Federal Government Organizations Research Articles

Practice outcomes for the first decade of Rural Pharmacy Education (RPHARM) Program graduates

BackgroundThe maldistribution of pharmacy services in underserved areas is a national issue. Analysis of data from the 2019 National Pharmacist Workforce Study indicated that 13.9% of pharmacists were working in a rural community. However, the percentage of people living in rural communities in the United States is 20.0%. Currently, there are 20 rural pharmacy programs in the United States, including the Rural Pharmacy Education (RPHARM) Program at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) College of Pharmacy, which contain both didactic and experiential rural components. This research project examines the practice outcomes of the RPHARM Program graduates.MethodsDescriptive analysis was used to examine the practice outcome characteristics of RPHARM Program graduates between 2014 and 2023. The characteristics of the RPHARM graduates included the rurality of hometowns, practice locations and populations, and distance of practice locations to hometowns. Rural practice outcomes were described utilizing frequently used rural definitions. The practice locations of 54 of the 61 RPHARM graduates were used in the analysis.ResultsApproximately 41% of the practicing RPHARM graduates were from rural hometowns and two-thirds were female. RPHARM graduates mostly work in either a community setting (44.4%) or a hospital setting (37.0%). Approximately 11% worked in a federal government organization and 5.6% worked in a long-term care pharmacy. When examining job location, 42.6% were working in a rural location based on Rural–Urban Commuting Area Version 3.0 and 35.2% of RPHARM graduates had always worked in a rural location. Approximately 57% of practicing RPHARM graduates are working in a location < 50 miles from their hometown, and 13% are working 50 to 100 miles from their hometown. Approximately 74% of RPHARM graduates are practicing in Illinois.ConclusionsApproximately 40% of RPHARM graduates practice in rural locations. A significant portion (35.2%) of RPHARM graduates have always practiced in rural locations, and many (57.4%) are practicing near their hometowns. Results indicate that the RPHARM Program is making meaningful contributions to increasing the rural pharmacy workforce. Due to the lack of information on rural pharmacy practice outcomes, all programs with rural pharmacy content are encouraged to track graduates’ practice locations.

CARE PLAN INVENTORY AND ASSESSMENT—A MEANS TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CMS

Abstract The Health and Aging Policy Fellowship (HAPF) provides an orientation on the federal government organization and an introduction to aging policy foundations and agencies. The goal of this orientation is to lead to a growth of a professional network as well as a policy placement opportunity. I will explain the process for choosing a HAPF placement with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ). Using my HAPF experience as an example of how my interest in Age-Friendly Health System work at a large health system led to my placement and personal growth. I will discuss my reasoning in taking part in the Fellowship and the creation of CMS Care Plan Inventory and Assessment. Achieving goal-concordant care is the bedrock of Age-Friendly care. Creating care plans is a means for teams and insurance providers use to create goal concordant care. Measuring goal concordant care is a challenge, but development of care plans would be a potential start. CMS utilizes care planning in programs and in billing codes. My Health and Aging Policy Fellowship placement assessed how care planning is defined and what are the elements in CMS programs and billing codes and if these are aligned with care plan research from AHRQ. My experience, current interests and project development will be the example of how HAPF provided me with a better understanding of CMS programs and how billing code creation affects clinician behaviors and , in turn, patients.

COVID-19 Public Service Advertisements through the Prism of Goal-Framing Theory

Public service advertisements (PSAs) about COVID-19 were a main means of slowing the spread of the virus in 2020. Yet the literature lacks research on the design of such PSAs regarding motivation elements, though this knowledge can help develop more persuasive PSAs for health communication beyond COVID-19. The present study turned to motivation theory as the foundation of behavior change and explored whether and how motivation elements were incorporated into COVID-19 PSAs through goal-framing theory (GFT) and using a deductive thematic analysis to identify goal appeals. In addition, an inductive thematic analysis was used to explore other persuasion strategies and tactics in PSAs for a fuller picture of their design. The analysis of sixty-three PSAs raises several concerns. First, in the United States there was insufficient use of goal appeals; federal government organizations (e.g., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] in the United States) incorporated goal appeals much less frequently than global health organizations and advertising organizations did. Second, the prevalence of PSAs that were built on instructions without any motivation elements, as well as those using positive elements and humor, may have decreased persuasiveness. The study’s findings should be taken into consideration by advertising scholars and practitioners in health communication.

Local Implementation of Move Your Way-A Federal Communications Campaign to Promote the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.

