Journal of Evidence Based Health Policy, Management and Economics
Volume:7 Issue: 1, Mar 2023

The only sustainable competitive advantage of organizations is their employees. Capable and efficient manpower are the most important assets of organizations and communities. This will lead to sustainable development. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of empowerment through four factors of ability (knowledge and skills, trust, motivation and communication) among the staff of Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences.
 

This was a descriptive study conducted in 2017.The statistical population consisted of 485 staff members of Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences. 215 people were selected by random sampling method. Then, the authors selected samples from each job category through stratified sampling method. To collect information, the authors used a standard empowerment questionnaire based on Melhem's model in addition to the demographic section. After distributing the questionnaire; t-student test and Spearman correlation were used to determine the status of research variables and also the type and extent of the relationship between them.

According to the results of t-student test, the average of all variables was more than 3 indicating the appropriate status of employees' capabilities. Moreover, the results of Spearman correlation test showed that the relationship between independent variables and dependent variables in this test was significant. All research hypotheses (main hypothesis and four sub-hypotheses) were confirmed. The results of the correlation coefficient of the relationship between knowledge and skill variables with empowerment showed a moderate intensity, while the correlation coefficient of the relationship between the variables of motivation, trust and communication with empowerment showed a low intensity.

Due to the appropriate status of employees' empowerment, long-term empowerment programs are proposed to enhance employees' empowerment further.

The retention of physicians' policy is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to achieve the goals of the health system and justice in access to health services. The aim of this study was policy analysis of retention of physicians in deprived areas and providing some recommendations for improvement of this plan.

This was a qualitative study regarding policy which used Walt and Gilson's triangle framework and Kingdon's multiple streams. Data were collected using a deep semi-structured interview with 30 participants and a review of upstream laws and regulations. After that, all the interviews were recorded, transcribed, and reviewed. Then, data were analyzed through MAXQDA/12 and content analysis.

The findings of this study were categorized according to the policy context, content, and process, and actors who played a significant role in designing and implementing this policy.

The policy of retaining physicians in rural areas requires the support of the majority of the country's political and health authorities, and providing infrastructure for health providers. This policy not only increases the quality of services, but also is effective in increasing the patients' access to healthcare services in deprived areas.

Sound organizational governance is critical to the health sector. The condition of the legal framework that is in place, plays a key role in institutionalizing sound governance. The present paper examines the condition of the legal framework that facilitates the implementation of robust public hospital governance in Malawi.

The paper employed document analysis utilizing Clarke’s situational thinking to examine the legal framework pertaining to the governance of central and district hospitals.

The findings suggest that the current legal framework does not prescribe a specific organizational governance system for central and district hospitals. Governance of the hospitals relies on the governance framework of their parent entities, namely the Ministry of Health and District Councils respectively. This setup presents serious challenges that include undermining the uniqueness of the hospital governance system and obscuring the organizational visibility of public hospitals. Consequently, it has detrimental effects on the implementation of sound organizational governance principles including responsibility, transparency, and accountability.

The paper demonstrates the need for policymakers to examine the condition of the specific elements of the legal framework in order to identify those areas that require attention toward reforming the state of organizational governance of the public hospitals under study.

Primary healthcare facilities are essential to provide healthcare to individuals and the society closer to home. Fast, timely, and affordable access to these centers is important in each society. This is especially crucial to prevent and control the epidemics of non-communicable diseases that are highly affecting populations in urban settings. This study aimed to assess spatial accessibility to primary healthcare facilities in Yazd city (Iran), using a Geographic Information System (GIS).

In this descriptive-analytical study, which was conducted cross-sectionally in 2022, locational information related to primary healthcare centers, population distribution, and urban zoning of Yazd city were collected and recorded in Excel format. Then, distribution maps of each of the studied uses were determined. Then, the existing indicators and standards regarding the uses were determined through documentary studies, and a geographic database was formed through the GIS software collection. Data were analyzed using indicators and models such as hot spot analysis, Thiessen's polygons algorithm, access model based on the two-step floating catchment area, and the average distance model of the nearest neighbor.

The results indicated that the comprehensive health centers in Yazd city are located next to each other with a scattered distribution pattern, and are away from each other by an average distance of 1131 meters. Also, the distance of urban health posts from each other is 1045 meters on average, and are randomly located next to each other. The main concentration of the distribution of primary health care facilities is observed in the central and traditional regions of the city, which, according to the hot spot analysis, are among the cold and low population density spots. In addition, the access score of the regions indicates that the distribution of these facilities is not according to the population density, and the highest functional pressure of comprehensive health centers as well as urbun health posts is observed in the regions where there is the least access to these facilities.

