Basis Of Performance Indicators Research Articles

Methods of financing health expenditure: benefits and prospects of reform

The article examines the main categories of health care financing, factors that influence the development and modernization of the medical sector. As a result of the study, it was emphasized that the financial support provided by special methods of the financial mechanism is important for this industry. The author revealed the content of methods of financing health care. Financing of health care expenditures is carried out using such methods as: budget and estimate, program-target, method of financing for the services actually provided.The advantages and disadvantages of each of the methods of financing health care have been studied. The author pointed out that in the budget process the program-target method is used at the level of the state budget and at the level of local budgets. The article revealed the components of the program-target method, which are budget programs, responsible executors of budget programs, passports of budget programs, performance indicators of budget programs. It is established that the characteristic features of the program-target method are: focus on the results to be achieved as a result of program implementation; the ability to assess the consequences of budget decisions in the process of their adoption; strengthening responsibility for spending budget funds; the possibility of conducting a thorough analysis of budget expenditures on the basis of performance indicators; ensuring the transparency of the budget process. It has been proven that the most traditional and widespread method of financing health care expenditures in Ukraine is budget financing, so the emphasis was on the advantages of this method of financing.In addition, the author revealed the relevance of the method of financing health care expenditures for services actually provided, which is most in demand among other methods in countries with developed market economies. The author considered the positive and negative aspects of this method of financing and stressed that the actual implementation of financing of paid services may become positive due to the introduction of compulsory state social health insurance, which will be an additional source of funding for health care.

Optimizing the Management of the Occupational Safety and Health System in "Arcelormittal" Prijedor on the Basis of Performance Indicators

Optimizing the Management of the Occupational Safety and Health System in "Arcelormittal" Prijedor on the Basis of Performance Indicators

Application of Labelled K Means Clustering for GIS Contract Automation

K Means Clustering is an unsupervised classification technique which is suitable for the dataset which do not have any class labels. The absence of labels constrained its application on different text data sets. Labelled K Means clustering generate labels for the clusters obtained from K Means Clustering which makes this technique more decisive for text data sets. A novel application of Labeled K Means Clustering for automation of technical part of GIS contracts is given in this paper. Geographic Information System (GIS) contract which is signed between GIS service provider and a client requires an efficient tracking system during all its vital phases (development, operation and maintenance). At present, the tracking is done in a non-discrete manner through manual inspection. Manual tracking is inevitable because (1) no indicators have so far been developed for evaluation by an automatic tracking system, (2) No automated system exists to evaluate the performance of GIS service provider and the client on the basis of performance indicators and (3) there is no centralized mechanism for penalizing negligence of either party. This paper proposes (1). a method to regulate the technical part of the GIS contract by suggesting a simple and wizard-based Graphical user interface. (2). Conversion of existing manually prepared contracts into electronic contracts through lexeme-based congregation which is done through labelled K Means Clustering. These converted clusters are then stored into centralized database. Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN) is used to train the system on performance indicators defined for compliance by both contracting parties.

Mechanisms for increasing of transportation efficiency using joint service of logistics systems

More and more attention become to Transport Company’s functioning efficiency due to growing of goods’ nomenclature and specific requirements for their service. Existing scientific and practical approaches to managing of transportation process consider separate service of each contract individually. Up-today requirements for transportation services complicate such evaluation. These requirements primarily include transportation frequency and volumes variation in each logistics system due to seasonal consumption of material flows. Different seasonality leads to irrational use of vehicles and decrees of their efficiency. All this gives rise to the mechanism of compatible transportation service of numerous logistics systems and their material flows by any enterprise. The paper consist of next sections the analysis of scientific framework and methods on the transportation services, fleet estimation, efficiency evaluations, analysis of requirements of transportation services; Mechanism of joint transportation services; Modelling of transportation services in logistics systems, where joint efficiency estimation of transportation functioning and logistics system and conclusions. The proposed methods and tools in the complex allow to identify and evaluate the effectiveness of the joint motor transport service of logistic systems by own and hired vehicles compared to the separate on the basis of performance indicators, which vary depending on the technological parameters: transport distances, runway usage factor, cargo class, load capacity of motor vehicles . The offered approach will reveal: regularities of change of indicators of efficiency of variants of the joint motor transport service between the traditional approach (a separate calculation of efficiency for each logistics system) and the proposed (calculation of compatible services), which allows to determine the equivalent cost of transport services during motor transport maintenance of material flows. The calculations confirm the effect of use compared to the separate combined transportation of material flows, which will be shown in reducing the required amount of vehicles by 31,8% and increasing efficiency from 5% to 60%, depending on the initial values of the transportation services parameters. The results of the project can be used in the formation of a freight vehicle fleet of any enterprise that is faced with the issue of hiring transport or have its own, PL providers, transport companies, and others.