Background. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) developed the Move Your Way campaign to help more Americans increase their physical activity. The campaign includes more than 80 English and Spanish materials that can be used to promote physical activity. HHS also developed a community-based implementation strategy for the campaign. Methods. HHS collaborated with eight community-based organizations from across the United States to pilot campaign implementation in their communities. A mixed-methods process evaluation was conducted to assess events, partnership involvement, material distribution, and social media engagement. Results. More than 168,000 people participated in 55 campaign events, initiatives, and programs hosted by lead organizations and their 175 partners. More than 37,000 campaign materials were distributed, and there were over 72 million social media impressions. Conclusion. The community-based implementation strategy was effective at reaching the intended audience and driving traffic to Move Your Way resources. The flexibility of the Move Your Way materials and messages allowed communities to incorporate the campaign into diverse physical activity-promotion strategies. Findings demonstrate that the federal government and local community organizations can successfully work together to promote physical activity.

Integrating Information from the Past into Oyster Management

In the United States, the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) is an economically, culturally, and ecologically important oyster species that ranges from Maine to Texas. Eastern oyster populations are managed by a variety of federal, state, and local governments as well as non-governmental organizations. In addition, the long history of oyster harvesting and coastal land use change in the United States, and asynchronous fluctuations in abundance across the species range due to diverse pressures (e.g., hydrological changes, pollution, disease, overharvesting), combined with often scarce historical monitoring records documenting the timing and magnitude of the changes, have challenged oyster applied professionals for well over a century. The Oysters Past Working Group (OPWG) brings together academic researchers (paleoecologists, archaeologists, and historical ecologists) and applied professionals, representing federal, state, and local government and non-governmental organizations tasked with conserving, managing, and/or restoring oyster populations and habitat. The primary goals of the OPWG are to: 1) identify priority research directions for academic researchers by evaluating the information needs among applied professionals and the types of information from the past that may be able to address them; 2) create a guidance document on best practices for applying information from the past to oyster management; and 3) build trust and commitment to promote longer-lasting and sustained collaboration between academic researchers and applied professionals.

Recent history of the federal government organization

The ninth text, composed by Sheila Cristina Tolentino Barbosa and João Cláudio Pompeu, describes the recent trajectory of the organization of the Brazilian federal government. Published in December 2017, the study analyzes the formation and discontinuation of ministries and special secretariats from 1994 to 2015, detailing not only with the number of these agencies, but also with their internal transformations and horizontal differentiation. Based on these observations, it is possible to advance hypotheses on the expansion, fragmentation, and flexibility of these ministerial organizations.

Who collaborates on urban resilience? An analysis of flood resilience planning networks in four coastal cities

ABSTRACT Cities are increasingly focused on building resilience. The literature on urban resilience governance emphasizes the importance of breaking down organizational silos and fostering collaboration between diverse actors. Yet few studies empirically examine whether existing resilience governance networks possess these theorized characteristics. This paper addresses this gap by focusing on flood resilience governance in four major U.S. cities and uses social network analysis to analyze the collaboration structures of organizations involved in resilience building efforts. Drawing on original survey data, results suggest that resilience governance is multi-level, with city, regional, state, and federal government organizations present in all city networks. The networks are also diverse, with nonprofit organizations, private firms, and educational or research institutions prominently featured. While these results are promising in terms of the potential for resilience to diversify participation in decision-making, we also find low levels of network density, meaning that the networks are generally sparsely connected. This suggests that the network is susceptible to fragmentation if organizations defect from the network.

Improved Patient Experience and Outcomes: Is Patient-Provider Concordance the Key?

Health disparities remain ubiquitous in the United States despite initiatives by the federal government and other organizations. A long-term solution for health inequity is needed in order to help improve patient outcomes for all. The purpose of this review is to examine if racial, gender, or multifactorial concordance (eg, race, age, gender, education, language) between patient and provider leads to a better patient experience and improved health outcomes. A PubMed search for articles published between 2016 and 2021 resulted in 23 separate studies that met inclusion criteria. The results from these studies were inconclusive in determining an association between patient–provider concordance and patient outcomes. Further research is needed to evaluate the positive, neutral, and sometimes negative impact of patient–provider concordance. By diversifying healthcare professions and improving cultural competency and communication training programs, providers may be better prepared to care for diverse populations in both concordant and discordant patient relationships.

