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The transition of a large-scale quality improvement initiative: a bibliometric analysis of the Productive Ward: Releasing Time to Care Programme
Get PDFAims and objectives
To examine the literature related to a large-scale quality improvement initiative, the ‘Productive Ward: Releasing Time to Care’, providing a bibliometric profile that tracks the level of interest and scale of roll-out and adoption, discussing the implications for sustainability.
Background
Productive Ward: Releasing Time to Care (aka Productive Ward) is probably one of the most ambitious quality improvement efforts engaged by the UK-NHS. Politically and financially supported, its main driver was the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement. The NHS institute closed in early 2013 leaving a void of resources, knowledge and expertise. UK roll-out of the initiative is well established and has arguably peaked. International interest in the initiative however continues to develop.
Methods
A comprehensive literature review was undertaken to identify the literature related to the Productive Ward and its implementation (January 2006–June 2013). A bibliometric analysis examined/reviewed the trends and identified/measured interest, spread and uptake.
Results
Overall distribution patterns identify a declining trend of interest, with reduced numbers of grey literature and evaluation publications. However, detailed examination of the data shows no reduction in peer-reviewed outputs. There is some evidence that international uptake of the initiative continues to generate publications and create interest.
Conclusions
Sustaining this initiative in the UK will require re-energising, a new focus and financing. The transition period created by the closure of its creator may well contribute to further reduced levels of interest and publication outputs in the UK. However, international implementation, evaluation and associated publications could serve to attract professional/academic interest in this well-established, positively reported, quality improvement initiative.
Relevance to clinical practice
This paper provides nurses and ward teams involved in quality improvement programmes with a detailed, current-state, examination and analysis of the Productive Ward literature, highlighting the bibliometric patterns of this large-scale, international, quality improvement programme. It serves to disseminate updated publication information to those in clinical practice who are involved in Productive Ward or a similar quality improvement initiative
Gender awareness, symptom expressions and Irish mental health-care provision
No full textIrish mental health policy and care provision is criticised for being gender-neutral
despite gender being present in almost every aspect of illness; from risk to protection;
symptom interpretation; diagnosing, ideology and knowledge of illnesses. The aim of
this paper was to present the views of Irish service users and providers in relation to
symptom expressions, gender awareness and care provision. A qualitative social realist
design was used using Layder’s (1998) adaptive theory and social domains theory. Indepth
interviews (n ¼ 54) with 26 service users and 28 service providers were
conducted within one mental health service in Ireland. Dominant societal expectations
for men and women are described in response to symptom expressions that reflect
‘categorical’ and ‘performative’ understandings of gender. A return of interest to
symptoms-based research and practice from a gendered perspective is argued for.
Keywords: symptoms; masculinities; femininities; mental health care; Irelan
‘Music and Nature’ A Folio of Original Compositions for Various Instruments with Detailed Analyses Volume 2
Get PDF'It's a Long Way to Tipperary': The Great War contribution of Molly O'Connel Bianconi to Allied nursing care
Get PDFCan market oriented behaviours lead to the creation of a market oriented organisational culture? An exploration of some theoretical evidence.
