the queue pre-emptively, minimizing wait times. The dynamic framework constructed, specifically targets practical implementation of the Queuing-DEA model in resource-poor public hospitals of developing countries such as Pakistan; to continuously monitor rapidly changing queue situation and display latest required personnel. Consequently, the wait times of subsequent patients can be minimized, along with dynamic staff scheduling in the absence of appointments. This dynamic framework has been designed in Excel, requiring minimal training and work for users and automatic update features, with complex technical aspects running in the background. The proposed model and the dynamic framework has the potential to be applied in similar public hospitals, even in other developing countries, where appointment systems for outpatients are non-existent.

Medical technician and skilled worker at lab at Hackensack, NJ hospital

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Satisfacción de la atención médica en el área del hospitalización del Departamento Gíneco -Obstetricia del Hospital José Carrasco Arteaga. 2014

Objetivo. Determinar el grado de satisfacción de las pacientes con la atención médica y de enfermería recibida en el Área de Hospitalización del Departamento de Gineco - Obstetricia del Hospital José Carrasco Arteaga. Metodología. Con un diseño descriptivo de corte transversal se recopiló información de 628 pacientes ingresadas a los servicios de Ginecología y Obstetricia entre marzo y mayo del 2014. Se analizó edad, instrucción, estado civil, residencia, diagnóstico al ingreso, al egreso y procedimiento realizado en los dos servicios y grado de satisfacción de las pacientes con el personal médico y el personal de enfermería. Resultados. Las pacientes del servicio de Ginecología representaron el 26.11 %, con un promedio de edad de 41.46 ± 11.41 años y las de Obstetricia el 73.89 % con una edad media de 28.62 ± 6.12 años. La instrucción más frecuente fue la secundaria, en la mayoría casadas y residen en el área urbana. El diagnóstico ginecológico más frecuente al ingreso y al egreso fue la hiperplasia endometrial con el 26.1 % en ambos casos. En el área Obstétrica, el embarazo a término sin complicaciones representó más del 50% de los diagnósticos tanto al ingreso como al egreso. La histerectomía fue el procedimiento ginecológico realizado con mayor frecuencia (25 %). La cesárea es el procedimiento obstétrico más frecuente (45.26 %). Conclusiones. Se obtienen valoraciones altas en la satisfacción de la atención médica en más del 65 % de las pacientes encuestadas tanto del personal médico como del personal de enfermería.

An evolutionary squeaky wheel optimisation approach to personnel scheduling

The quest for robust heuristics that are able to solve more than one problem is ongoing. In this paper, we present, discuss and analyse a technique called Evolutionary Squeaky Wheel Optimisation and apply it to two different personnel scheduling problems. Evolutionary Squeaky Wheel Optimisation improves the original Squeaky Wheel Optimisation’s effectiveness and execution speed by incorporating two additional steps (Selection and Mutation) for added evolution. In the Evolutionary Squeaky Wheel Optimisation, a cycle of Analysis-Selection-Mutation-Prioritization-Construction continues until stopping conditions are reached. The aim of the Analysis step is to identify below average solution components by calculating a fitness value for all components. The Selection step then chooses amongst these underperformers and discards some probabilistically based on fitness. The Mutation step further discards a few components at random. Solutions can become incomplete and thus repairs may be required. The repair is carried out by using the Prioritization step to first produce priorities that determine an order by which the following Construction step then schedules the remaining components. Therefore, improvements in the Evolutionary Squeaky Wheel Optimisation is achieved by selective solution disruption mixed with iterative improvement and constructive repair. Strong experimental results are reported on two different domains of personnel scheduling: bus and rail driver scheduling and hospital nurse scheduling.

Índices predictores de asma bronquial en niños y niñas de 6 a 11 años atendidos en consulta externa de neumología del Hospital Vicente Corral Moscoso de la ciudad de Cuenca. 2015

Antecedentes: Distintos estudios han demostrado que aproximadamente la mitad de los niños presentan al menos un episodio de obstrucción bronquial durante los primeros 3 años de vida y, en más del 50% de ellos el episodio se repite una o más veces. Entonces es necesario prever que niños que inician con sibilancias en una etapa temprana de la vida, van a padecer de asma en el futuro, estudios realizados muestran una sensibilidad del 16 % y especificidad del 97 % para el IPA Castro – Rodríguez y para el PIAMA una sensibilidad de 63% y una especificidad del 64% aproximadamente. Objetivo General: Determinar la validez de diversos índices predictores de asma bronquial en niños y niñas de 6 a 11 años atendidos en Consulta Externa de Neumología del Hospital Vicente Corral Moscoso. Metodología: Se trató de un estudio de validación de test predictores de asma en la totalidad de niños/as de 6 a 11 años con diagnóstico de asma y un grupo equitativo escogidos al azar de niños de las mismas edades atendidos en consulta externa de Neumología durante el periodo Enero – Diciembre 2014. Se aplicó una encuesta a sus representantes, además se revisó los hemogramas previos que mostraron eosinofilia. Los datos fueron analizados con los programas SPSS versión 20. Uso de resultados: Se mostró la validez de los Índices Predictores de Asma que podrán ser aplicados a niños en edades aún más tempranas

Correcting for bias when estimating the cost of hospital-acquired infection : an analysis of lower respiratory tract infections in non-surgical patients

Hospital acquired infections (HAI) are costly but many are avoidable. Evaluating prevention programmes requires data on their costs and benefits. Estimating the actual costs of HAI (a measure of the cost savings due to prevention) is difficult as HAI changes cost by extending patient length of stay, yet, length of stay is a major risk factor for HAI. This endogeneity bias can confound attempts to measure accurately the cost of HAI. We propose a two-stage instrumental variables estimation strategy that explicitly controls for the endogeneity between risk of HAI and length of stay. We find that a 10% reduction in ex ante risk of HAI results in an expected savings of £693 ($US 984).