The impact of nursing on patient and organizational outcomes

The impact of nursing on patient and organizational outcomes has received significant attention from researchers in the past 10 years. Although some research has been based on a theoretical framework, to date, there has not been one, consistent framework that can guide this research. In addition, the frameworks that have been used do not identify nursing as the pivotal concept in the model. The purpose of this article is to identify a framework to guide such research with an emphasis on nursing as the essential concept. Unit culture, nurse staffing, staffing mix, and other variables do not have a direct effect on outcomes. It is only through these variables' influence on the delivery of nursing care that outcomes are affected.     

企业国际化:一个理论与概念框架的文献综述

本文沿用Anderson理论与框架的区别思路,根据企业国际化研究的理论基础就企业国际化研究进行了分类与综述,然后在从变量和概念框架两个层面讨论企业国际化概念框架间联系的基础上,构建了一个综合性的企业国际化概念框架。     

Orchestrating knowledge-creating networks: lessons from Taiwan's health services sector

The purpose of this study is to integrate transaction cost theory and the knowledge-based view of the firm to explore why and how a network's hub organisations orchestrate their members to create knowledge in the health services setting. Guided by organisation theory, this study examines a theoretical model at the organisation level, through a qualitative case study of Taiwan's health services sector. In addition to the discovery of a new sub-construct, the findings provide preliminary evidence that, both, transaction cost and knowledge-based factors influence the health services network as per the study's propositions. This study contributes to strategic technology management research by providing a conceptual model to describe and evaluate health services networks' orchestrating process for knowledge creation. The framework also provides a better understanding of, and a practical approach to managing networks to improve knowledge creation.     

Evaluation of a client care delivery model, Part 2: Variability in client outcomes in community home nursing

Using similar variables, Part II explores variation in client outcomes such as OMAHA knowledge, behavior, and SF-36 scores. Medical and nursing diagnoses explained large variations in client outcomes. Clients cared for by degree-prepared nurses improved knowledge and behavior scores. Unanticipated case complexity was negatively associated with client outcome even with nursing intervention. The study revealed that "for every unit increase in assignment of baccalaureate-prepared nurses, clients will on average demonstrate an 80% greater likelihood of improvement in knowledge scores and a 120% greater likelihood of improvement in behavior scores in relation to their health condition at discharge." This two-part study has offered insight into the controllable variables influencing the cost and quality of home care services.     

Potential user factors driving adoption of IPTV. What are customers expecting from IPTV?

Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), the convergence services of television and Internet, is being rapidly developed around the world. The advent of digital technologies has changed the convergence market dramatically with the wide diffusion of the convergent services. Using the Technology Acceptance Model as a conceptual framework and method of logistic regression, this research analyzes the demand for IPTV by drawing data from 452 consumers. Individuals' responses to questions about whether they accept IPTV are collected and combined with observations of their socio-economic status and intrinsic/extrinsic factors modified from the Technology Acceptance Model. Results of logistic regression show two variables (intrinsic and extrinsic factors) that seem to explain what influences consumer behavior towards adopting IPTV. Overall, the logistic regression model explains over 50% of the variance in the IPTV adoption. The variances shed light on the multi-open platform environment that IPTV will forge.     

On the determination of the US aggregate health care expenditure

Per capita real health care expenditure is examined against three major groups of explanatory variables: economic, demographic, and health stock, and it is found that the three groups of variables have an impact on real health care spending. Other subcategories, such as real private, and government health care, pharmaceutical, dental, home nursing, ambulatory, personal medical consumption, and in-patient expenditures have also been examined, and have been found to be affected by the explanatory variables. For several subcomponents there is evidence of supplier inducement. Of the demographic group of variables, the ageing population had an impact only on the per capita real overall, and private health care outlay, and pharmaceutical spending. Also, cointegrating relationships were found and consistent estimators of the elasticities found.     