Wildfires and the Dissemination of Information in Oregon

Wildfires have the reputation for being fast and unpredictable, government documents tend to be the opposite. So, what happens when the two meet? The 2020 Oregon wildfire season was one of the most destructive in the state’s history. We examined the 2020 Oregon wildfires and relief, specifically the Mount Hood fires and witnessed how the world of government publications responded. Wildfires are also very labor-intensive natural disasters to manage in a normal year, and 2020 was even worse. Due to labor constraints of the pandemic, the Oregon 2020 wildfire season was particularly bad. A wide array of federal government organizations quickly got involved, ranging from the IRS to the USDA, as well as state and local agencies. We also learned some specific senators and representatives were quick to respond, although the House and the Senate, as well as the president, were much slower to respond. This is the story of a collection of four distinct fires just outside of Portland, Oregon, that grew to become one large fire control effort, and the governmental responses to this natural disaster. The four wildfires in Oregon we will focus on are the Riverside Fire, Beachie Creek Fire, Lionshead Fire, and P515 Fire.

Assessing the Perception to the Proposed COVID-19 Vaccination in Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Abuja, Northern Nigeria

As a result of the insurgency in the north-east part of Nigeria , Hadejia and Kafin Hausa as neighbouring communities, received about 30,000 internally displaced persons The study is an ex post- facto survey which investigated the priority of basic needs and extent of deprivation, as a determinant factor for vulnerability among internally displaced in the communities. The study also investigated the availability of public services and access to them by the IDPs Three research questions were raised to investigate basic needs according to Maslow’s need gratification theory, vulnerabilities arising from deprivation of the needs and thirdly access to public services like health education, security by the IDPs. A sample size of 90 households consisting of four respondents per household i,e360 IDPs was chosen from an estimated population of 9000 IDPs The researchers developed a 39 item structured four part questionnaire to elicit demographic, food , health, clothing , shelter and security needs or vulnerability information among the IDPs. Most of the questions were checklist or a-Likert type three-point scale. The data was analyzed using percentages The findings of the study indicated that, food, employment, shelter and clothing are the major needs among the subjects, there is also a high level of vulnerability due to absence or inadequacy of these basic needs. There is an indication of high exposure to violence and abuse, as they mostly live in non camp settings devoid of adequate protection. Due to the large number of IDPs in the study area, it is recommended that the federal government and international organizations come to the aid of the IDPs and host communities in providing basic needs and psychological support in order to rehabilitate them and ameliorate their condition of high vulnerability.

Heterogeneity and Interoperability in Local Public Health Information Systems.

Heterogeneity and Interoperability in Local Public Health Information Systems.

COVID-19 in conflict border regions: a case of South Kordofan, Sudan

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported in Sudan on 13 March 2020. Since then, Sudan has experienced one of the highest rates of COVID-19 spread and fatalities in Africa. One year later, as per 22 March 2021, Sudan had registered 29,661 confirmed cases and 2,028 deaths with a case fatality rate (CFR) of 6.8 %. By 12 December 2020, of the 18 states in Sudan, South Kordofan had the fifth highest CFR of 17.4 %, only surpassed by the other conflict affected North (57.5 %), Central (50.0 %) and East (31.8 %) Darfur States. By late March 2021, just three months from December 2020, the number of cases in South Kordofan increased by 100 %, but with a significant decline in the CFR from 17.4 to 8.5 %. South Kordofan is home to over 200,000 poor and displaced people from years of destructive civil unrests. To date, several localities such as the Nubba mountains region remain under rebel control and are not accessible. South Kordofan State Ministry of Health in collaboration with the federal government and non-governmental organizations set up four isolation centres with 40 total bed capacity, but with only two mechanical ventilators and no testing centre. There is still need for further multi-sectoral coalition and equitable allocation of resources to strengthen the health systems of rural and conflict affected regions. This article aims at providing insight into the current state of COVID-19 in South Kordofan amidst the second wave to address the dearth of COVID-19 information in rural and conflict affected regions.

Politics in the Government Organizations: The Moderating Role of Optimism to Control Deleterious Effects

Organizational politics severely disrupt the productivity and performance of government organizations and their employees. The prime objective of this study is to appear the vulnerabilities of politics in the outcomes of government organizations in terms of declining of affective commitment and whistle blowing, instigating to turnover intentions and counterproductive behavior towards assigned work. The moderating effect of “optimism” between the perception and adverse effects of politics has also been appraised. Employees working at managerial and executive level in federal government organization of capital territory, are treated as population. Simple random sampling and simple linear regression statistical techniques are used for data collection and data analysis. Perceived politics lessen employee’s commitment and increase counterproductive behavior as well as turnover intentions are the findings in response of 144 government employees. This is visible by this research that optimism as a psychological resource may counter the negative effects of organizational politics on various concerns and government employees are lessen involved in counterproductive activities and highly dedicated towards their job and organization.