There is a disparity between the distribution of primary healthcare facilities and population density in Yazd city, Iran. This study provides significant evidence to local health policymakers and urban planners to design more efficient actions related to equal development of health infrastructure by using the GIS.

One of the most important tasks of health care managers is  allocateing resources, controling them and ensuring their effective use when available. This study examines the consequences and costs of emergency services in Yazd in 2018.

This was a descriptive-analytical study performed on patients of 11 centers in Yazd in 2018. The population of the city  was approximately 750,000  in 2018 (1). Direct and indirect costs were extracted, and the consequences and costs of Yazd emergency in 2018 were calculated in riyal and Dollars.

This study showed that in 2018, out of 173154 contacts, 37988 cases led to the dispatch of an ambulance, and the response rate was 18 %. The rate of hospitalization was 52 %. The average time of dispatch in  Yazd pre-hospital emergency department was (10:48) in 2018. Of the 59 high-risk patients who were transported to Yazd's pre-hospital emergency in 2018, 5 patients had successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation(discharge from the hospital). In other words, effectiveness and saving people from death was 8.4 %. Depreciation costs in the pre-hospital emergency department of Yazd in 2018 amounted to 65,061 Dollars (9,759,264,923 Rial). The cost of personnel salaries and benefits was 39669829 Dollars ( 59504743663 Rial). This amount was about 40 % of the total cost of the year for pre-hospital emergency in Yazd city. The average cost of each mission-dispatch was 25 Dollars (3775967 Rial).

This study examines the consequences and costs of per hospital emergency department in Yazd in 2018. The high number of unnecessary calls to Yazd emergency department calls for the need to raise public awareness. Moreover, the lack of need to transfer half of these people to hospital requires training and retraining of telephone triage nurses.

Nurses constitute a large population of organizational workforce in the field of health. They experience a high level of job stress and workplace pressure. Therefore, paying attention to nurses’ health and reducing burnout, increase productivity, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Relying on meta-analysis method, this study seeks to investigate the factors related to the general health of nurses and measure the effect of each factor.

The method of this research is quantitative meta-analysis, which was carried out in the period of 2007-2017 with a sample size of 14 research documents. The statistical population of the study included all the studies conducted in Iran regarding the general health of nurses which have been published in scientific and research journals as IRANDOC, NORMAGS, and SID. The purposive sampling method was based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, as well as considering the validity and reliability of the research. Compliance with validity, reliability and quality of research; the existence of correlation coefficient, sample size and significant level of research has been the criteria for entering the research into the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis Software version 2.

In this study, the lack of diffusion bias and homogeneity of the effect size were first confirmed. In terms of bias, most of the studies under review were sub-funnel, indicating no propagation error. Based on the results of the N-error-free test, 253 studies should be performed to question the results of the present study. The results of I2 also indicated that the research in this field was homogeneous. Based on the results of effect size, strengthening communication skills, followed by stress management group therapy, had the greatest role in improving the general health of nurses. Finally, it was found that the average effect size of various factors on the general health of nurses was 0.164.

It can be concluded that strengthening communication skills among nurses has an important role in improving their general health followed by group therapy. Stress management has the next highest effect size and is one of the most important factors related to improving the health of nurses.

In the data-rich and data-sensitive environment, health information systems (HIS) have been used for decision-making by providing reliable data. The current study aims to have a holistic view on the logistic role of IS in health sector.

PubMed, Scopus, and Science Direct were searched by keywords including "information system AND health AND data", "health information system AND challenges AND network", health information system OR clinical information system AND quality of services". 547 scientific studies from 2010 onwards were selected. At first, based on papers' relevance to the aim of this study, titles and abstracts of publications were studied. 259 studies were filtered out. Then, through analyzing the full texts based on inclusion criteria, authors selected 106 papers. Finally, contents were extracted and categorized.

Due to the impact of IS on quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of services, as well as patients' safety, various types of ISs are used at different levels of the health system. They are classified based on different criteria including generality, level of the health system, managerial level, complexity, and integrity. According to IS components, non-standardized data, weak human resources capacity, incompatibility with work procedures, fragmentation of subsystems, cyber security threats, and insufficient informatics infrastructure were the main challenges.

IS in health play a logistic role in systematic data management and circulation of reliable information. A systematic and integrated view is needed to conquer the organizational and systemic challenges.

Nayeb Fadaei Dehcheshmeh 3*

3 Department of Public Health, Shoushtar Faculty of Medical Sciences, Shoushtar, Iran



Corrigendum notice: In the above article, which was published in the Volume 6, Issue of 2, June 2022, affiliation of Nayeb Fadaei Dehcheshmeh has been corrected.