Busy Workload Research Articles

Utilizing Deep Learning for Field-Level Information Extraction from German Real Estate Tax Notices

ABSTRACT Document processing and related tasks such as information extraction represent a large portion of business workloads and therefore offer high potential for efficiency improvements and process automation. Although semistructured documents such as invoices and receipts have been extensively studied, tax notices represent a largely unexplored area due to their information richness and layout complexity. This article presents a study investigating the potential of deep learning-based information extraction for German real estate tax notices. We propose a hybrid approach based on the LayoutLM transformer model that uses textual, positional, and visual information as well as a rule-based information extraction. We show how such a system can be developed and integrated into the business workflow of organizations on the example of a German tax consulting firm. We also discuss the implications and key challenges that organizations face when planning to adopt such technologies. Data Availability: Custom data and code are not publicly available. Relevant public source code is cited in the text. JEL Classifications: M15; M40; M41.

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on health and social professionals working with people with disabilities: A qualitative study.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, protection and isolation measures established by the Canadian and Quebec governments have directly affected the work of health and social professionals (HSPs). These measures have added pressure on HSPs, complexified their work and added tasks to their already busy workload. However, few studies have explored in depth the impacts of the pandemic on HSPs working with people with disabilities. The objective of this study was to qualitatively explore the experiences of HSPs working among people with disabilities in the province of Quebec, Canada, during the COVID-19 pandemic (January and February 2021), including the impact on their work, the relationships with their colleagues, and on their immediate social and familial environment. HSPs participated in a semi-structured interview. A mixed thematic analysis approach, combining inductive and deductive coding, was carried out using N'Vivo 12. Fifty-five HSPs participated in the interviews (mean [SD] age, 42 [9]). They mostly identified as women (91%). Three main themes representing the impacts of the pandemic were identified, including 1) Health and Well-being; 2) Family and social networks including the subthemes; 2.1) Fear of being a vector of contamination for their loved ones; 2.2) Work-family balance; 2.3) Social Network, and finally 3) Work, highlighting, including 3.1) Workload and adaptative strategies developed; 3.2) Relationship with colleagues; 3.3) Perceived support received at work, and 3.4) Services offered to patients. These findings highlight the importance of closely tracking and supporting the well-being of HSPs.

"You go in heavy and you come out light": An interpretative phenomenological analysis of reflective practice experiences in an Irish infant mental health setting.

Reflective practice (RP) is a core component of infant mental health (IMH); however, there is limited published empirical research on IMH practitioner experiences of RP. This two-stage, qualitative, multimodal study explored Irish IMH practitioners' experiences of RP spaces. Visual and verbal data from seven individual interviews and a participatory arts-based focus group with seven participants (eight participants in total, all white Irish females) were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Five group experiential themes (Just get on with it; What should I be bringing to this space?; Who are my "hands"?; Taking a step back; and You go in heavy and you come out light) were generated by the analysis. These were used to construct a developmental and experiential model of learning in an RP space. The themes portray how a practitioner's RP experience can change over time: influenced by prior experiences and practice development stage, practitioners move from initial uncertainty, anxiety, and perceived pressure in a busy workload to developing the trust and ability to be vulnerable in an RP space. Through relationships (supervisor/facilitator or group members), a shared safe space can be created, which addresses practitioners' needs for containment, allowing for experiential learning through a process of transformational moments.

Workload, Audit Quality, and the Attractiveness of the Audit Profession to Early and Midcareer Accountants: The Effects of Organizational Commitment

ABSTRACT A characteristic feature of public accounting is the high workload in busy season. This feature is generally seen as problematic, for it is held to negatively affect both audit quality and the attractiveness of the profession. We argue, however, that these effects are not universal but depend on organizational commitment. We also argue that perceived audit quality is related to one’s interest in the profession. Based on survey data from 366 early and midcareer auditors, we find that if respondents believe audit quality to be lower, they report more negative feelings toward the attractiveness of a continued career in auditing. We also find that auditors’ affective commitment to their employing firm moderates the relationship between busy season workload and perceived audit quality and the loss of appeal of the profession, underscoring the need to take the organizational context into account in the workload debate. Data Availability: The data are owned by the Nederlandse Beroepsorganisatie van Accountants Young Profs. The AMOS code is available upon request from Roland F. Speklé.

