Asia-Pacific Journal of Health Management (ACHSM)
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COVID-19 – A Tale of Two Cities: Seattle and Vancouver
No full textThe coronavirus pandemic has been affecting many countries in the world over the past six months. Nowhere sees the light at the end of the tunnel. Precautionary measures, lockdown, as well as control of crowd gathering and movement have been implemented by all governments, with the sacrifice of economic activities. It is interesting to review how things were happening in North America where the United States has been hard hit by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), scoring over two million confirmed cases and about 120 thousand deaths at the top of the list of the world. Canada ranked eighteenth with about 100 thousand cases and just about 8 thousand deaths. Both the cases and deaths per capita are lower in Canada, which shares the same border and similar culture with the United States. Seattle and Vancouver have some of the highest incomes and educational levels in both countries. These two West coast cities are only 200 kilometres apart and are near the U.S.-Canada border. They are selected for this review to study the different approaches in managing the COVID-19 pandemic
Intrinsic Cultural Factors That Helped Vietnam Overcome the COVID-19 Pandemic Compared with Other Countries.
No full text The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic emerged in Wuhan, China, spread nationwide and then onto many other countries between December 2019 and early 2020. The implementation of strict quarantine measures in Vietnam has kept a large number of people in isolation and has eventually put the disease under control. Social and physical distancing turned to be an efficient way of slowing the spread of disease and stopping chains of transmission of COVID-19 as well as preventing new ones from appearing (World Health Organization, 2020). Analyzing the World Health Organization (WHO) data, we could see a clear difference in the reported numbers between Vietnam, a developing country, and the USA, one of the leading developed countries in the western hemisphere. We tried to address the question if there are factors that helped local governments to implement helpful rules. We argue that Eastern Asian cultural traits played a role in reducing the spread of COVID-19. We recommend to take this commentary paper, and further research those cultural factors that positively affected the slowdown of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam
Post-implementation Evaluation of a Digital Dictation System in a Large Health Service Using HOT-Fit Framework
No full textObjective: The objective of this study was to evaluate a digital dictation system (DDS) that has been implemented in a large health service. The data collected in this study was used to understand the overall uptake and performance of the system and consequently improve the quality of care delivered by the organisation.
Methods: A mixed method research design was used in this study. Clinicians and Medical Transcriptionists using the DDS across the two campuses of the health service over a period of four months, were surveyed to assess the extent to which the implementation of the DDS is fulfilling its purpose. In addition, system usage statistics, project implementation documents and user support emails were also analysed.
Results: This study utilised an existing comprehensive and validated evaluation framework, the Human, Organisation and Technology Fit (HOT-Fit) framework. Human fit: 79.55% (n=35) of Clinicians and 33.33% (n=2) of MTs reported an overall satisfaction with the DDS. Organisation fit: The document analysis revealed that the DDS selected aligned best with current organizational IT strategies and was an easy fit with existing practices. Technology fit: An overall satisfaction of 53.49% (n=23) from the Clinicians and 16.67% (n=1) from the MTs was reported on the DDS. Out of 22 issues lodged regarding the system, 77.27% (n=17) issues met the Service Level Agreement (SLA).
Conclusions: The overall findings of the study suggest that, the DDS was a good fit within the organisation in terms of Human fit and Organisation fit. In terms of Technology fit there existed some technical issues on the end-user level due to the system being new to the end users. To overcome this and facilitate the smooth functioning of the DDS, effective communication with the vendor and other relevant stakeholders was recommended so that end users i.e. the Clinicians and MTs understand the system, its functionality and their role in providing timely and high-quality information for clinical care
Servicescapes in Healthcare: A qualitative study on the elderly’s perception of an aged care facility
No full textObjective: The paper aims to understand how the elderly perceive the healthcare services of their aged care facilities. This paper explores different dimensions of servicescape elements, which ultimately affect the development of healthcare services.
Design: Both naturalistic observations and in-depth interviews were conducted to discover the perceptions servicesape elements.
Results: The authors discovered that servicescape elements rely not only on physical, social and socially symbolic dimensions but also on cultural dimensions.
