Public Service System Research Articles

INTERROGATING INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE: ACTORS' ATTITUDES TO COMPETITION AND COOPERATION IN COMMISSIONING HEALTH SERVICES IN ENGLAND

Since the beginning of the 1990s the public healthcare system in England has been subject to reforms. This has resulted in a structurally hybrid system of public service with elements of the market. Utilizing a theory of new institutionalism, this article explores National Health Service (NHS) managers' views on competition and cooperation as mechanisms for commissioning health services. We interrogate the extent of institutional change in the NHS by examining managers' understanding of the formal rules, normative positions and frameworks for action under the regime of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Interviews with managers showed an overall preference for cooperative approaches, but also evidence of marketization in the normative outlook and actions. This suggests that hybridity in the NHS has already spread from structure and rules to other institutional pillars. The study showed that managers were adept at navigating the complex policy environment despite its inherent contradictions.

Improving the coastal line passenger traffic management system by applying information technologies

The paper analyses the features of public coastal liner shipping, public transport services in Croatia and the Croatian seaport system. Business processes within the system of public line transport services are analyzed – the management process, the fundamental process (transportation) and the support processes. The shortcomings of the existing system are stated, and improvement of the system by using information technology is proposed. The authors present the necessary adaptations of the public coastal liner shipping system with the goal of increasing system functionality, and the development of management tools (and the public coastal liner shipping services in general) by information system implementation – the appropriately designed information system, combined with standardized system elements. Such system will ensure a higher level of efficiency, together with stability and business continuity.

(Management of Public Service at the Level of Subjects of the Russian Federation)

Russian Abstract: В статье рассматривается система управления государственной службой на уровне субъектов Российской Федерации в целях координации деятельности государственных органов при решении вопросов государственной службы. Показано, что управление государственной гражданской службой образуется в целях реализации полномочий, установленных федеральным и областным законодательством.English Abstract: In article the control system of public service at the level of subjects of the Russian Federation for coordination of activity of government bodies at the solution of questions of public service is considered. It is shown that management of the public civil service is formed for realization of the powers established by the federal and regional legislation.

Library strategic environment in the public cultural service system in China

Purpose– China is currently constructing the public cultural service system on a national scale. Library strategic environment problems, such as the status of library in the public cultural service system, the relationship with relevant public cultural service institutions/organizations, and the factors influencing library development, etc., which increasingly raise people’s concern. The purpose of this paper is to solve above mentioned problems.Design/methodology/approach– This paper used online and offline questionnaires to solicit feedback from public cultural service institutions/organizations. Based on the data from questionnaires, this paper analyzed library strategic environment in the public cultural service system in mainland China by adopting correlation analysis, mean analysis and factor analysis, etc.Findings– Stakeholders (relevant public cultural service institutions) highly valued the status of library and no respondents believed that library did not belong to the public cultural service system. Compared with competing relationship between enterprises, library and relevant cultural services institutions were partners rather than competitors. Three main factors that influenced library strategic planning were identified: internal conditions factors, external environment factors and stakeholder related factors.Research limitations/implications– There are some limitations of this thesis. For instance, the sample size is not large enough and respondents are confined to cities, which may reduce the generalizability of the findings.Originality/value– Through this analysis, library can learn more of national cultural environment in China, and take necessary measures to cope with these changes.

Service Innovation in a Complex Service System: Public Transit Service Sustainability Business Cases

This paper seeks to assess and analyse service innovation in a complex service system, using a theoretical framework that comprises three key concepts: service innovation, complexity, and sustainability. Using two public transit cases, from Zurich and Singapore, this contribution describes the challenges associated with understanding service innovation in the complex public transit service system, according to its basis in social and environmental perspectives on sustainability. The findings affirm theoretical attempts to conceptualize service innovation and value co-creation in the service systems. By delineating the challenges of integrating sustainable thinking in complex service systems for service innovations and understanding the role of public transport services in an international context, this study makes an original contribution to research in services, sustainability, and complexity.