Evaluation of healthcare professionals' experiences of taking telephone calls from parents of children with congenital heart disease. A risky business.

The Congenital Heart Disease Standards for England indicate that parents and children should have access to a 24-h telephone advice service, however, little is known about existing services. This paper presents phase two of a mixed-methods service evaluation, which aimed to evaluate staff experiences of telephone communication with these parents. All nursing and support staff in a single specialist children's cardiac surgical centre were invited to participate in an online survey during July-November 2019. Data were descriptively and thematically analysed. Participants (N = 39) were predominantly nurses (n = 32, 82%) with 64.1% (n = 25) working in the speciality >10years. Positive experiences included: signposting and preventing further deterioration; supporting families to get expert advice quickly; providing reassurance. Challenging experiences included: offering advice without being able to see the child, dealing with telephone calls alongside busy workload; and parents running out of medications and telephoning out of hours. In conclusion, taking telephone calls were perceived to be time consuming and are potentially high risk. A standardised approach to assessment, intervention and documentation was deemed necessary. Implementation of an updated parental early warning tool was recommended, along with staff and parental education.

Perspectives of community pharmacists on extended pharmacy services and value-added services in Malaysia: a cross-sectional survey.

This study aimed to investigate patterns of extended pharmacy services (EPS) provided by Malaysian community pharmacists and their willingness to provide value-added services (VAS) in addition to EPS. Additionally, this study examined the barriers to the effective implementation of these two services. A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire among community pharmacists in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur. Convenience sampling was done, and descriptive statistics and correlation analysis were performed. Two hundred and thirty-six pharmacists participated. The most rendered EPS were nutritional supplements, hypertension management, and diabetic management, while chronic kidney disease management, smoking cessation, and mental health services were the least rendered. Pharmacists were willing to provide medication waste management and vaccination as VAS but were less inclined towards therapeutic drug monitoring and sterile compounding. Barriers included limited access to medical records of patients, lack of designated counselling areas, and concerns about remuneration. High sales pressure and busy workloads were additional barriers to providing VAS. Continuous professional development (CPD) positively influenced pharmacists' engagement in EPS and VAS. This study highlights service provision trends and areas for improvement. Addressing identified barriers, such as enhancing access to patient records and establishing designated counselling areas, can improve service delivery. Remuneration models and workload management strategies should be considered to alleviate barriers related to sales pressure and time constraints. Promoting CPD opportunities is crucial for enhancing pharmacist engagement and optimizing EPS and VAS.

The mediation of health-promoting lifestyle on self-perceived health status and quality of life among nurses: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundNurses with busy workloads lack the time to maintain health, leading to a decline in physical and mental health and quality of life. It is widely accepted that self-perception of health triggers health-promoting behaviors and impacts the quality of life; however, the relationship between these factors among nurses is unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of a health-promoting lifestyle to mediate the relationship between self-perceived health and quality of life among nurses.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted in four regional Taiwanese teaching hospitals with over 500 beds. The survey used stratified random sampling of 600 nurses who had worked for more than six months. The Self-Perceived Health Questionnaire, the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale were used to measure nurses’ self-perceived health (SPH), health-promoting lifestyle (HPL), and quality of life (QoL). A Hayes PROCESS analysis and bootstrapping method were used for the mediation analysis.ResultsA total of 518 nurses’ data was included in the analysis. Nurses perceived their health status as less favorable than their colleagues, but frequently adopted health promotion behaviors. Nurses reported a moderate QoL. QoL and SPH were correlated (r = .33) and a high correlation between QoL and HPL (r = .64) was found. SPH and HPL both affect QoL (B = 0.077 and 0.070). SPH and HPL explained 42.6% of the variation in QoL. HPL played a partial mediation role.ConclusionsThe study confirmed that HPL has an important role in mediating nurses’ SPH and QoL. Nurse administrators are advised to encourage nurses to monitor their health status and provide health promotion mechanisms to improve their quality of life.