The Woman All Spies Fear: Code Breaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman and Her Hidden Life by Amy Butler Greenfield

Reviewed by: The Woman All Spies Fear: Code Breaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman and Her Hidden Life by Amy Butler Greenfield Elizabeth Bush Greenfield, Amy Butler The Woman All Spies Fear: Code Breaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman and Her Hidden Life. Random House Studio, 2021 [336p] illus. with photographs Library ed. ISBN 9780593127209 $21.99 Trade ed. ISBN 9780593127193 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780593127216 $11.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 6-12 Dissatisfied with her first teaching experience but beholden to her father for his college tuition loan, Elizebeth Smith left small-town Indiana for big city Chicago in search of work. A chance exchange about Shakespeare with an employee at the Newberry Library swept her into contact with George Fabyan, eccentric—and soon to prove sinister—owner of an estate at which he advanced the research of scholars who shared his interests and tolerated his oddities. Smith was set to work culling through a Shakespeare First Folio to ferret out what was believed to be the Francis Bacon cipher and, through it, evidence that he was the true author of famously miscredited work. The project was a dud, but the cipher work opened the door to Smith’s future career; together with fellow Fabyan employee William Friedman, whom she married, she became a valued asset to the United States government on the brink of entering World War I, and the pair established themselves in parallel careers of service as cryptanalysts for military and federal civilian government organizations well beyond World War II. Friedman’s story reads like a gripping novel, with true blue romance, a Machiavellian employer, glass ceilings and uncredited labor, a brilliant husband battling mental illness, and a series of career assignments cracking communications of wartime spies and Prohibition-era bootleggers and gangsters, which often put her life in danger. Greenfield delivers the tale with enthusiasm and narrative flair, including lots of photos of her photogenic subject and fascinating “Code Break” insets in cryptography. A bibliography and source notes are included. Copyright © 2021 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Determinants of Successful Implementation of Audit Report Recommendations: The Case Office of the Federal Auditor General in Northern Branch

This study was carried out in order to investigate the Determinants of successful implementation of audit report recommendation in Office of federal Auditor General Audited Government Organization Northern branch in Bahir Dar. Data collection was achieved through questionnaires and the study of documentary materials. The primary data were supplied to 5 respondents focusing purposively on all audit team leaders and audit manager. The secondary data were generated from the annual summarized audit reports of 265 previously audited government organizations prepared by Office of federal Auditor General in Northern branch. The test of hypotheses and other analysis of data were done using SPSS, version 20. The tests revealed that among others, conflicts of interest, lack of follow up, employee instability and management resistance are the significant factors affecting successful implementation of audit recommendation in Northern branch. That means they are the principal factors hindering the implementation of audit report recommendation. In addition, it is found that management & employee negligence and remoteness would likely have negative in-significant effect on the implementation of audit in Northern branch. The study recommends efforts should be made to establish and strengthen follow up for previous audits, create awareness for the legal punishment related to conflict of interest and design proper information exchange system during employee turnover to improve implementation of audit recommendation. Also, regulatory authorities should exercise legal measure for management negligence and resistance for the successful implementation of audit recommendation.

ACCEPTANCE AND BARRIER OF ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS IN A TERTIARY HOSPITAL IN NIGERIA

Purpose: This study assesses the performance, determine the barriers and effects of electronic health records on the staff of Obafemi Awolowo Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. Method/Approach: This study was designed to explore the experiences of staff that practised a computerized or electronic health record in Obafemi Awolowo Teaching Hospital, Osun State, Nigeria (OAUTH). This study utilized a quantitative method. The study sample includes 10 respondents from the intensive care unit, 40 respondents from the health information department, 25 respondents from nurses and 25 respondents from the medical doctors of the hospital. The respondents were purposively selected and the instrument (questionnaire) was administered using the random sampling technique. Findings/results: This study showed that there is a high performance (80%) of EHR in the hospital. Most respondents (65%) opined that EHR is easy to use. The assessment of the respondents about the ability of EHR to reduce medical error revealed that about 75% said EHR will reduce medical error. In addition to this, about 80% of the respondents said EHR is important in the transmission of patient prescription. The barrier to the implementation of electronic health record includes an inadequate computer (50%), lack of uniform hospital standard (55%), start-up financial costs (60%) and training and productivity loss. Recommendation: The hospital management, federal and state government and non-governmental organizations should work together to remove all barrier to the implementation of electronic health records through the provision of computer systems, finance, stable electricity supply, man-power training and employment of adequate staff. Article visualizations:

Sustainable Development Tool Using Meta‐Analysis and DPSIR Framework — Application to Savannah River Basin, U.S.