计划行为理论及其在家族企业传承研究中的应用

诸多学科领域的应用研究都表明计划行为理论对人类的各种行为具有较强的解释力和预测力。对计划行为理论的演进过程、理论框架及其内涵作了详细阐述,并简要评介了其在西方家族企业传承研究中的两项具体应用,以期对国内家族企业传承研究提供一条新的思路。     

The Challenge of Obtaining Quality Care: Limited Consumer Sovereignty in Human Services

Abstract

This paper offers a conceptual analysis of the problem of quality in human services: in elementary school, psychiatric care, and the health and social care of children, the elderly, and the intellectually disabled. Geriatric nursing home patients are used as a case. These care recipients cannot enforce their legal right to quality service; their quality-effective demand is low. Formal economic analyses often characterize the weak position of the care recipient as an information asymmetry problem. An additional obstacle, however, is the recipient's inability to safeguard her personal interest due to physical, mental, or social incapacities; that is, “limited consumer sovereignty.” Incapacitated individuals cannot enforce quality even when quality information is available. This creates a fundamental incentive problem in the monitoring of quality. They also depend on services that are complex and non-verifiable, making external monitoring difficult. This paper presents a typology of measures to increase the quality pressure facing providers.     

神经都市主义视角下城市健康支持性 环境研究：范式创新与研究框架

城市压力环境是引发多种精神类疾病的重要外部因 素，为了有效应对环境与健康之间日益严重的挑战，通过借鉴 神经科学领域相关理论与方法，基于神经都市主义视角的范式 创新，探索发现“大脑-身体-环境”的互动机制，提出了城 市健康支持性环境影响机制的概念模型。在此基础上，从理论 支撑体系、概念模型、研究内容和技术方法等方面进行梳理， 构建基于神经都市主义视角的城市健康支持性环境研究框架。 以期为未来开展实证研究提供指导，推动城市健康支持性环境 的研究与营造，对神经都市主义研究体系的建立提供一定的理 论基础和研究范例。     

Health services research in nursing: current status and future directions

To assess the current status of health services research in nursing, 113 studies reported between 1980 and 1989 were reviewed. Identified gaps in this research included comprehensive cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses, effects of technology on patient care, evaluations of information systems, evaluations of innovative care delivery approaches, and studies of ethical issues related to the use of scarce resources.     

应用DEA方法评测中国各地区健康生产效率

本文将地区健康系统视为健康生产决策单元,通过数据包络分析方法(DEA)对地区健康生产进行效率评测和影响因素分析。我们发现:各年份处于生产前沿面上的省份各不相同,而远离前沿面的省份基本一致,总体而言平均健康生产效率不断提高;根据效率和产出可以将全国划分为六类具有不同的效率提高路径的地区;健康生产效率在东、中、西部,东、西部和东、中部之间存在显著差异;地区人口密度与健康生产效率之间存在显著的相关关系,公共健康投入比例与健康生产效率之间呈现并不十分显著的负相关关系,这可能是公共财政支出不当偏重倾向的结果;城乡居民在支付能力与健康生产效率之间的关系上恰好相反,这可能与城乡之间截然不同的收入水平和公共服务待遇相关,因而应当采取有针对性的医疗卫生政策。     

Estimating an hedonic translog cost function for the home health care industry

Medicare home health care plays an important role in providing cost effective care for the chronically ill and elderly. Long seen as a cost effective substitute for nursing home care, home care has become even more important with expenditures increasing by 31.4% from 1990 to 1996. The purpose of this paper is to provide a short run cost analysis of a sample of home health care providers to gain insight into the efficient provision of home health care services. This paper is a significant improvement over previous studies in that it uses a nationwide database to more accurately represent the multiproduct nature of the industry and uses an hedonic translog cost estimation with desirable economic properties.     

Nature and labour: theoretical approaches and metaphors of wealth before Adam Smith

Abstract

In the seventeenth century and the early decades of the eighteenth, there occurred a conceptual reversal regarding the relationship between land and labour as agents of production of wealth. Authors of the seventeenth century attributed to labour – as “form” and “father” – a fundamental role in producing wealth, and they considered land as “matter” and “mother”, while Physiocrats attributed reproductive capacity only to land, and viewed labour as either mere support of nature or “sterile” transformative activity. These conceptions about the formation of wealth emerged not only from theoretical analyses but also from metaphors which had an important role in providing preliminary conceptual frameworks.     