Nurse Managers’ Positive Attitudes, Patient Care Transitions, and Clinical Nurses

Inefficiencies in transitions in care impact the flow of patients from the emergency department to other units. Nurses' perceptions of patient transitions may provide valuable information to identify gaps in patient flow. This article reports findings from a cross-sectional study using the Hospital Survey on Culture of Transitions in Patient Care (H-CulT). The study aim was to describe nurse perceptions of patient transitions, and compare throughput metrics and nurse demographic characteristics. Linear regression models were used to evaluate nurses' perceptions related to demographics and throughput metrics. Alpha was 0.05. Of 148 surveys, 53.4% of respondents were white, 68.2% were non-Hispanic, and 82.4% were female. H-CulT subscale scores for Busy Workload, Unit Leadership, and Priority of Patient Care were higher for nurse managers compared to clinical nurses, revealing the importance of nurses’ perceptions in these areas and an opportunity to engage clinical nurses in patient transitions.

“We are not there yet”: perceptions, beliefs and experiences of healthcare professionals caring for women with pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain in Australia

BackgroundPregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain (PPGP) is a common condition worldwide. Women report being unprepared about PPGP, and state they receive little recognition and support from healthcare professionals. Situated within the Common-Sense Model and Convergent Care Theory, this study sought to gain a conceptual understanding of the perceptions, beliefs and experiences of healthcare professionals who provide routine care for women with PPGP in Australia.MethodsA qualitative research design, using individual, semi-structured interviews with purposive sampling of healthcare professionals (N=27) consisting of doctors (N=9), midwives (N=9) and physiotherapists (N=9). Most participants were female (22/27) with a range of professional experience. An interview guide consisting of open-ended questions was used with a flexible and responsive approach. Thematic analysis was performed where interview data were transcribed, coded, grouped into meaningful categories and then constructed into broad themes.ResultsFour themes were identified: 1. Identity and impact of PPGP; 2. What works well?; 3. What gets in the way?; and 4. Quality care: What is needed? Healthcare professionals recognised PPGP as a common and disabling condition, which created a large impact on a woman’s life during pregnancy. Stepped-level care, including education and physiotherapy intervention, was seen to be helpful and led to a positive prognosis. Barriers at patient, clinician and organisation levels were identified and led to consequences for women with PPGP not receiving the care they need.ConclusionThis study elucidates important implications for health care delivery. Acknowledging that PPGP is a common condition causing difficulty for many women, healthcare professionals identified strong teamwork and greater clinical experience as important factors in being able to deliver appropriate healthcare. Whilst healthcare professionals reported being committed to caring for women during pregnancy, busy workloads, attitudes towards curability, and a lack of formal education were identified as barriers to care. The findings suggest timely access, clear referral pathways and an integrated approach are required for best care practice for women with PPGP. A greater emphasis on the need for multidisciplinary models of care during pregnancy is evident.

Exploring the impact of COVID-19 on the psychological well-being of oncology healthcare professionals.

To explore how psychological well-being is maintained by healthcare professionals (HCPs) employed in a cancer setting during the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative design using diaries and interviews to collect data was used to gain insights into how HCPs managed their well-being during the pandemic. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyse diaries and interviews completed by 66 HCPs during the second pandemic lockdown period (December 2020-April 2021). A total of 102 HCPs were recruited, drawn from five groups: nursing staff, radiographers, medical staff, allied health professionals (AHPs) (non-radiographers) and support staff. The majority of participants adjusted to the challenges of the pandemic using positive coping strategies, although difficult days required the mobilization of additional resources. Emotion management was regulated through peer relationships, professional roles and the workplace, sustained through communities of practice involving knowledge exchange, shared goals and social interactions. Maintaining high-quality patient care was a source of job satisfaction, providing a route through which positive emotions could be channelled; however, it was juxtaposed with threats to well-being from busy workloads and variable organizational responsiveness. Work routines provided a platform for well-being, underpinned by the sharing of problems and solutions within peer networks. This study has highlighted the dynamic nature of well-being amongst HCPs during the pandemic. Well-being interventions should build on the preferred coping strategies of HCPs, focusing on the way individuals coalesce in groups to learn from and support one another. HCPs may experience different psychological responses when exposed to a pandemic situation. This study identifies the strategies used by HCPs to maintain positive psychological well-being within professional roles, whilst adjusting to emerging well-being threats. Key components of HCP's well-being are addressed, which are relevant to clinical practice and the broader healthcare workforce. Research team members included public representatives who contributed to the development, methods, data collection and analysis of the study. They supported the development of the Research Assistant by providing mock interview skills training.

