Asia-Pacific Journal of Health Management (ACHSM)
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Home Hygiene and Prevention of Infections
No full textHealth is wealth - a famous proverb that almost everyone has heard of but may not have fully understood its essence. Health comes from maintaining cleanliness and hygiene which starts from home and expands to workplaces and public areas. By practicing hygiene in the home and everyday life settings, it will have impact significantly in reducing the global burden of infectious diseases that kills over 17 million people a year. Mainly caused by microorganisms, infections can easily spread by direct and indirect contact. Common infectious diseases include chickenpox, common cold, malaria and pertussis. These diseases tend to have specific symptoms such as fever, diarrhoea, fatigue and muscle aches. In institutional settings, such as schools and child-cares settings, information relating hand hygiene is routine. However, the home environment is one of the potential sources of transmission of infectious diseases. This situation, of course, needs to be re-evaluated and the promotion of home hygiene should be encouraged. Positive correlation has been found between home hygiene practices and risk of disease transmission in homes where the first line of defence against infectious diseases is cleaning and disinfecting plus maintaining good hand hygiene. But, the implementation for an effective policy to monitor home hygiene is rather complex due to varying determinants of health. In a nutshell, proper home hygiene and cleaning practices lead to reduced risk of spreading infectious diseases. They should form the key issues in the practice of health promotion in the community and institutions
Community Ageing With Health And Dignity Through A Service-Learning Initiative
No full textBackground: A new compulsory service-learning subject was introduced in the Practices of Health Promotion module of Bachelor of Science in Applied Sciences (Health Studies), run by School of Professional Education and Executive Development, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. It aims to develop students’ ability to apply learned principles and concepts of health behaviour from lectures into a community setting, by completing elderly site services arranged at four selected elderly centres.
Methods: 36 students were enrolled in the subject. An analytical framework was developed based on specific themes, sub-categories and categories. Data extracted from students’ reflective journals were input into a qualitative analysis software, Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) Miner 5 of Provalis Prosuite for analysis.
Results: 5 themes and 24 categories were created based on the data analysed from students’ reflective journals. The three highest frequency themes are ‘Skills learned’ (170 text units, 32.6% of total), ‘Challenges’ (140 text units, 26.8% of total), and ‘Elders characteristics’ (135 text units, 25.9% of total).
Conclusions: Communication, teamwork and organising activities to the elderly are the most cited skills learned by students. They have also identified elders’ personality and characteristic when communicating with them. Although there were challenges when interacting with the recipients and centres, students have overcome most of them and have learned better ways to communicate with elders and reacted quickly by changing the content of designed activities provided to elders. 
The Relationship between Leadership Style and Hospital Employee Engagement in Papua New Guinea
No full textEngagement, an important concept in the determination of overall employee output, has become an important factor within the healthcare sector, and in light of various challenges facing employees, such as high workloads and long working hours, engagement also plays a significant role in ensuring improved healthcare output. Meanwhile, leadership, which plays a major role in guiding and influencing employees toward goal achievement, is the driving force behind employee engagement. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to examine the nature of the relationship between three different leadership techniques—transformational, transactional and passive avoidant—and employee engagement in the Papua New Guinea (PNG) healthcare sector. Research has shown that transactional and transformational leadership have the highest level of impact on employee engagement as a result of the role leaders play in the inspiration and stimulation of employees. The methodology applied to examine this statement involved a random selection of 84 health employees from three PNG hospitals: ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital, Mount Hagen General Hospital and Port Moresby General Hospital. A correlation analysis of the quantitative research methodology was then applied to evaluate the relationship between key variables in the collected data. A final analysis of results revealed that, within the PNG healthcare sector, transformational and transactional leadership both have a positive relationship with employee engagement, while passive avoidant leadership has a negative relationship with employee engagement
Community People Preparedness and Response on Prevention and Control of COVID-19 Best Practice in Bangladesh
No full textPurpose: The major objectives of the study were to assess the knowledge, attitude & practice (KAP) towards community preparedness and response on prevention of COVID-19 among the community people.
Method: A sample survey was conducted to collect data from people admitted to a district-level tertiary hospital for the treatment of various health complications during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 300 randomly selected patients and their attendants were interviewed in the hospital setting.
Results: The mean knowledge score was 18.73 out of 24 and the main sources of information were TV (86.5%), radio (13%), newspaper (13%), social media (13.5%), friends/relatives (14%), formal healthcare providers (6%) and religious leaders (3%). Knowledge was significantly poor among aged people, women, less educated, and less earning. The majority of the participants (79%) suggested wearing facemasks as effective tools to prevent COVID-19 from spreading, whereas 56% mentioned maintaining physical or social distance as crucial to prevent the infection. We found strong relationship between monthly total family expenses and wearing of facemasks by gender to prevent the COVID-19 (x2= 18.405; Cramer’s V= .17, df = 8; sig; P= < .018). Similarly maintaining physical/social distance to prevent COVID-19 is also related to respondents’ economic strata (x2= 43.741; Cramer’s V= .14, df = 20; Sig; P= < .002).
