Ensure Quality Of Service Research Articles

Institutional Facilitation in Sustained Volunteering among Older Adult Volunteers

As more nonprofit organizations rely on older adult volunteers to provide services, it is important to retain volunteers for an extended period of time to ensure service quality and the beneficial outcomes of volunteering. Nonprofit organizations are positioned to facilitate older adult volunteers' role performance. Based on an institutional perspective on volunteering, this study explored what institutional facilitations are needed for sustained volunteering. The sample included 401 older adult volunteers from 13 programs across the nation. Data were collected by means of self-administrated questionnaires. Institutional facilitation was captured by volunteer role flexibility, incentive, role recognition, and training. With volunteers' age controlled for, two-level hierarchical linear models were used to assess the relationship between volunteer duration (level 1 variables) and institutional facilitation (level 2 variables) in the volunteer program. Results demonstrated that a higher level of volunteering duration was associated with institutional facilitation factors of more role recognition and more training hours. Duration was also associated with less incentive. These findings suggest that certain facilitators from organizations contribute to an extended period of commitment among older adult volunteers. KEY WORDS: institutional facilitation; older adult volunteer; role recognition; sustained volunteering; training ********** As the first of approximately 77 million baby boomers have entered their 60s, nonprofit organizations are faced with unprecedented opportunities to tap this potential volunteer pool. Volunteers have made significant contributions to U.S. society. It is estimated that in 1999, 26.4 million volunteers age 55 years and over contributed more than 5.6 billion hours at a value of $77.2 billion (Independent Sector, 2004). As baby boomers age, there will be a great potential for volunteering to tackle some of the most troubling social problems, such as failing schools, environmental degradation, youth drug abuse, and child maltreatment (Morrow-Howell, 2006). Statistics demonstrate that older adult volunteers are more committed than their younger counterparts (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics [DOL,BLS],2007) and that people increase volunteer time commitment with age up to age 75, at which point volunteer participation stabilizes (Hendricks & Cutler, 2004). As shown in a recent national survey, in 2006 those age 65 and older devoted a median of 104 hours annually, compared with a median of 52 hours across all age groups (DOL, BLS, 2007). Among all adult volunteers, older volunteers are actively involved in a wide range of volunteer activities--from mentoring at-risk school children in poor urban communities to engaging in environmental conservation activities, teaching computer skills, and providing professional services (Morrow-Howell et al., 2006). The individual benefits associated with volunteering have been well documented in the literature, especially health-related benefits to older adult volunteers. Compared with nonvolunteers, older adult volunteers are likely to experience higher levels of life satisfaction, enhanced well-being, decreased physical dependency, and lower rates of mortality (for example, Greenfield & Marks, 2004; Musick & Wilson, 2003; Van Willigen, 2000). As baby boomers reach retirement age, older volunteers who directly benefit from volunteering also represent an organizational resource with the potential to increase capacity to provide services and expand public support (Corporation for National and Community Service, 2005). Sustained volunteering is important to maintaining or improving the benefits and service quality linked with volunteering. Volunteer turnover is costly to an organization, to service delivery, and potentially to older adult volunteers themselves (Stevens, 1991).Volunteer performance and retention varies across organizations; the challenge is to assess what factors lead to retention of an individual in the volunteer role (Brudney, 1999). …

Nurse Director Rounds to Ensure Service Quality

Although relatively little is known about the practice of nurse director rounds, it seems to be a promising way to enhance patient-centered care. The purpose of nurse director rounds, as described in our case study, is to determine patients' experiences with care and the environment in which they receive it.

Using Benchmarking, Needs Assessment, Quality Improvement, Outcome Measurement, and Library Standards: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians With CD-ROM. A Medical Library Association Guide

Using Benchmarking, Needs Assessment, Quality Improvement, Outcome Measurement, and Library Standards: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians With CD-ROM. A Medical Library Association Guide

Reducing Check-In Errors at Brigham Young University Through Statistical Process Control

ABSTRACT The relationship between the library and its patrons is damaged and the library's reputation suffers when returned items are not checked in. An informal survey reveals librarians' concern for this problem and their efforts to combat it, although few libraries collect objective measurements of errors or the effects of improvement efforts. Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library is engaged in a quality improvement effort that includes the use of statistical process control and has resulted in an 86% reduction in errors over a two-year period. BYU's experience demonstrates the importance of objective measures in ensuring service quality.

