1,720,976 research outputs found
Efficiency and Productivity of Public Hospitals in Nepal
No full textFull text is available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland only.Productivity analysis is an aspect of health care performance measurement that deals primarily with the accountability of an organisation. In Nepalese public hospitals, performance measurement relies largely upon historical ratio analysis without benchmarks. Previous empirical research has analysed the efficiency of district level hospitals but policy makers need a broader picture of the effectiveness of current public investment in the hospital sector. This study explores the trends in inputs, outputs and productivity change in Nepalese public hospitals, and the factors associated with such variations, from 2011/12 to 2013/14. Input-output ratio analyses, as well as a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis, were performed for a total of 96 observations (32 hospitals over three years). The productivity variations were measured in terms of Malmquist Productivity Indexes, and Tobit regression analysis assessed the effects of environmental variables on hospital efficiency. Inputs and overall productivity of the study hospitals declined with a marginal increase in outputs over the study period. Productivity change declined at an average annual rate of seven percent and technology decline led the productivity losses. Large variations existed in the performance of individual hospitals. Hospitals having higher occupancy, located in Kathmandu valley and Terai regions, and district level hospitals compared to the hospitals having lower occupancy, located in Mountain and Hill regions, and higher level hospitals are likely to be more efficient. Other factors which may affect hospital efficiency include: gradual expansion of information and communication technology, appropriate staff mix and skill mix, provision of part-time staff, and less investment in hospital administration, particularly the top level. However, these need to be tested in the context of Nepalese hospitals. Large data gaps were found in the study hospitals. More accurate and consistent recording and reporting of data would improve our understanding of the hospital performance and assist in identifying appropriate interventions for improving hospital efficiency and productivity. Key words: Efficiency, Productivity, Data Envelopment Analysis, Hospital, Nepa
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Can outcome-based measures be used for health system performance management, and if so, under what circumstances?
No full textOutcome-based approaches to health system performance management are reasonable, given the complex nature of health policy implementation and health services delivery. However, successful implementation of outcome-based approaches depend on several factors, including the nature and attributes of the performance indicators used. This study aims to understand whether and under what circumstances we can use outcome-based measures for health system performance management.
This study assessed the appropriateness of two health system outcome measures, amenable mortality and childhood ambulatory sensitive hospitalization (childhood ASH), in measuring and managing the sub-national level health system performance. Population-based data linked with the health system performance management framework in New Zealand provided the opportunity to study the appropriateness of the performance measures in terms of technical validity, functionality, and legitimacy criteria of performance measures by bringing the empirical data and programmes perspectives together.
Overall, I found ‘intermediate’ outcome measures such as childhood ASH measure district-level health system performance variations better than ‘end’ outcome measures such as amenable mortality. Performance information based on childhood ASH is more appropriate for improvement decision making and it is likely to be accepted by a wide range of stakeholders involved in health system performance improvement. Some limitations, such as measurement challenges, attribution issues, and limited ability to close the feedback loops, apply to both outcome measures. Still, because of time lag and construct validity issues, the appropriateness of amenable mortality is questionable, particularly from the functionality and legitimacy aspects. In addition, childhood ASH demonstrates a significant relationship with health system factors, where the distribution of GPs and annual health expenditure could be modified to improve health system performance.
I found that performance information based on amenable mortality and childhood ASH is appropriate for learning and improvement decision-making but less likely to be suitable for accountability purposes. However, it could be different in other country contexts depending on the nature and structure of the national and sub-national health system governance. From an implementation perspective, performance management should pay attention to local level data collection, analysis, and sense-making capacity and capability, particularly at the smaller sub-national level health system units
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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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