Conclusions: Awareness program on COVID-19 is very important to prevent the spread of the deadly virus. Effective communication intervention with increasing treatment facilities is essential for the prevention and control of COVID-19. Government and development agencies should prioritize the COVID-19 response program with regular health care services.
Improvement of Safety in Operating Theatres by Training and Teamwork
No full textMedical incidents in public hospitals in Hong Kong have persisted for years. The operating theatres are one of the places where medical accidents occur, especially affecting service quality. The surgical team is a substantial cause of medical incidents, possibly because of human mistakes, environmental, equipment, and system failures. Not all surgery departments will implement uniform working styles. The Hospital Authority may set a management plan to unify practice and to identity the problems faced. Therefore, the government and Hospital Authority should focus on human resources, especially in terms of professional training and retention of staff. After all, surgery is a task of teamwork
Exit Strategies for COVID 19: An ISM and MICMAC approach
No full textCOVID 19 pandemic is the worst crisis that mankind has seen since World War-II. It has exposed glaring loopholes in the healthcare system and led to a global health crisis. In absence of any specific treatment or vaccine, countries began to enforce strict lockdown measures leading to a complete shutdown of economic activities. The purpose of this study is to identify key exit strategies that can be implemented to mitigate the impacts of COVID 19. Identification and categorisation of parameters have been done using multi criterion decision making tool of Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) and MICMAC analysis.
The study highlights a classification of key strategies based on their driving power and dependence which may enable Government to strengthen the disease surveillance system and effectively reduce the impact of the disease. The findings of the study suggest that Environmental Sustainability and Human Well-being; Online Awareness and Capacity Building Programme; Graded Surveillance- Targeted Restrictions and Stricter norms for Inter-State Mobility; and Harmonization between Centre, State and Local Authorities are the most important strategies that needs to be factored in while planning for the post lockdown economic recovery. Thus, the study can assist the government in devising exit strategies while framing the pandemic response plan
Library Bulletin Special Issue: Updated COVID-19 Resources
No full textLibrary Bulletin Special Issue on COVID-19 topics includes prevention, diagnosis, treatment, health services and more...
Job Vacancy Data for Dentists in Australia: Advertised vacancies as an indicator of unmet need
No full textObjectives: The aim of this study was to determine whether job vacancy data for dentists might be used as part of a needs-based index to indicate levels of workforce supply.
Methods: Advertised job vacancies for dentists were collected at monthly intervals between October 2011 and June 2019; compiled into a data base and geo-coded by latitude and longitude. The vacancies were mapped using QGIS software and their geographic locations were observed relative to Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia Plus (ARIA+ 2016) and SEIFA Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (IRSD).
Results: There was a slight decline in the number of advertised job vacancies relative to the population of Australia in the first 18 months of the study. For the remainder of the study period the number of vacancies per million of the population rose steadily. There were differences between ARIA+ regions; but remote and very remote Australia showed very little variation in vacancies across the study period. The percentage of monthly advertised vacancies in IRSD1 (most disadvantaged) areas was much higher (>40%) at the start of the study period but by the end of the study the percentage of vacancies was relatively even across all IRSD groups.
Conclusions: The increase in the number of vacancies per million population since 2013 implies an increase in demand for dentists. The findings do not correlate with industry and government agency reporting of an oversupply. The use of job vacancy data might form part of a needs-based index to inform dental workforce planning
In This Issue
No full textThis special issue responds to publications arising from presentations at the 2020 CPCE Health Conference held in Hong Kong in January. The conference was conducted by the College of Professional and Continuing Education of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in association with a number a number of organisations including the Centre for Ageing and Healthcare Management Research and our colleagues from the Hong Kong College of Health Service Executives.The theme of the conference was ‘Ageing with Health and Dignity – Implications for Public Policy, Service Delivery Workforce, Technology and Financing’....
COVID-19: Perceptions of a Primary Health Network in Australia
No full textThe Covid-19 pandemic is still current but has been particularly well addressed, so far, in the Australian context. This article presents an analysis of management practice to describe the experience of one Primary Health Network (PHN) and its approach and response to the pandemic within its geographical region in accordance with Federal government directives. The PHN is a large geographic area that includes the Central Coast, just north of the Sydney basin, the Newcastle and Hunter Valley region and the Northwest/New England region that extends from Tamworth to the Queensland Border.
The article describes the PHN function within its primary healthcare role (PHC) in respect to responding to national initiatives to address and reduce the impact Of the Covid-19 event. The article recounts the Federal Governments directive described through the ‘National Cabinet’ and the Federal Health Department and the PHN response to those directives and initiatives. The article also recounts the actual cases of Covid-19 over the period of the epidemic.
The article describes the governance, leadership, and management initiatives. The article then describes the PHN approach to evaluation of its approach from the perspective of general practice and other PHC providers as well as providing perspectives from governance, management, and staff. The evaluation process identified significant impacts on providers and strong support for the continuation of telehealth measures. There were positive responses to the PHN activity and as a strong sense of trusted information, ongoing education, and general engagement.