Get PDFPresents a new theoretical framework for the relationships between Market Oriented Behaviours and the layers of an Organisation’s Culture: The literature identifies an emerging “Activities-Create-Culture” approach to Market Orientation which challenges the Traditional Cultural Approach (Gainer and Padanyi, 2005, p. 856). However, the relationships between Market Oriented Behaviours and the layers of an Organisation’s Culture remain unexplored from this emerging perspective, particularly for organisations outside the non-profit sector (Gainer and Padanyi, 2005). Examining the existing literature, this paper deduces a number of hypotheses and, consequently, presents a new theoretical framework which aims to address this research gap. This new framework offers guidance to managers who are seeking to become Market Oriented, which is appealing as a strong positive relationship between Market Orientation and Organisational Performance is now widely agreed upon in the literature (Pitt et al., 1996; Harris, 2001)
The social dynamics of micro-firm learning in an evolving learning community
Get PDFMicro-firms dominate the tourism sector internationally, yet there is a notable absence of studies specifically relating to their learning interactions with other tourism firms. Even when studied, a social learning lens is rarely applied in either micro-firm or tourism learning network research despite its relevance in this domain. In seeking to understand and map the social dynamics of micro-firm learning and participation in an independent learning network, the authors studied an evolving learning community (ELC) situated in Ireland's south west region over a four-year period. The findings demonstrate the complexity associated with creating and sustaining a social learning infrastructure in this context. An ELC model is proffered to provide insight into inter and intra social dynamics that influence learning development in the micro-firm setting. The proposed future research includes the study of additional ELCs, in Ireland and other countries, for the purposes of cross case/cross country comparison, and in pursuit of greater insight into the social dynamics of these communities
KT Force - Knowledge as a Value: Regional Implementation Plan
Get PDFEXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The KTForce INTERREG IVC project involves, at its core. the benchmarking and investigation of best
practices in knowledge transfer policies and practices at regional level. Its ultimate goal is to
Improve Europe's innovation environment. The project focuses on three components within Knowledge
Transfer (KT) and seeks to assess and benchmark these within an innovation and regional development
context. KTForce looks at how
university-industry relations can be enhanced, how technology licensing can be improved and the
Identification of the optimum conditions for creating spin-outs and increasing entrepreneurial
activity.
Along with a brief contextualisation of the South East Region of Ireland this booklet gives a
concise overview of the overall methodology set up and applied over the course of the KT project.
Specifically. this booklet provides a characterisation of the South East Region, the focus
(however. most data available is only for the Southern and Eastern region). through a regional
SWOT analysis supported by detailed illustration of both scenario 0 and future scenarios. based on
the analysis of key innovation performance indicators.
In considering both practices and policies relevant to knowledge transfer, at national and
regional levels. the process for practice selection and implementation and the analysis used for
policy benchmarking are also illustrated. This booklet ends with the main conclusions and some
policy recommendations resulting from the analysis and work performed over the course of the KT
Force project
Quantized nonnegative matrix factorization
Get PDFEven though Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF) in its original form performs rank reduction and signal compaction implicitly, it does not explicitly consider storage or transmission constraints. We propose a Frobenius-norm Quantized Nonnegative Matrix Factorization algorithm that is 1) almost as precise as traditional NMF for decomposition ranks of interest (with in 1–4dB), 2) admits to practical encoding techniques by learning a factorization which is simpler than NMF's (by a factor of 20–70) and 3) exhibits a complexity which is comparable with state-of-the-art NMF methods. These properties are achieved by considering the quantization residual via an outer quantization optimization step, in an extended NMF iteration, namely QNMF. This approach comes in two forms: QNMF with 1) quasi-fixed and 2) adaptive quantization levels. Quantized NMF considers element-wise quantization constraints in the learning algorithm to eliminate defects due to post factorization quantization. We demonstrate significant reduction in the cardinality of the factor signal values set for comparable Signal-to-Noise-Ratios in a matrix decomposition task
‘The Landscape of Bank Credit Availability and Firm Leverage for European SMEs: An Evaluation of Country Characteristics’
Get PDFSmall and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are a fundamental source of economic growth across much of Europe and are perceived as key drivers of employment (European Commission, 2010). Indeed SME finance has received considerable attention where high information opacity defines much of its idiosyncratic nature. Moreover, concerns surrounding the availability of external finance in particular bank credit are an integral feature of SME finance where such concerns have intensified given the recent economic and financial crisis. Issues surrounding bank credit availability are further heightened for SMEs given their dependency on this external source of finance (Popov and Udell, 2012). Furthermore, given the idiosyncratic nature of SME finance, much attention is placed on their capital structure.