Multi‐objective container scheduling and multi‐path routing for elastic business process management in autonomic multi‐tenant cloud

SummaryCloud multi‐tenancy has a variant requirement, due to its resource sharing nature, satisfying such requirements and maintaining a balance between the resources and the business workloads of multiple tenants is a challenging task, and also the communication between scheduled containers leads to high power consumption. To address these issues, this article proposes an autonomic approach to ensure the elasticity of BPM in multi‐tenant cloud. Where it employs the autonomic computing capabilities for scheduling the containers into the available servers then regulates the communication between the containers using multi‐path routing. For the container scheduling, a multi‐objective crow search optimization algorithm is proposed to schedule the containers into appropriate servers. Then, the discrete wolf search algorithm based multipath routing is proposed to route the communication flows between the containers by finding the optimal path with an objective to minimize the energy consumption. The optimal path is constructed as a multi‐tenancy graph with bandwidths determining the shortest distance between the servers and containers. The overall simulations shows that the proposed algorithm outperformed the other compared approaches in terms of make‐span, resource utilization, execution cost, execution time, and energy consumption.

Using co-production to implement patient reported outcome measures in third sector organisations: a mixed methods study

BackgroundThird sector organisations such as charities and community groups are using Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) at an aggregated service level to demonstrate their impact to commissioners to generate or retain funding. Despite this motivation, organisations can struggle with implementing PROMs. Previous studies have identified facilitators including organisations using an appropriate measure, co-producing the PROMs process with staff, and investing resources to support the use of measures. However, to date no studies have applied this learning to third sector organisations to evaluate whether taking an evidence-informed implementation approach improves the use of PROMs.MethodsA Community-Based Participatory Research approach was used which involved university-based researchers supporting two third sector organisations to implement PROMs. The researchers provided evidence-informed advice and training. The organisations were responsible for implementing PROMs. The researchers evaluated implementation through a mixed methods approach including five key informant interviews, four evaluation groups and analysis of collected PROMs data (n = 313).ResultsBoth third sector organisations faced considerable constraints in incorporating known facilitators and addressing barriers. The organisations involved staff in choosing an acceptable measure. However, competing priorities including external pressures to use specific PROMs, busy workloads and staff opinions created challenges to using measures. Investment of time and energy into developing an outcomes-based organisational culture was key to enable the prioritisation of PROMs. For example, discussing PROMs in supervision so that they were viewed as part of people’s job roles. Organisations found that implementation took several years and was disrupted by other pressures.ConclusionsWhilst organisations were motivated to implement PROMs to obtain or retain funding, they faced considerable practical and ideological challenges. Consequently, some stakeholders felt that alternative methods to measuring impact could potentially be more feasible than PROMs.

Utilization of a National Writing Challenge to Promote Scholarly Work: A Pilot Study.

BackgroundHospitalists value mentorship and scholarly work, yet often struggle to find time and mentors amid busy clinical workloads.ObjectiveTo help catalyze writing for hospitalists nationally, we created a Writing Challenge, where we asked hospitalists to commit to the goal of writing 400 words a day, four days a week, for four weeks.MethodsProspective, programmatic evaluation with daily logs followed by a survey at the completion of the project. The four-week Writing Challenge occurred between June 7 and July 5, 2021. Email invitations to participate in the challenge were disseminated to peer networks, and the challenge was promoted using social media. Participants agreed to attempt to write 400 words per day, four days per week, for four weeks.ResultsSeventy-four individuals from 28 institutions registered for the Writing Challenge, with 36 (49%) participating in the challenge by logging their writing. Participants wrote an average of 4,372 +/- 4,324 words during the challenge. Sixty-eight percent of the participants reported that their amount of writing increased during the challenge and 50% of the participants stated they planned to publish their work, though many participants (46%) reported struggling to write each day.ConclusionsThe Writing Challenge is one way to generate increased writing and may result in increased scholarly output for academic hospitalists.