PERFORMANCE-BASED FUNDING IN PUBLIC COMPETITION. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS IN THE ITALIAN HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM

ABSTRACT The Italian Higher Education System (IHES) is facing a long and wide-ranging process of reforms. In particular, funding system has been changed to introduce formula-based approaches. Nowadays, the Italian funding system adopts two different formula-based methods to distribute funds. The first introduces a demand-driven scheme, in which students' choices drive the allocation of resources. The second distributes public funds on the basis of performance indicators in teaching and research. This paper aims to answer two questions. Is the attractiveness of a university affected by context variables? Does a relationship exist between the two incentive mechanisms? Research shows a strict relationship between university attractiveness and geographical location. This suggests that contextual factors (e.g., per capita GDP, unemployment rates) play a fundamental role in driving student choices and thus limiting university attractiveness. This analysis of funding schemes highlights the absence of any direct relationship between the two incentives schemes used to allocate funds. Keywords higher education; quasi-market; performance-based budgeting; Italian university.

Competition in Passenger Railway Service Sector in Romania and the European Union

Rail passenger transport is seen as a strategic sector for each EU member state in terms of reduced costs, passengers’ safety and comfort generated by this type of transport. Liberalization and the open access on railway market represent a priority of the European Union. In the present paper, we intend to realize a radiography of the mentioned sector from a competition perspective as well as a comparative analysis between the EU average and Romania on the basis of performance indicators specific to the passenger rail services sector.

Assessment of optimal distribution network reconfiguration results using stochastic dominance concepts

Abstract In the recent research on power and energy system optimization, many deterministic and heuristic solvers have been proposed. Each proposal claims that the new solver is better than the previous ones on the basis of performance indicators, which are often limited to the best solution found or to simple statistics (mean, median, standard deviation). This paper introduces a new and more significant performance indicator based on the concept of first-order stochastic dominance. This indicator can generally compare the solutions of a given optimization problem for which the global optimum is not known. The optimal discrete distribution network reconfiguration for a real-scale system was taken as an example problem, to show the characteristics of the proposed indicator. The results obtained show the effectiveness of the proposed indicator to limit the acceptability of “better” solvers to the ones that actually exhibit enhanced performance with respect to incrementally improved benchmarks.

Performance Evaluation of SWAT Model for Land Use and Land Cover Changes under different Climatic Conditions: A Review

Evaluation of land use land cover changes on the hydrological regime of river basins is one of the concerns in the global climate change. With plethora of tools available in the literature choosing of an appropriate tool that can quantify and analyze the impact of land use land cover changes on the hydrological regime in a systematic and planned manner is important. Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) integrated with Geographic Information System (GIS) based interfaces and its easy linkage to sensitivity, calibration and uncertainty analysis tools made its applicability more simple and has great potential in simulation of the past, present and future scenarios. A number of standards were used to appraise the model set-up, model performances, physical representation of the model parameters, and the accuracy of the hydrological model balance to assess the models that are defined in journal papers. On the basis of performance indicators, the mainstream of the SWAT models were categorized as providing satisfactory to very good. This review debates on the application of SWAT in analyzing land use land cover changes in semi-arid environment. Application of SWAT and land use land cover simulation models for impact assessment in semi-arid region improves accuracy, reduces costs, and allows the simulation of a wide variety of conservation practices at watershed scale. It is also observed that different researchers and/or model versions bring about in different outcomes while a comparison of SWAT model applications on similar case study was applied. This review determines the interactive role of SWAT and GIS technologies in improving integrated watershed management in semi-arid environments.