Human resource outsourcing: 19902004

AbstractGiven the increasing use of and considerable debates on human resource outsourcing (HRO), this study critically reviews the existing literature on a selection of HRO issues. It concludes that HRO has been widely practised since 1990, but its growth is modest rather than overwhelmingly rapid, and so is the anticipated future development. While saving costs, seeking better services and enhancing core competency are the main reasons for HRO, there is no evidence suggesting that these objectives have been easily achieved. There is no clear pattern of outsourcing HR activities, which points to the limitation of the traditional approach with regard to core and periphery issues. The effective management of HRO greatly lies in selecting the right vendors, ensuring service quality, building strategic relations and managing changes. This study also discusses the implications of the findings and the directions for future research.

Connection provisioning with transmission impairment consideration in optical WDM networks with high-speed channels

We investigate new connection-provisioning algorithms to efficiently provide signal-quality-guaranteed connections in an optical wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) mesh network operating with high-speed wavelength channels. In an optical network, a connection is set up to carry a data signal via an all-optical channel (lightpath) from its source to destination node. The optical signal transmitted along the lightpath may need to travel through a number of crossconnect switches (OXCs), optical amplifiers, and fiber segments. While the signal propagates toward its destination, the optical components would continuously degrade the signal quality by inducing impairments. When the signal degradation is so severe that the received bit-error rate (BER) becomes unacceptably high, the lightpath would not be able to provide good service quality to a connection request. Such a lightpath, which has poor signal quality due to transmission impairments in the physical layer, should not be used for connection provisioning in the network layer. With increasing channel bit rate to 10 Gb/s or higher, fiber linear and nonlinear impairments become prominent factors, which affect the signal quality. Thus, new techniques in both physical layer and network layer are necessary for mitigating impairments to accommodate high-speed traffic. Therefore, to ensure service quality of high-speed connections, we develop intelligent impairment-aware routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) algorithms, which automatically consider the effects of high-speed transmission impairment when setting up a lightpath. The main contribution of our paper is that we investigate a novel hierarchical RWA model for high-speed connection provisioning where the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) and polarization mode dispersion (PMD) effect are estimated in the physical layer, and regarded as metrics for lightpath computation in the network layer. The performance of the proposed connection-provisioning strategies is demonstrated to be promising through illustrative numerical examples.

Forensic medicine services in Uganda – present and future

Forensic medicine services (medico-legal services) as it is provided today in Uganda is discussed with special reference to forensic pathology and also to future plans for improvement to ensure quality service. Forensic medicine services are divided into clinical forensic medicine and forensic pathology. In Uganda, these services are rendered partly by pathologists attached to University, by pathologists and medical officers employed by police and by medical officers attached to hospitals. In Uganda, all types of unnatural deaths are reported to nearest police station and appointed investigating police officer(s) will take necessary action to have a medico-legal postmortem done as soon as possible. Currently there is no qualified forensic pathologist in Uganda. Suggestions are made with regard to the enactment of a Forensic Medicine Services Act by the Department of Health, the creation of a forensic medicine unit with, under the administrative umbrella of pathology department, in medical schools and imparting of forensic medicine training to anatomical pathologists to act as a qualified, specialist forensic pathologists.

Interventions for patients, providers, and health care organizations.

Clinicians and the organizations within which they practice play a major role in enabling patient participation in cancer screening and ensuring quality services. Guided by an ecologic framework, the authors summarize previous literature reviews and exemplary studies of breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening intervention studies conducted in health care settings. Lessons learned regarding interventions to maximize the potential of cancer screening are distilled. Four broad lessons learned emphasize that multiple levels of factors-public policy, organizational systems and practice settings, clinicians, and patients-influence cancer screening; that a diverse set of intervention strategies targeted at each of these levels can improve cancer screening rates; that the synergistic effects of multiple strategies often are most effective; and that targeting all components of the screening continuum is important. Recommendations are made for future research and practice, including priorities for intervention research specific to health care settings, the need to take research phases into consideration, the need for studies of health services delivery trends, and methods and measurement issues.

