World hospitals and health services : the official journal of the International Hospital Federation
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This paper provides an international overview of trends and elements of quality services provision in hospitals. The factors reviewed are hospital accreditation, government quality intervention, resource review, clinical procedure standardisation, patient education, high technology, financial mechanisms, risk management and evidence based medicine as relates to quality.
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World Hosp Health Serv · Jan 1997
The role of Northern NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) in rehabilitating the health sector in post-conflict settings: a need for a critical analysis.
The paper addresses issues of the health sector rehabilitation in post-conflict situation, and in particular the role of Northern Non-Governmental Organisations (NNGOs) in this process. While armed conflicts are regarded as public health issues for their negative implications on health and health systems, post-conflict situation is considered, despite its complexity, as having both risks and opportunities for making the health system more equitable and sustainable. In this respect, NNGOs are believed to be able to play an efficient and effective role in rehabilitating the health system. ⋯ These include their political neutrality, technical accountability to policy, planning and quality development. These problems may have their roots at conceptual, operational and political levels. To avoid generalisations and unproved assumptions, research is therefore needed to distinguish NNGOs' characteristics, roles and motivations and to assess the extent to which NNGOs' interventions are effective in rehabilitating the health system in post-conflict settings as well as in strengthening local institutions.
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Effective and efficient management of health services is becoming more and more important in all countries and in all organizations whether profit or non-profit. Management practices and attitudes which may have been accepted in previous years are no longer appropriate. ⋯ Eight key areas of concern were identified: participative vs. non-participative style, communication, motivation, delegation, human relations skills, style of supervision, goal-oriented behavior, and use of supervisory power. In each of these management-related skill areas, examples of best and worst practices are provided in order to aid the manager/leader in self-assessing his/her abilities as a first step toward improving management.