1,720,973 research outputs found
Can we improve the health system with pay-for-performance?
Full text linkAdvanced healthcare systems are moving toward greater efficiency, transparency and accountability, and this trend is not likely to change
There is no single measure that will improve service delivery and patient outcomes, ensure financial sustainability and increase accountability and transparency in a health system
The jury is still out on whether financial incentive mechanisms, such as pay-for-performance, work as intended and deliver value for money
The research literature is rich in lessons policymakers need to keep in mind when developing and rolling out pay-for-performance programs:
Program design
Build on what already exists
Formulate a clear business case that defines the objectives of the program in terms of the desired outcomes
Define performance using absolute and relative thresholds, ensure target can be adjusted over time and attribute credit for performance to participants in ways that foster care across serviced populations and not on a case-by-case basis
Ensure methodologies for risk adjustment are developed prior to the program’s introduction
Model and evaluate the program carefully before implementation and at regular intervals afterward. Pilot the program before rolling it out in a phased approach
Consider regional disparities when modelling and evaluating the program prior and post implementation
Design the program to drive improvement and quality across a range of service providers performing at various levels and not just reward current high performers
Performance targets must be perceived as being achievable although not without some additional effort
Allow room for innovation and flexibility
Data collection
Ensure strong health information systems are in place
Use rigorous and verifiable data collection methods and analysis, allow for health service providers to review/correct/supplement data and determine rewards using long-term data trends
Incentives
Incentives should be sufficient, equitable and transparent in order to have any effect
Incentives should reach various levels within an organisation
Financial incentives are more likely to have the intended effect where there is one single funder
Stakeholders
Secure strong political and management support
Design the program collaboratively with health service providers and professional health associations and organisation
Keep in mind
Pay-for-performance can yield small gains at large costs, particularly when targets are set in the absence of a good baseline
Potential perverse and unintended consequences need to be carefully considered
Not everything can be measured. Current pay-for-performance programs focus on clinical and organisational measures, which may be relatively easy to measure through objective data or observation, but there are other aspects that are less easily quantified and are only briefly considered in many pay-for-performance programs such as: continuity of care, ease of access to care, strength of the patient-doctor relationship and patient satisfaction
Beyond pay-for-performance
Payment systems and financial incentive programs cannot do everything. Many of their key objectives, such as lowering costs, improving quality and driving appropriate change, are goals that are achievable in concert with other policy initiatives
Invest in outcomes and health service researc
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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