An assessment of the integration of nurse timetable changes with operating room planning and scheduling

The objective of this paper is to understand the links between the management of operating rooms and nurses, and to investigate the trade-offs between the number of operating rooms used, nurses used and overtime work. To do so, we proposed a model that plans and schedules surgical interventions in the operating rooms while considering the availabilities of surgeons and anesthesiologists; the model also includes or discards nurse scheduling. The flexible modeling approach allows us to compare different alternatives, each one representing a different scenario of managing the operating rooms at an operational level. The scenarios were applied to two data-sets and compared on the basis of performance indicators, which include operating costs, utilisation rates of nurses and number of overtime hours done. The important findings were that there is no relationship between the number of nurses required and the number of operating rooms used; the simultaneous scheduling of nurses and surgical interventions provided a better resource usage, a higher occupation rate of nurses, less overtime and furthermore, operating costs were lowered by at least 10% on average.

Development of the Municipal Employee’s Performance Efficiency and Effectiveness Indicators on the Basis of Functional and Process Approaches

One of the most difficult problems in evaluation of performance effectiveness of municipal employees is developing a list of relevant criteria and indicators. The purpose of this article is to develop schematic scientifically grounded criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of the professional performance of municipal employees. The article considers the model for the development of a system of performance efficiency and effectiveness of municipal employees, which is a combination of functional and process approaches in pace rating of municipal employees. Analysis of performance efficiency and effectiveness evaluation practice of municipal employees shows that there is no consistent approach in formation of the evaluation system. Nevertheless, we should note the common pattern, which is as follows: The techniques that involve the use of aggregate quantitative, qualitative and temporal indicators of managerial work are more frequently used in various evaluation practices. After analyzing the technologies and approaches, proposed by various authors with regard to formation of the performance efficiency and effectiveness system of municipal employees, the author of current article highlights the main features serving the basis for performance indicators; these are the number of completed scheduled and unscheduled works, the quality of accomplished assignments and compliance with deadlines. Performance indicators of the municipal employees include management efficiency indicators that characterize the ratio of management results and used resources, as well as effectiveness indicators, showing the success in achieving the goals. Presented functional-process model, which includes quantitative, qualitative and temporal indicators, can be applied at various stages of the municipal service carrier, whereas the results obtained can be taken into account when making personnel decisions in the municipal authorities.

Analisis Prioritas Upgrading Untuk Rekomendasi Peningkatan Kinerja Sistim Manufaktur Secara Berkelanjutan

The analysis is done by upgrading the priority, first create a model of activity with IDEF0 (Integrated Definition Language 0) To The Smallest activity. Verification is done by field officers, while the validation is done by software IDEF37. With regard that the activities that the model is a map of the activity. Then the next step don is weighting the importance of existing activities. Once the performance indicators of each activity is determined, then the analysis is then performed through the sorting and defining the activity of ICOM’s critical to determine which will be upgraded. Of data and processing is done, there are 627 ICOM’s are analyzed on the basis of performance indicators on a specific output. And consists of 15 stages are recommended for improved performance, assuming a single phase which comprises 30 ICOM’s performance will be improved within six months. The priority of upgrading is begined to upgrade technical specifications, human resources, and facilities at the activities planned production program. However, in general the activity plan programs and activities planned production capacity and desired material is the activity that most often experience upgrading in the first stage. Continuous performance improvement can be made with reference to the upgrading priority of phase II, III and so on. Evaluation upgrading needs to be done after the implementation of upgrading stage 3. It is useful to decide whether to do the upgrading stage IV or re-analyze priority.