This study seeks to evaluate in a European context the impact of country characteristics on SME bank credit availability and on SMEs capital structure. The country characteristics evaluated include that of the information, legal, judicial, bankruptcy, social, tax and regulatory environments, derived from the US conceptual model of Berger and Udell (2006). Indeed, this study utilises its own conceptual framework which incorporates much of that of Berger and Udell (2006) and reflects the impact of these country characteristics in both dimensions of the research questions.
Employing a quantitative approach, two datasets are employed, namely the EC/ECB Survey on Access to Finance of SMEs over the time period, 2010-2011 and the Bureau Van Dijk Amadeus database over the time period, 2005-2011. Moreover, a comprehensive set of proxies are employed to represent the country characteristics, obtained mainly from the World Bank and the European Social Survey (ESS).The findings indicate that country characteristics are important, namely those of the information, legal, judicial, bankruptcy and regulatory environments.
In terms of availability, SMEs appear more likely to secure bank credit when there is less sharing of credit information, greater private property protection, lower costs to enforcing a contract, higher costs in resolving a debt and more stringent capital requirements. Furthermore, bank size appears to matter for SME bank credit availability regardless of domicile. Similarly, in the context of SME firm leverage, country characteristics also prove influential having controlled for firm and industry characteristics and macroeconomic and credit supply conditions. In particular, SME debt levels appear higher when the greater the sharing of credit information, the greater the extent of private property protection, the more time required to enforce a contract, the less time needed to resolve a debt and when there are less stringent capital requirements.
This study adds to the existing body of knowledge, considering a time period when concerns surrounding the availability of SME bank credit and indeed the capital structure of SMEs have been heightened. Utilising Berger and Udell’s (2006) conceptual model outside of its US origins, i.e. in a European context, this study devises a conceptual framework to test the impact of country characteristics on the landscape of SME bank credit availability and SME firm leverage
Achieving effective Rhododendron control by investigating novel methods of forest vegetation management
Get PDFIn Ireland one of the most serious invasive alien species which poses a threat to local biodiversity, particularly to our native woodlands, is Rhododendron ponticum L.. Rhododendron was first introduced to Ireland during the 19th century as an ornamental garden plant and has since become an established invasive species throughout Ireland. Rhododendron has also, in recent decades, become a significant management issue in plantation forests throughout Ireland. This study sets out to improve our understanding of the auto-ecology and invasion dynamics of rhododendron in Irish forests and to investigate control options to inform future rhododendron management plans. The study was divided into three broad areas. The first study sought to investigate the efficacy of a recently discovered Irish isolate of the fungal pathogen Chondrostereum purpureum as an inhibitor of rhododendron and Betula pendula (birch) sprouting in Ireland. The treated stumps were monitored for fungal colonisation and adventitious sprouting for the ensuing 18 months. The results demonstrated that a combination of mechanical cutting and the subsequent application of C. purpureum is not an effective method of vegetation management for either rhododendron or birch. As a successful primary invader, rhododendron is often found in areas when recent land management activities have taken place. Disturbed substrate coverage and the absence of predators provide rhododendron with optimum regeneration conditions. Many land management practices (particularly in a forestry situation) expose soil. To assess how the disturbance of vegetation relates to successful rhododendron establishment the degree to which the depth of substrate affects the germination of rhododendron seeds was tested. This second study demonstrated that even small decreases in forest litter depth, sufficient to expose bare substrate, facilitates rhododendron seedling establishment. The third study set out to investigate whether the prevention of grazing of native scrub species in woodland sites could be used to prevent the spread of rhododendron. The findings to date suggest that fencing does increase the survival of native scrub species birch and Ilex aquifolium (holly). Also of note, in some of the plots, the holly and holly/ birch mix have successfully suppressed the re-growth of rhododendron. In conclusion, rhododendron has become a huge problem in plantation forest habitats and in order to control it effectively and economically an integrated pest management strategy will have to be employed utilising a mixture of novel bio-controls, innovative management strategies exploiting weaknesses such as seed longevity, viability and litter depth, and ensuring that other plant species can compete free of grazing pressures