AbstractThe Savannah River Basin (SRB), a highly stressed southeastern river in United States is a conservation priority for State, Federal government, and nongovernment organizations. A four‐stage sustainable development tool was developed in this study using meta‐analysis and the drivers–pressures–state–impacts–responses (DPSIR) framework. Through the synthesis of ~150 references in the SRB this study addressed three research questions: (1) What were the drivers, pressures, state, impacts, and responses (components of DRSIR framework) in SRB (2) Can these components be grouped together from various studies in SRB (3) Can causal chain/loops be developed, and will they be useful for policy and decision making? First in the Stage 1, the state of the SRB was represented (S component of DPSIR), in Stage 2, the drivers–pressures–impacts–responses (DPIR components of DPSIR) were represented, in the third stage (Stage 3) the common units characterizing each DPSIR component were identified. Finally, in Stage 4, the causal chains/loops were developed and organized into scientific research at a level appropriate for building better understanding about SRB and helping stakeholders and policy makers in managing basin sustainability challenges. Although the tool was applied to SRB, the methodology is applicable to other river basins and ecosystems.

A Semantically Rich Framework for Knowledge Representation of Code of Federal Regulations

Federal government agencies and organizations doing business with them have to adhere to the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The CFRs are currently available as large text documents that are not machine processable and so require extensive manual effort to parse and comprehend, especially when sections cross-reference topics spread across various titles. We have developed a novel framework to automatically extract knowledge from CFRs and represent it using a semantically rich knowledge graph. The framework captures knowledge in the form of key terms, rules, topic summaries, relationships between various terms, semantically similar terminologies, deontic expressions, and cross-referenced facts and rules. We built our framework using deep learning technologies like TensorFlow for word embeddings and text summarization, Gensim for topic modeling, and Semantic Web technologies for building the knowledge graph. In this article, we describe our framework in detail and present the results of our analysis of the Title 48 CFR knowledge base that we have built using this framework. Our framework and knowledge graph can be adopted by federal agencies and businesses to automate their internal processes that reference the CFR rules and policies.

Randomized clinical trials in obstetrics-gynecology registered at ClinicalTrials.gov: Characteristics and factors associated with publication

ObjectiveTo describe the characteristics of obstetrical and gynecological randomized clinical trials (RCTs) that were registered at a national database, and to identify factors associated with the publication among the completed trials. Study DesignThis was a cross-sectional study using data from ClinicalTrials.gov which was queried for all obstetrical and gynecological RCTs that were registered between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2013. Poisson regression models were used to examine the factors associated with publication among the completed trials (using relative risk [RR] and 95 % confidence interval [CI]). ResultsDuring the 5-year study period, 1389 obstetrical and gynecological RCTs were registered at ClinicalTrials.gov: 31 % (n = 538) in obstetrics and 69 % (n = 851) in gynecology. Among all registered RCTs in obstetrics-gynecology, 59 % (n = 816) were completed and 29 % (n = 406) were published. Compared to registered trials that were unpublished, those that were published were more likely to be funded by NIH/US Federal Government (RR = 3.36, 95 % CI = 1.46−7.74) or other non-industry organizations (RR = 2.41, 95 % CI = 1.07−5.38), have a procedural intervention (RR = 1.52, 95 % CI = 1.12−2.06), or an enrollment of >150 (RR = 2.73, 95 % CI = 1.57−4.75). ConclusionAmong the obstetrical and gynecological randomized controlled trials registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, less than two-third were completed, and only one-third were published.

Conflicts of Interest in Human Subject Research: The Insufficiency of U.S. and International Standards.

Researchers, as well as individuals and institutions that oversee their conduct, sometimes have conflicts of interest that weaken or render ineffective efforts to protect human research subjects. This article analyzes United States and international standards used to address conflicts of interest and reviews evidence regarding compliance. It finds current standards are insufficient and recommends that the federal government and international organizations adopt stronger legal standards that require resolving most significant conflicts of interest and specifying how to manage conflicts of interest not resolved.