The Mikoyan Mini-Hamburger, or How the Socialist Realist Novel about the Soviet Meat Industry Was Created

This article examines Boris Pilnyak's attempt to answer Commissar Mikoyan's “social mandate” for a work of Socialist Realist fiction that would glorify the achievements of the newly modernized Soviet meat industry in general and of the recently constructed Mikoyan meat-packing plant in particular. Pilnyak's Meat: A Novel (1936), which reads like a Soviet(ized) version of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1907), shows how under a socialist system the negative features of the tsarist-era meat business can be eliminated in Stalinist Russia without having to sacrifice industrial efficiency or worker productivity. The novel failed to please the Party leadership, however, because the author did not respond earnestly enough to Mikoyan's “social mandate.” Pilnyak provided a parodic, tongue-in-cheek pastiche of a Socialist Realist novel rather than a genuine one. This article shows how Commissar Mikoyan's aspiration to have a literary monument erected to the Soviet meat industry, which he had worked so diligently to modernize and expand, culminated in the publication of The Book about Tasty and Healthy Food (1939), the famous cookbook and household guide, which projects numerous Socialist Realist images of material abundance, good taste, and scientific nutrition that were associated during the Stalin years with an ideal (and idealized) cuisine that never really existed in the USSR. The food commissar's abiding desire to produce a domestic version of the American hamburger was likewise realized through his creation of the “Mikoyan cutlet,” which generated a veritable revolution in the system of public food service in his country.

Development of a Tailored Analysis System for Korean Working Conditions Survey.

BackgroundKorean Working Conditions Surveys (KWCS), referencing European Working Conditions Surveys, have been conducted three times in order to survey working condition and develop work-related policies. However, we found three limitations for managing the collected KWCS data: (1) there was no computerized system for managing data; (2) statistical KWCS data were provided by limited one-way communication; and (3) the concept of a one-time provision of information was pursued. We suggest a web-based public service system that enables ordinary people to make greater use of the KWCS data, which can be managed constantly in the future.MethodsAfter considering data characteristics, we designed a database, which was able to have the result of all pairwise combinations with two extracted data to construct an analysis system. Using the data of the social network for each user, the tailored analysis system was developed. This system was developed with three methods: clustering and classification for building a social network, and an infographic method for improving readability through a friendly user interface.ResultsWe developed a database including one input entity consisting of the sociodemographic characteristics and one output entity consisting of working condition characteristics, such as working pattern and work satisfaction. A web-based public service system to provide tailored contents was completed.ConclusionThis study aimed to present a customized analysis system to use the KWCS data efficiently, provide a large amount of data in a form that can give users a better understanding, and lay the ground for helping researchers and policy makers understand the characteristics.

The history of origin and formation of nursing of Bucovyna

The article examines the stages of the origin and formation of nursing. Nursing has passed a complex way of development which was tightened for some decades. Historical events, change of the states - all these events had unequivocal influence on all spheres of a society. Famine, epidemics, a high death rate became a powerful push for occurrence of schools the nurse schools which long time were the centers of medical education on Bukovina. Features obstetrical schools the help in days of the Austrian empire are considered.«The Romanian period» becoming the nurse in which alongside with obstetrical schools rates the nurse are created is described and there is a trade «the medical sister».Reorganization of system of public health services which has been lead (has been carried out) in 1944-1945гг. has led to to occurrence on base of city hospitals of rates of medical sisters which subsequently are reorganized in medical schools.The article shows difficult times, conflict and difficult conditions in which the foundations of modern nursing were formed. There has been noted a big role and a significant contribution of women to the development of medicine in general and nursing in particular.

Min-max optimization and the radial approach to the public service system design with generalized utility

The paper deals with the min-max public service system design, where the generalized utility is considered. In contrast to the formulations presented in theliterature, the generalized utility defined for a public service system assumes that the user’s utility comes generally from more than one located service center and the individual contributions from relevant centers are weighted by reduction coefficients depending on a center order. Given that commercial IP-solvers often fail due to enormous computational times or extreme memory demands when resolving this issue,we suggested and compared several approaches based on a bisection process with the purpose of developing an effective max-min approach to the public service system design with a generalized utility.

Analysis of the reported data of national rural cervical cancer screening project from 2012 to 2013, China