Conclusions: This study uses the elderly home context in City of Harlingen, Rio Grande Valley, Texas, USA, and finds support to Rosenbaum and Massiah [1]’s multidimensional model and suggests improvements in servicescape elements. We found that factors such as ambience, signage, layout, and socially symbolic structure at the aged care facility, were highly appreciated by the elder residents. Other factors such as privacy, quiet environment, and social interactions among patients via group activities require improvements and further attention. Findings of the study can be generalized in other similar social contexts, particularly in improving Asia Pacific region’s healthcare services
Use of Quality Management Tools and Methods Is Essential to Support Effective Governance of Healthcare Organisations
No full textFor healthcare organisations, a significant governance responsibility is for quality of health care provision. This is an important reason for governance boards to have good understanding of quality management and patient safety systems and processes that guide provision of all aspects of healthcare.
It is also important that there is structure to how governance activities are undertaken. Use of quality management tools and methods can provide that structure and support systematic and consistent governance decision making. Using quality management systems and frameworks should be a pre-requisite for effective governance
In This Issue
No full textIn this issue we start with an editorial that addresses the Corona virus COVID-19, a difficult task given the fast-moving nature of this pandemic. The editorial attempts to draw some lessons for us to consider from our experience of this event..... and the 6 articles included....
Overview of Palliative Care Service in Hong Kong
No full textPalliative care service is a growing trend for patients with terminal illnesses. The purpose of palliative care is to improve the quality of life for the patients and their family by providing comprehensive care such as symptoms control, pain relief and counselling support. More and more people prefer to spend the final stage of their life in a comfortable environment with adequate care. However, Hong Kong is only ranked 22 in 2015 Quality of Death Index, and hence enhancement of palliative care service is much needed. This review paper aims to evaluate the current resources and development of palliative care service in Hong Kong and suggest improvement of the service. This study reveals that the system in Hong Kong lacks a comprehensive policy, thus limiting organisations to provide the service to small-scale operations and resulting in fragmentation of the co-operation between the public and private sectors. Factors such as professional training, community engagement, culture and financial issues are affecting the development and adequacy of palliative care service. 
Ageing with Health and Dignity
No full textI am grateful to be given the opportunity to write this Editorial. As mentioned by Dr. Briggs’s introduction (“In this Issue”), the articles in this Special Issue were selected from papers presented to the CPCE Health Conference 2020 in Hong Kong. The 2020 Conference is the fifth consecutive annual conference organized by the College of Professional and Continuing Education (CPCE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, supported by many partner institutions, including the Australasian College of Health Services Management and the APJHM....
A Qualitative Study On Mental Distress Of Vietnamese Students In The U.S.A. In The Covid-19 Era
No full textObjective: This paper aims to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic affects the mental distress of the Vietnamese students in the USA. We explore different root causes of mental distress among international students who are away from their home country, their loved ones, and being isolated from school and community due to this outbreak.
Design: In-depth interviews were conducted to probe the reasons for mental stress during the pandemic and the narrative textual analysis was subsequently performed to analyze the results. This research includes the interviews of 20 Vietnamese students in the USA during the COVID-19 era.
Results: The textual analysis showed that the mental distress of these Vietnamese students were caused by limited access to on-campus facilities and activities, limited access to public services including grocery shopping, transportations, clinics, the possibility of being infected, isolated living condition due to the lockdown order, and inability to go back to the home country when wanted.
Conclusions: We found that both physical attributes (e.g., living condition, internet difficulty, overwhelmed healthcare system, restricted traveling, lack of personal interaction, limited access to public services) and psychological factors (e.g., anxiety of unfamiliar teaching modality, fear of viral infection, uncertain career aspects, cultural barrier and prejudice) directly led to the mental distress of these students. Moreover, other factors such as turbulent future job markets and potential racism toward Asians in relation with “Chinese virus” may cause the mental distress of these students
Understanding COVID-19 Dispersion in the Filipino Sociocultural Context
No full textThis study aims to discover the sociocultural factors affecting the disease dispersion pattern of the COVID-19 in the Philippines. This is an ecological study where the unit of observation is the cases of COVID-19 in the country. The cases compared was defined in various ways to create an explanation of the dispersion pattern of COVID-19 in the country. Data was taken from the official reports of the Philippine Department of Health as of March 13, 2020, on the 52 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country. Data gathered from the reports were age, sex, existing diseases, acquisition (local or international), proximity to carrier and health status. Results revealed that older male Filipinos are at higher risk of acquiring COVID-19 with prognosis defined by certain culturally-related diseases. The dispersion of the disease in the country is further compounded by the sociocultural context the Filipinos are in