Health and Medical Administration Commons^™

Seeking Value In Medicare: Performance Measurement For Clinical Professionals, Lisa Sprague

National Health Policy Forum

The Medicare program, despite its reputation of being a bill payer with little regard to the worth of the services it buys, has begun to put in place a range of programs aimed at assessing quality and value, with more to come. Attention to resource use and cost is nascent. The issues are complex, and it is no surprise that there is a level of contention between providers and regulators, even though both profess commitment to improved quality. This paper summarizes the quality and value programs that apply to physicians and other clinical professionals, as well as programs designed to …

Business Ethics: The Impact On Healthcare Professionals, Paul D. Longenecker

Health and Sport Sciences Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Health Workforce Needs: Projections Complicated By Practice And Technology Changes, Rob Cunningham

National Health Policy Forum

As population growth and the aging of the overall population increase demand for health care, policymakers and analysts posit whether sufficient health care providers will be able to meet that demand. Some argue there are too few providers already; others say our current supply-demand problems lie with efficiency. But suppose both are correct? Perhaps the real challenge is to understand how physician practices are changing in response to market forces such as payment changes, provider distributions, and technology innovations. This issue brief reviews what is known about evolving practice organizations, professional mixes, information technology support, and the implications of these …

What's Happening: October 21, 2013, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

Preliminary Findings From An Interventional Study Using Network Analysis To Support Management In Local Health Departments In Florida, Chin S. Park, Hado Byon, Jonathan W. Keeling, Leslie M. Beitsch, Jacqueline A. Merrill

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

Management is the core service that integrates and coordinates essential public health services. Managers of local health departments (LHDs) are experts in practice but may not have expertise in organizational management. We conducted an evidence-based training intervention in 10 LHDs in Florida to support managers’ decision-making on organizational integration and coordination. We deployed a standard survey to collect organizational network measurements pre and post intervention. We presented results as evidence-based performance feedback and interviewed managers to document how they used the results in the context of each organization. Post intervention we found unexpected, significantly higher network centralization in daily work. …

Characteristics Of A Local Health Department Associated With The Use Of The Health Equity Index, Moira A. Lawson, Sharon Mierzwa, Michael Knapp

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

Local health departments are tasked with understanding and addressing health inequities in the populations they serve. To meaningfully address health inequities, local health departments have identified the need for credible local data to better understand the relationship between community conditions and health outcomes. Yet, when given access to these data, we observe a very large variation in the level of interest between local health departments.

In this study, we offered Connecticut’s Local health departments access to the Health Equity Index, a web based tool that provides data on health outcomes and community conditions at the state, municipal or neighborhood levels. …

Evaluating Use Of Custom Survey Reports By Local Health Departments, Nadya M. Belenky, Christine A. Bevc, Elizabeth Mahanna, Carol Gunther-Mohr, Mary V. Davis

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

This report demonstrates how providing survey feedback, like comparative reports, to survey respondents can result in improvement activities. For each of the past three years (2010-2013), the North Carolina Institute for Public Health (NCIPH) has invited local health departments (LHDs) from 40 states to participate in a preparedness capacities survey. In addition, NCIPH fielded a six-question evaluation survey to a subset of LHDs (n=70) to determine how LHDs use these reports. LHDs that reported using their custom reports compared their preparedness capacities to other LHDs, conducted strategic planning (e.g., benchmarking, setting preparedness goals), planned staff trainings, and disseminated the report …

The Relationship Between Quality Improvement And Health Information Technology Use In Local Health Departments, Kendra Johnson, Kim K. Nguyen, Shimin Zheng, Robin P. Pendley

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

This research examined if there is a relationship between engagement in quality improvement (QI) and health information technology (HIT) for local health departments (LHDs) controlling for workforce, finance, population, and governance structure. This was a cross-sectional study that analyzed data obtained from the Core questions and Module 1 in the NACCHO 2010 Profile of LHDs. Descriptive statistics, bivariate analyses, and logistic regression analyses were conducted. Findings suggest that LHD engagement in QI has a relationship with utilization of HIT including electronic health records, practice management systems, and electronic syndromic surveillance systems. This study provides baseline information about the HIT use …

Commentary: The Road To Quality In Public Health, A Long But Important Journey, F. Douglas Scutchfield, Glen Mays, Marylou Wallace

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

Quality improvement (QI) in public health departments is a focus in this sixth issue of Frontiers. Data is important to the development of quality improvement efforts. As we see growth of and meaningful use of electronic health records, the health department is in a position to take the lead as a data hub and to use this information wisely to both improve their QI efforts and link that QI to outcomes.