To analyze the reported data of national rural cervical cancer screening project from 2012 to 2013 and to evaluate the project implementation condition. Data of the national breast carcinoma and cervical cancer (two-cancer) screening project for rural women were collected from the online report system of key women and children's public health service programs.The screening items included: preliminary screening of cervical lesions (cervical cytology, using Traian Bethesda System(TBS) or Pap grading for classification and reporting), acetate/iodide staining (VIA/VILI), colposcopy, histopathological examination, and pathological diagnosis. The study collected the quarterly reported data from 1 183 counties of 30 provinces in 2014 and 1 130 counties of 30 provinces in 2013. Chi-square test was used to test the difference of positive detection rate, as well as precancerous cervical lesions, and cervical cancer detection rates among difference preliminary screening methods in 2012 and 2013. In 2012 and 2013, the number of cervical cancer screening was 10 621 482 and 10 321 835. The percentage of using ThinPrep cytological test as the screening method was 77.17% (n=8 196 627) and 77.07% (n=7 954 949) in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Among these ThinPrep cytological tests in these two years, 65.49% (n=5 368 194) and 71.67% (n=5 701 033) used TBS report system. The abnormality rate of colposcopy increased from 27.29% (170 063/623 161) to 31.15% (203 397/652 935) (χ(2)=2 295.94,P<0.001). The abnormality rate of histopathology test increased from 19.54% (37 992/194 394) to 35.43% (59 004/166 518) (χ(2)=11 523.58, P<0.001). All together, 27 341 cervical cancer or precancerous lesions have been detected in these two years. The detection rate of invasive cervical cancer increased from 18.02/100 000 in 2012 to 19.71/100 000 (χ(2)=7.90,P=0.005) in 2013 and that of precancerous lesions rose from 106.85/100 000 to 119.26/100 000 (χ(2)=70.82,P<0.001). The early detection rate was 89.60% (11 883/13 263), and 89.57% (12 609/14 078), respectively in 2012 and 2013. In these two years, the rank of the detection rate of each cervical lesion were CIN1, CIN2, CIN3, invasive carcinoma, adenocarcinoma in situ, and microinvasive carcinoma, from the highest rate to the lowest rate. The program has achieved certain screening effect and the screening method has been improved. However, the quality of colposcope and histopathology should be enhanced.

Service interactions modeling for improved management of public transport systems

This paper shows how service science principles may be used for engineering and realizing improved public transport services. It approaches a value co-creation perspective for the management of public transport service operations based on an activity-based model of a generic service system that allows capturing requirements for software intensive service systems. The main focus is on specific implementation issues of the activity-based model of the generic service system, with a strong accent on its most representative component, the service set-up and configuring unit. This model is applied in a case study for planning of a public transport service and describes how a specific service reconfiguring request is formulated. This examination is further used as a document of requirements that drives the construction of an agent-based model expressing value-creation interactions among service system’s stakeholders in public transport services. The usefulness of the developed agent-based model for the analysis of service systems operational capabilities is suggested through simulation. A business scenario related to the management of public transport services is described, and the defined agent-based model is executed with the Presage2 multi-agent programming platform in order to capture specific issues of piece-of-work planning. The proposed approach, evaluated on the simple working scenario, fosters the role of service interaction modeling in supporting a public transport service system to dynamically adapt its operational capabilities in delivering good public transport services, as more or less quantifiable changes can affect service delivery over time.

Sequential approximate approach to the p-median problem

This paper deals with the problem of designing the optimal structure of most public service systems, which is often formulated as the p-median problem. The real instances of these problems are characterized by a considerably big number of possible service center locations, which can take the value of several thousands. Current exact approaches must face up to a big demand on computational time and they often fail when a large instance is being solved. This paper is focused on the approximate approach based on specific model reformulation. It uses the approximation of a common distance by some pre-determined distances given by so-called dividing points. The deployment of the dividing points influences the solution accuracy. To improve this approach, we have developed the sequential method of dividing points deployment. Hereby, we study the accuracy of the suggested method using the upper and lower distance approximations in comparison to the saved computational time.

Research on Comprehensive Evaluation of Public Cultural Service Level by Using AHP Method

This paper constructs the public cultural service level evaluation index system. And considered with the advantages and disadvantages of AHP method and principal component analysis (pca), the index system is combination weighted by multiplicative integration weighting method. It may overcome the defect of subjective and objective weight of empowerment. Furthermore, the level of public cultural services of 31 provinces, cities and autonomous regions are evaluated with the method of comprehensive evaluation. Therefore, conclusion is that the overall level of public cultural services level is not high, the services are irrelevant to the development of the economy, and there are gaps in various areas. With the advancement of the people's livelihood construction in our country, the significance of public culture service, as an important part of public service, for the construction of socialist advanced culture has draw extensive attention of the government (1). However, with the rapid development of economy, the contradiction in the field of our country public cultural services has been highlighted. The main contradiction is that the public cultural services level seriously lags behind the rapid growth of the people's actual demand and developed countries'. Therefore, the scientific measure on the level of public cultural services for our country performs theoretical and realistic significance for boosting the construction of public cultural services, and promoting sustainability and normalization. At present, the beneficial attempt for evaluating public cultural services has been carried on several provinces, cities. Some relevant regulations were successively formulated. The regulations provides a perspective and framework for our country to build and perfect the construction of public cultural services (2). However, the research on public culture service level evaluation of our country is in primary stage. Corresponding construction standards and requirements have not been established and issued in most domestic areas in our nation. There is no authoritative evaluation index system and evaluation method, which need researchers and officers build a scientific normalized, standardized index system. The system may conduct the quantitative analysis on level of public cultural services system and promote evaluation and decision optimization (3)

