1,720,965 research outputs found
Efficiency of care at the primary-secondary interface: variations with GP fundholding
No full textThe aim of the study was to investigate the processes of referral for out-patients care and the interface with general practice, from the perspective of the patient, the patient's general practitioner and hospital specialist. The analyses reported here present variations with fundholding and non-fundholding general practice. The design was a questionnaire survey of out-patients, their hospital specialists and general practitioners, in six, randomly sampled district health authorities in the North Thames Region, with stratification by area. The measures included validated items and scales on process, quality and patient satisfaction with services.Fundholders were more likely to have technical equipment and services available within the practice. There were no differences between fundholders and non-fundholders and the number of out-patient attendances made by their patients, hospital out-patient waiting list times, patients' waiting times in hospital clinics, nor in patients' satisfaction with out-patients and other process indicators. Fundholding is currently being replaced with the proposed wider locality commissioning schemes, with GPs, health authorities and other purchasing bodies acting in partnership. Health authority commissioning will be required to reflect the preferences of GPs. Participants in these schemes will need to pay particular attention to the areas where research indicates that fundholding GPs made little difference to increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of health care both in their own practiced and at the primary-secondary care interface
The process of outpatient referral and care: the experiences and views of patients, their general practitioners, and specialists
No full textBackground. The primary care system in the United Kingdom, involving the general practitioner (GP) as gatekeeper to further services, has helped to keep health care costs down. Despite this, unexplained variation in referral rates and increasing health care costs have led to the search for methods of improving efficiency. There is relatively little recent descriptive data on the processes of care at the primary-secondary care interface. The study reported here provides information about this.Aim, To analyse the patterns and process of care for the referral of outpatients, together with the views of patients, their GPs, and specialists.Method. A questionnaire survey of outpatients, their hospital specialists, and GPs in randomly sampled district health authorities in the North Thames Region. The measures included items and scales measuring satisfaction and processes.Results. Almost all of the outpatients thought that their consultation with the specialist was 'necessary' and 'worthwhile: Most of the GPs felt that they could nor have given the study patients the care, treatment, and investigations they received in hospital, and most of the sampled patients' attendances were rated by the specialists as 'appropriate: However, for just over one-fifth of new patients, the specialists reported that the GP could have done more tests and examinations prior to referring the study patient. Large proportions of GPs in this survey also reported having technical equipment in their practices as well as direct access to a range of services and hospital-based facilities.Conclusion. A large amount of work is carried out in general practice prior to the hospital referral of patients, and GPs have direct access to some technologies and services that can act to reduce the burden on hospitals. The discrepancy between GPs' and specialists' perceptions about the potential for further investigative work prior to patient referral merits further investigation
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
- …