The Commission On Long-Term Care: Background Behind The Mission, Carol O'Shaughnessy

National Health Policy Forum

The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA, P.L. 112-240) created a Commission on Long-Term Care charged with developing a plan for financing of long-term services and supports (LTSS) and issuing a report in September 2013. Significant research and advocacy have been devoted to LTSS financing issues and perceived inadequacies of the delivery system over the past several decades, but the most recent comprehensive review of financing options was in 1990 by the Pepper Commission. This publication presents brief background behind the mission of the Commission, including a time line of selected federal and national activities on LTSS financing and …

What's Happening: October 14, 2013, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

Editors’ Pick—Book Review: Cultivating Inquiry-Driven Learners: A College Education For The 21st Century, Frederic Murray

Administrative Issues Journal

Conard, C., & Dunek, L. (2012). Cultivating inquiry-driven learners: A college education for the 21st century. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP. 132 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0598-8

Collaborative Preference: The Role Of Homophily, Multiplexity, And Advantageous Network Position Across Small And Medium-Sized Organizations, Troy A. Voelker, William C. Mcdowell, Michael L. Harris

Administrative Issues Journal

The purpose of this paper is to examine collaboration between individuals across organizations. While both for profit and not-for-profit organizations utilize collaborative efforts, the factors that are important for bringing individuals and businesses together for collaboration still remain somewhat unresolved. In this paper, colleague similarity, the quality of pre-existing relationships, and the relative power of the other colleague are all examined for their correlation with the desirability of collaboration with that individual. In a study of pastors of small and medium sized churches in a southwestern protestant conference, we examined these areas through the lenses of homophily theory, multiplicity theories, …

Market Orientation And Its Measurement In Universities, Mihai Niculescu, Bing Xu, Gerald M. Hampton, Robin T. Peterson

Administrative Issues Journal

Historically, the measurement of market orientation has proved to be difficult, due to the low external validity of the concept. Existing scales exhibit acceptable properties in measuring market orientation in business organizations, but are less accurate in the context of higher education institutions. This paper compares the performance of three scales – the MARKOR scale, the MKTOR scale, and the University MARKOR scale – in the context of academic organizations. Results indicate that the MARKOR and the MKTOR scales need modifications, in order to accurately measure the construct in the new context. Evidence suggests that the student-oriented University MARKOR scale …

The Future Of Adjunct Teaching At American Colleges And Universities Under The Shared Responsibility Provisions Of “Obamacare”, Suzanne Wilhelm

Administrative Issues Journal

This article examines the effect that the Affordable Care Act may have on adjunct teaching faculty at universities and colleges across the nation.

Leaving The Dark Side For The Light: Twelve Strategies For Effective Transition From Academic Administrator To Faculty Member, Paul Sale

Administrative Issues Journal

Copious literature is available to provide nascent administrators with guidelines and advice for being a successful administrator. Likewise, faculty new to academia have many available resources both from the literature and from campus-based support services, such as new faculty development programs, mentors, and special internal funding programs. However, there is a paucity of academic discussion explaining the process of the return of an administrator back to faculty. The purpose of this paper is to delineate strategies for the transition back to faculty from the administrative ranks. Twelve pragmatic strategies for re-entering the world of faculty teaching, research, and service are …

Student Perceptions Of Integrative Field Seminar: A Comparison Of Three Models, Helen Harris, Dennis Myers

Administrative Issues Journal

Student perceptions of 63 concentration year MSW students, grades, and faculty perceptions were examined to evaluate differences in educational outcomes and in learning experiences among a traditional classroom model, a mixed or hybrid model, and a webinar online model for delivery of integrative field seminars. No significant differences were found in the grades among the three models. Findings showed strong support for the traditional model for students in local field internships and the webinar model for students in distant site placements. Reciprocity among students and faculty was a major factor in seminar integration and effectiveness, regardless of the mode of …

What's Happening: October 7, 2013, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

Student Equity: Discouraging Cheating In Online Courses, Timothy B. Michael, Melissa A. Williams

Administrative Issues Journal

As online programs at conventional universities continue to expand, administrators and faculty face new challenges. Academic dishonesty is nothing new, but an online testing environment requires different strategies and tactics from what we have had to consider in the past. Our university has recently adapted successful face-toface programs in financial management, both graduate and undergraduate, for delivery in a fully-online format. This paper discusses our experiences moving to a new environment, the challenges of student attempts to cheat and plagiarize, and techniques that we have found to prevent both cheating on high-stakes assessments and plagiarism.We present a number of essential …

Justifying Study Abroad In Financially Difficult Times, Marty Ludlum, Randal Ice, Jessica Sheetz-Nguyen

Administrative Issues Journal

In this paper, we will develop the justification for study abroad. We will discuss the current economic climate and its impact on budgets. Next, we will explain the many benefits of the study abroad programs. Then we will propose some less expensive alternatives to the traditional study abroad programs. We will conclude with expectations for the future.