成长型资源城市绿色转型研究

资源型城市必须走绿色转型之路。绿色转型是以生态优先、绿色发展为导向的经济转型,其路径选择是一个摆脱传统发展模式向清洁、循环、低碳发展的递进过程,关键是选择在成长期主动转型,核心是优化资源型城市资源型产业发展路径。运用线性规划(linear programming)方法对成长型资源城市鄂尔多斯市的资源型产业发展路径优化分析得出,煤炭产业绿色转型不能只追求项目规模和经济增速,发展煤电及现代煤化工是煤炭产业绿色转型的最优路径,煤制气和煤制油是现代煤化工行业的最优路径。     

Developing an effective business plan

The cost-consciousness of today's health care industry demands that nurses function as business people as well as care givers. One critical business skill that nurses must develop is writing effective business plans. This article describes a framework for developing successful business plans for both beginning new services and expanding current nursing programs.     

Accounting for the ecosystem services of migratory species: Quantifying migration support and spatial subsidies

Migratory species support ecosystem process and function in multiple areas, establishing ecological linkages between their different habitats. As they travel, migratory species also provide ecosystem services to people in many different locations. Previous research suggests there may be spatial mismatches between locations where humans use services and the ecosystems that produce them. This occurs with migratory species, between the areas that most support the species' population viability - and hence their long-term ability to provide services - and the locations where species provide the most ecosystem services. This paper presents a conceptual framework for estimating how much a particular location supports the provision of ecosystem services in other locations, and for estimating the extent to which local benefits are dependent upon other locations. We also describe a method for estimating the net payment, or subsidy, owed by or to a location that balances benefits received and support provided by locations throughout the migratory range of multiple species. The ability to quantify these spatial subsidies could provide a foundation for the establishment of markets that incentivize cross-jurisdictional cooperative management of migratory species. It could also provide a mechanism for resolving conflicts over the sustainable and equitable allocation of exploited migratory species.     

Can bribery buy health? Evidence from post-communist countries

Corruption is pervasive, but we know little about its effects on individual lives. Using individual-level data from 28 post-communist countries, we demonstrate that bribing for public services worsens self-assessed health. We account for endogeneity of bribery and show that bribing for any type of public service, not just for health services, has an adverse impact. We also find that bribery lowers the quality of services received. Moreover, there are potentially high indirect costs of bribery since, as we show, it comes at the expense of cutting food consumption. These findings suggest that corruption is a potentially important source behind the poor health outcomes in many developing countries.     

An empirical study of third-party purchase: New Zealand users’ perspective

This article investigates the potential for third-party purchase (3PP) services offered by third-party logistics (3PL) providers, from the perspective of 3PL users, based on transaction cost analysis. We conducted a survey of New Zealand 3PL users and received 163 usable responses. Structural equation modelling was used to test the conceptual model. We found that 3PL users are more likely to adopt 3PP service when there is greater uncertainty. Asset specificity, frequency and transaction size do not have a significant relationship with 3PP service adoption. However, 3PP service is significantly related to the value-to-client and benefit-to-3PL provider. This study is pioneering research on 3PP service as a value-added service offered by 3PL providers from the perspective of 3PL users. The findings suggest that offering 3PP service will provide mutual benefits and value for both 3PL users and their 3PL providers.     

Business models for material efficiency services: Conceptualization and application

Despite the abundant research on material flows and the growing recognition of the need to dematerialize the economy, business enterprises are still not making the best possible use of the many opportunities for material efficiency improvements. This article proposes one possible solution: material efficiency services provided by outside suppliers. It also introduces a conceptual framework for the analysis of different business models for eco-efficient services and applies the framework to material efficiency services. Four business models are outlined and their feasibility is studied from an empirical vantage point. In contrast to much of the previous research, special emphasis is laid on the financial aspects. It appears that the most promising business models are ‘material efficiency as additional service’ and ‘material flow management service’. Depending on the business model, prominent material efficiency service providers differ from large companies that offer multiple products and/or services to smaller, specialized providers. Potential clients (users) typically lack the resources (expertise, management's time or initial funds) to conduct material efficiency improvements themselves. Customers are more likely to use material efficiency services that relate to support materials or side-streams rather than those that are at the core of production. Potential client organizations with a strategy of outsourcing support activities and with experience of outsourcing are more keen to use material efficiency services.