Professional Employer Organizations and Their Role in Small and Medium Enterprises: The Impact of HR Outsourcing

While effective HR services and programs can help firms gain competitive advantage, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) often lack the internal resources required to develop and deliver these services and programs. As a result, SMEs increasingly are outsourcing HR activities to professional employer organizations (PEOs). Questions remain, however, about the conditions under which SMEs will benefit from outsourcing HR to a PEO, as well as about the type of benefits that are potentially available. The very nature of many HR activities raises questions about the risks associated with market governance and a PEO's ability to ensure service quality for SMEs. In order for these questions to be addressed, it is necessary to understand the process by which PEO utilization affects SME outcomes. In this article, we use transaction cost economics, social exchange theory, and the strategic HR literature to develop a framework for understanding the factors and conditions likely to affect whether and how an SME will benefit from using a PEO.

Ensuring Service Quality for Campus Career Services Centers: A Modified SERVQUAL Scale

High-quality career services centers benefit marketing students by providing a full range of career counseling and job placement information so that when they enter the workforce, they are prepared to make better job choice decisions leading to more satisfying and productive careers. However, not all students receive high-quality guidance. Faculty have an obligation to monitor the effectiveness of their campus career services unit as part of their teaching mission. Accordingly, appropriate metrics are needed to measure and track service quality in a career services setting. This article outlines the development and potential use of a modified SERVQUAL scale that can be used as part of an ongoing program of service quality improvement for career services centers on college campuses.

Human Resource Management Practices in Small Firms: An Inter-Industry Comparison

This study investigates human resource management practices in small firms across different industry sectors. The findings show that human resource management practices reflect the type of workers employed and the areas of competitive advantage in the industry. Thus, manufacturing and engineering firms employ production workers and are concerned with reducing labour costs whilst ensuring that quantity and quality targets are achieved. Firms in the distribution and recreational service sectors and in engineering employ service workers and tailor their human resource practices to ensuring quality service and minimum labour costs. The professionals service sector and to some extent the engineering and construction sector employ symbolic analysts who are highly skilled and relatively scarce. Employees in this category are treated as investments with the aim of encouraging high performance and retention within the firm. Although the high levels of informality in human resource management peculiar to small firms are evident in all the industry sectors, differences across industry sectors are still distinct. The implications for future practice and research are discussed.

Involvement of the Hispanic Community in ATOD Research

SUMMARY Alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs (ATOD) have had a devastating impact on Hispanic communities in the United States. This population historically has not had access to culturally competent services to address the effect of drugs in their lives. There is little debate in the field of ATOD about the need to develop strategies to involve communities in research and service to ensure quality services. This paper identifies issues and challenges for researchers wishing to engage Hispanic communities in the research process.

Quality services: policies and practices in Malaysia

Reports on research undertaken because the Malaysian delegation to an ASEAN‐COCI seminar felt there was a need to understand what is meant by “Quality” from the librarian’s perspective. A survey was undertaken to obtain feedback from librarians. Questionnaires were sent to all (10) university librarians, all (13) state public libraries and six selected special libraries. The response rate was 100 per cent from university libraries, 77 per cent from public libraries and 100 per cent from special libraries. An analysis of the responses provided insights into what quality means to librarians, the policy infrastructure available, the obstacles faced by librarians in the implementation of quality measures and the strategies they employ to ensure quality services. It also provided an insight into their future plans.

THERAPEUTIC MISADVENTURE OR MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE?