Critical review of SWAT applications in the upper Nile basin countries

Abstract. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is an integrated river basin model that is widely applied within the Nile basin. Up to date, more than 20 peer-reviewed papers describe the use of SWAT for a variety of problems in the upper Nile basin countries, such as erosion modelling, land use and climate change impact modelling and water resources management. The majority of the studies are focused on locations in the tropical highlands in Ethiopia and around Lake Victoria. The popularity of SWAT is attributed to the fact that the tool is freely available and that it is readily applicable through the development of geographic information system (GIS) based interfaces and its easy linkage to sensitivity, calibration and uncertainty analysis tools. The online and free availability of basic GIS data that are required for SWAT made its applicability more straightforward even in data-scarce areas. However, the easy use of SWAT may not always lead to appropriate models which is also a consequence of the quality of the available free databases in these regions. In this paper, we aim at critically reviewing the use of SWAT in the context of the modelling purpose and problem descriptions in the tropical highlands of the Nile basin countries. To evaluate the models that are described in journal papers, a number of criteria are used to evaluate the model set-up, model performances, physical representation of the model parameters, and the correctness of the hydrological model balance. On the basis of performance indicators, the majority of the SWAT models were classified as giving satisfactory to very good results. Nevertheless, the hydrological mass balances as reported in several papers contained losses that might not be justified. Several papers also reported the use of unrealistic parameter values. More worrying is that many papers lack this information. For this reason, most of the reported SWAT models have to be evaluated critically. An important gap is the lack of attention that is given to the vegetation and crop processes. None of the papers reported any adaptation to the crop parameters, or any crop-related output such as leaf area index, biomass or crop yields. A proper simulation of the land cover is important for obtaining correct runoff generation, evapotranspiration and erosion computations. It is also found that a comparison of SWAT applications on the same or similar case study but by different research teams and/or model versions resulted in very different results. It is therefore recommended to find better methods to evaluate the representativeness of the distributed processes and parameters (especially when land use studies are envisaged) or predictions of the future through environmental changes. The main recommendation is that more details on the model set-up, the parameters and outputs should be provided in the journal papers or supplementary materials in order to allow for a more stringent evaluation of these models.

A Matter of Necessity: The Minnow and World Cricket

The debate on the minnows and their value to the game of cricket presents an interesting picture before the next World Cup to be held in the Caribbean. Some cricketing voices of the established powers seem to argue that the minnows are to be assessed purely on the basis of performance indicators, crude tallies or victories, losses and draws. This contribution urges the developed nations of cricket to be sensitive to the broader issues of the game in emerging countries – to understand that a lack of infrastructure should not be a message of inferiority but a source of encouragement. Given some of the successes of the new teams in the last World Cup, one can only be optimistic about their future.

Tailor-made quality systems in healthcare.

At present many healthcare organizations are being pressed by national governments or client groups to develop and implement quality systems. Unfortunately, not much is known about the development and implementation of these systems in healthcare organizations. There still are definition questions to be answered and it is not clear in which way a quality system can be outlined and which outline is most effective in a particular situation. In practice, many healthcare organizations adopt ideas from industrial quality management and develop ISO 9000 based quality systems, which are only useful in relatively stable situations. In this paper a typology of healthcare processes is developed on the basis of input and throughput characteristics, following the literature on professional quality systems and service systems. The typology is tested and illustrated by a few case studies. From this typology, on the basis of logic, suggestions have been deduced for tailor-made quality systems in a general hospital setting. The main point of these systems is an examination, treatment and nursing plan with a timescale. Control is executed on the basis of performance indicators for groups of patients.

Assessing efficiency in general practice: an application of data envelopment analysis.

As with any health care process, the efficiency with which outputs are produced in general practice is of considerable importance. Using data from Lincolnshire, this study utilizes data envelopment analysis to examine the relationships between practice costs and outputs, measured not only as the number of patients treated, but also on the basis of performance indicators. The technique permits the construction of an efficiency ranking, facilitating the accurate targeting of monitoring resources.

Management in medicine

Along with all the other challenges facing managers and clinicians in the National Health Service (NHS) in the latter part of the 20th century is the conundrum of how to respond to the politicians' (of whatever party) exhortations to provide comprehensive health care, set against a backcloth in real terms of a deteriorating financial climate. The paradox becomes real when a district health authority (DHA) responds to the challenge and, on the basis of performance indicators, appears to perform well and finds that it is penalised for its success.