Engaging Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) for cardiovascular diseases risk screening in Nepal.

IntroductionNon-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) have become the leading public health problems worldwide and the cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) is one of the major NCDs. Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) in Nepal are the key drivers to implementing frontline health services. We explored the potential for engaging FCHVs for CVD risk screening at the community level in Nepal.MethodsWe used multiple approaches (quantitative and qualitative) for data collection. The trained FCHVs administered CVD risk screening questionnaire among 491 adults in rural and urban areas and calculated the CVD risk scores. To maintain consistency and quality, a registered medical doctor also, using the same risk scoring chart, independently calculated the CVD risk scores. Kappa statistics and concordance coefficient were used to compare these two sets of risk screening results. Sensitivity and specificity analyses were conducted. Two focus group discussions among the FCHVs were conducted to determine their experiences with CVD risk screening and willingness to engage with CVD prevention and control efforts.ResultsThe mean level of agreement between two sets of risk screening results was 94.5% (Kappa = 0.77, P<0.05). Sensitivity of FCHV screening was 90.3% (95% CI: 0.801–0.964); and the specificity was 97% (95% CI: 0.948, 0.984). FCHVs who participated in the FGDs expressed a strong enthusiasm and readiness to using the CVD risk screening tools. Despite their busy workload, all FCHVs showed high level of motivation and willingness in using CVD risk screening tools and contribute to the prevention and control efforts of NCDs. The FCHVs recommended needs for providing additional training and capacity building opportunities.ConclusionWe conclude that there is a potential for engaging FCHVs to use simple CVD risk screening tools at the community level. The findings are promising, however, further studies engaging larger number of FCHVs and larger population would warrant feasibility of such tools within the existing healthcare systems in Nepal.

COVID-19: prevalence of job-demands, stress, work–life difficulties and work–life balance among international business travelers

PurposeInternational business travelers (IBTs) face daily challenges pertaining to the frequency and duration of travel. Following the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the study aims to draw upon the job demands-resources (JD-R) model and the literature on work–life balance (WLB) to examine how this crisis have disrupted IBTs routines and the implications for their WLB.Design/methodology/approachData were collected in April 2020 with an online survey answered by 141 IBTs from different locations. The first set of analyses examined the perceived change in job-demands (i.e. business travel and workload) including stress and work–life difficulties following the outbreak of COVID-19. The second set of analyses tested the hypotheses that the perceived change in workload and stress predict IBTs' work–life difficulties, which, in turn, affect their WLB.FindingsThe results show that the decline in job-demands (i.e. business travel and workload) after the outbreak of COVID-19 was not enough to reduce IBTs' stress and ameliorate their work–life difficulties and WLB. Only respondents who experienced a decrease in workload, including less relational difficulties, reported a superior WLB.Originality/valueThe study widens the scope and relevance of global mobility studies in crisis settings by timely reporting the changes in job-demands, stress and work–life difficulties among IBTs following the outbreak of COVID-19. Additionally, the research extends the use of the JD-R model in the international context by advancing our knowledge of the interplay between contextual demands and job-demands in affecting IBTs' stress, work–life difficulties and WLB.

Optimising Medical Births 2. Optimising Physiology and Fetal Wellbeing with an Epidural in Situ

Encouraging mobility with an epidural can be challenging for midwives in practice which is usually due to education, time constraints, busy workloads, the cultural ‘norm’ of the unit as to what is the ‘normal position’ for women to birth in and convenience of the care provider; but also because of fetal monitoring implications when the descending fetus in the pelvis can become more challenging to monitor.1 This second article in a four-part series explores safety: how you can change your practice, how to shape your local guidelines and consider alternative options with reduced mobility and epidurals.