The process of medical care was brought under the purview of the consumer protection act (CPA) by the parliament in December 1986. Though the act was enforced in September 1987, it came under severe criticism from the medical profession, individuals and organizations alike. Hence, the act was held in abeyance and subjudice till November 1995 when the Supreme Court ruled that providing medical care on payment does fall within the ambit of the expression “Service” as defined in section 2(1) (O) of CPA. Enforcement of CPA is believed to ensure quality service and better consumer satisfaction. The medical professionals have always held that unlike consumer durables it is difficult to predict behaviour of a human being when subjected to medical care. Therefore, most of the times when a doctor is brought before a court of law for being negligent, immunity is sought by attempting to prove the contrary under the garb of unpredictability. However, more often than not here is a very thin line between a misadventure and a negligence. We report here a death during anaesthesia and leave it to the discerning reader to decide whether the catastrophe was a misadventure or a negligence on the part of the anaesthesiologist. Case Report A 32-year-old female patient was scheduled to undergo elective cholecystectomy for cholelithiasis in a well equipped medical referral centre. She was assessed to be in American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) Gr I and all relevant investigations including plain radiograph of the chest did not reveal any abnormality. On the day of surgery, after induction of anaesthesia her trachea was intubated. However, within minutes of connecting the tube to the ventilator, she was diagnosed to have sudden cardiac arrest. Resuscitative measures were immediately undertaken and external cardiac compression was instituted, though the cause of the cardiac arrest could not be ascertained till then. Since external cardiac compression seemed inadequate, the surgeon performed a left sided thoracotomy for internal cardiac compression. When the thorax was opened, plenty of air bubbles came out of the pleural cavity. A needle inserted in the right pleural cavity also confirmed the presence of air and an intercostal tube drainage was placed. However, all these efforts did not yield a positive outcome and the patient could not be revived. A medicolegal autopsy was carried out subsequently. The deceased had a well developed healthy body and had a surgical thoracotomy with fracture of the third, fourth and fifth ribs on the left side. A venesection wound in the right cubital fossa and a surgical wound in the right side of the chest for intercostal tube drainage were present. Surgical emphysema was noted to be present in the neck and chest. Both lungs were collapsed and about 50 mL of blood was found to be present in the pericardial cavity. Ventricular myocardium was partially contused possibly because of internal cardiac compression. The brain was oedematous and meninges were congested. The viscera was preserved for chemical analysis. In the opinion of the autopsy surgeon, death occurred as a result of asphyxia following respiratory failure, along with injuries to the heart. The clinical profile and the findings of autopsy when interpreted and correlated in proper perspective, indicate that there was sudden rise in airway pressure causing barotrauma, tension pneumothorax and collapse of both the lungs. All these events led to rapid development of cardiac arrest and death of the patient.

Negative visitor‐hospitality industry staff interaction: Response styles of potential employees

The role of tourism/hospitality industry management in ensuring service quality is now generally regarded as being of considerable importance. Notwithstanding this, relatively little is known about the preconceptions and expectations regarding the management role that potential tourism/hospitality industry employees bring to the workplace. This study has examined the expected problem‐solving styles of hospitality industry management when faced with a complaint about visitor‐staff conflict. The sample was drawn from school leavers in a major district community, many of whom would soon seek employment and careers in the tourism/hospitality industry. Two major problem‐solving styles were identified, one involving Investigation of the complaint, and one involving Avoidance and possibly rudeness. Major Service Quality Ideals were also identified as predictors of each management problem‐solving style. Finally, the implications of these findings for tourism/hospitality industry management and for employees are explored.

Information Technology: Management Effectiveness and Guest Services

This article investigates the prospects for improvements in management effectiveness given the rapidly changing developments in new information technolo gies. One of the principal problems facing managers in the future will be how to ensure service quality with fewer managers. The view offered here is that information technology, despite large reductions in the number of managers, can lead to the creation of new types of organizational structures that will, in turn, lead to more effective management while still ensuring service quality.

Quality Assurance in Supported Employment

The rapid expansion of supported employment has generated calls for adopting standards to ensure quality services. This article discusses state actions that might be taken to promote the quality of supported employment services. The difficulty that states have in investing and assuring high quality is also discussed. It is proposed that quality assurance systems for supported employment include such features as incentives for performance; data systems that are timely and result in feedback and assistance to providers; investment in local oumership; and a decrease in the amount of costly behaviors that are required to meet standards, but do not influence quality improvements.

Credentialing Career Counselors

The credentialing of career counselors is an important step in ensuring quality service to individuals entering the work environment for the first time as well as individuals making midlife career changes. With over 50 million jobs changing in the next two decades, the need for credentialed career counselors is expected to multiply.

No.4 ESS: Maintenance Software

To ensure quality service, a toll switching system must be able to meet very stringent dependability and maintainability requirements. To meet these requirements a large package of maintenance software has been developed. This software consists of four functional areas. The first area deals with the detection and recovery from software malfunctions. These malfunctions include failing defensive program checks, scheduling irregularities, and mutilated data. The second area is concerned with the recovery from hardware faults. Hardware fault recovery is stimulated by a failing hardware check and is completed when the system has been reconfigured around the faulty unit. The third area is concerned with the diagnostic programs that aid the craftsperson in the identification and repair of the faulty unit. The fourth area provides for overall coordinated system recovery from multiple or very severe hardware and software malfunctions.