Multi-Cloud Adoption Challenges for the Cloud-Native Era

With the ready availability of appropriate technologies and tools for crafting hybrid clouds, the move towards employing multiple clouds for hosting and running various business workloads is garnering subtle attention. The concept of cloud-native computing is gaining prominence with the faster proliferation of microservices and containers. The faster stability and maturity of container orchestration platforms also greatly contribute towards the cloud-native era. This paper guarantees the following contributions: 1) It describes the key motivations for multi-cloud concept and implementations. 2) It also highlights various key drivers of the multi-cloud paradigm. 3) It presents a brew of challenges that are likely to occur while setting up multi-cloud. 4) It elaborates the proven and potential solution approaches to solve the challenges. The technology-inspired and tool-enabled solution approaches significantly simplify and speed up the adoption of the fast-emerging and evolving multi-cloud concept in the cloud-native era.

Sergio Eduardo Alonso Araujo, MD, PhD, FASCRS.

Dr. Sergio Eduardo Alonso Araujo is a Staff Colon and Rectal Surgeon and Medical Director of the Oncology Division at the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in São Paulo, Brasil. Sergio was born in Santos, São Paulo, Brazil, and received his MD, MSc, PhD, and Professorship in Colorectal Surgery all at the University of São Paulo Medical School in São Paulo, Brasil. He is an active teacher, having been very involved in medical student and resident education, as well as carrying a very busy clinical workload. In addition, he is the President-elect of the Brazilian Society of Colon and Rectal Surgery, one of the largest colorectal surgery societies in the world. Sergio remains a productive researcher, with over 140 articles and book chapters to his credit, and has been all over the world as an invited lecturer and panelist. He also served as the Editor-in-Chief for Revista Brasileira de Video-Cirurgia from 2004 to 2006 and currently serves on the editorial board for Surgical Laparoscopy, Endoscopy & Percutaneous Techniques. Sergio and his wife, Juliana, have two children—Caio and Clara. They enjoy doing everything together as a family, including spending time outdoors, running (including marathons), and karaoke. On a personal note, it has been an absolute pleasure getting to know him and his colleagues from Brasil. He is an excellent technical surgeon, especially within the realm of robotics, minimally invasive, and transanal surgery. On behalf of the readers and staff of Clinics in Colon and Rectal Surgery, I sincerely thank Sergio for serving as a Guest Editor and for providing us with a superb issue on minimally invasive and robotic approaches to colorectal disease.

NVIDIA GPU Performance Monitoring using an Extension for Dynatrace OneAgent

This work presents a Dynatrace OneAgent extension for gathering NVIDIA GPU metrics using NVIDIA Management Library (NVML). The extension integrates GPU metrics into an industry-leading platform for Application Performance Management extending its capability of monitoring important business workloads to the GPU-oriented computational nodes. A practical approach for acquiring and processing NVML metrics via Python bindings is described. The work also proposes and discusses implementation of helper applications for convenient simulation of performance problems in a multi-tier web application. These applications are then used in combination with OneAgent-based monitoring and appropriate configuration of Dynatrace platform for web application monitoring. Next, an end-to-end production-like scenarios are presented, which exemplify extension usefulness in test setup resembling a real world implementation. The extension has been released on GitHub under MIT license.

GQoS: A QoS-Oriented GPU Virtualization with Adaptive Capacity Sharing

Currently, the virtualization technologies for cloud computing infrastructures supporting extra devices, such as GPU, require additional development and refinement. This requirement is particularly evident in the area of resource sharing and allocation under some performance constraints, like the quality of service (QoS) guarantee, in light of the closed GPU platform. This deficiency significantly limits the applicability range of the cloud platform, which aims to support the efficient and fluent execution of business and academic workloads. This paper introduces gQoS, an adaptive virtualized GPU resource capacity sharing system under the QoS target, which can share and allocate the virtualized GPU resource among workloads adaptively, guaranteeing the QoS level with stability and accuracy. We evaluate the workloads and compare our gQoS strategy with other allocation strategies. The experiments show that our strategy guarantees much better accuracy and stability in QoS control and that the total GPU resource utilization under gQoS can be rewarded with at most a 25.85 percent reduction compared with other strategies.