Понятие системы государственной службы в правоохранительной сфере

Понятие системы государственной службы в правоохранительной сфере

A study on effective utilization of health care services provided by primary health centre and sub-centres in rural Tamilnadu, India

Background: The utilization rates in public health services systems ranges from 10-30%. The skewed rural/urban availability of public health services is well known. This study has been done to study the extent of utilization of primary health care services in a primary health centre and its Subcentres and the factors associated for the utilization of services. Methods: This descriptive study was conducted at Orathur PHC, Cuddalore district, Tamil Nadu and its sub-centres, covering a population of 45183 by using structured interview schedule with sample size of 3220 (80 houses in each sub-centre) by simple random sampling technique. Results: 60.2% of selected households are located beyond 5 kms. Out of 560 households, 552 are headed by males and the remaining females. 71.96% of study subjects had formal education. 85.5% of respondents were aware of the PHC. 71.2% of respondents had satisfactory opinion about health services. Only 45.40% and 58.80% of the patient`s households with acute & chronic illness had utilized the services at PHC respectively. 81.65% of the ANC mothers had utilized the PHC, 77.98% for TT immunization, 75.24% for delivery, 75.76% for postnatal care, and 79% for immunizing their children. Conclusion: The utilization of primary level services (PHC and Subcentres) is better for preventive and promotive care but is poor for treatment of acute illness, intranatal care and family welfare services, special investigation services.

Public services: their current state and problems of development in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)

The article deals with the concept of public services and analyzes the intermediate results of the implementation of customer-oriented governance through the example of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). It is concluded that this term is understood differently in the New Public Management (NPM) theory and in Russian practice, which leads to a distortion of NPM principles. Despite success in the development of the Russian system of public services, problems such as a misrepresented assessment of the efficiency of public administration, a lack of social management, and a lack of consideration of local social values remain. Refs 7.

Do aftercare mental health services reduce risk of psychiatric rehospitalization for children?

Appropriate and timely aftercare services are considered critical for children and adolescents with previous psychiatric hospitalization. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between type and amount of aftercare received and rehospitalization among youths who have been previously hospitalized due to psychiatric illness. The sample consisted of 569 youth ages 6-18 who received services in a large public service system. The sample of youth was 58% female and consisted largely of ethnic minorities (51% Hispanic, 26% White, 16% African American, and 7% were another race/ethnicity). Demographic, diagnostic, and service use data was obtained from billing records. Time-dependent Cox regression models evaluated the impact of aftercare (the primary dependent variable of interest) on risk of rehospitalization. Separate models were analyzed for each type of service and all models were adjusted for race/ethnicity, age, gender, diagnosis, insurance status, and comorbid substance use. Seventy percent of youths with a psychiatric hospitalization received aftercare and 28% were rehospitalized within 6 months of discharge. The total hours of services youths received was significantly related to a smaller likelihood of rehospitalization. Having a diagnosis of schizophrenia was associated with a higher risk of rehospitalization and receiving more days of day treatment was associated with a lower risk of rehospitalization. Given the restrictiveness and cost of hospitalization, mental health practitioners should focus on improving access, engagement, and quality of aftercare services. (PsycINFO Database Record

Searching for Organizational Intelligence in the Evolution of Public-Sector Performance Management

Abstract The article explores the transformation process of evaluation, performance monitoring and accountability in the public sector. The process underlines that horizontal accountability referencing a wide democratic footprint is likely to become more explicit. To this end, this article develops the idea of transformation of public sector performance management from the viewpoint of organizational intelligence. Much of the current doctrine originates from rationalistic performance management and evaluation models and are therefore reluctant or unable to see the social mechanisms incorporated in the mechanisms of accountability. This article concludes that ‘hard nose’ rationalistic models of performance and evaluation are not anymore fit for purpose. To be measured by traditional performance metrics, the society is far too complex, constructed by various social networks and retrospective interlink-ages, and constituted by public service systems. Thus, the need for intelligence in organizational knowledge management and decision-making processes ought to be addressed more systematically.

DESIGN E-DESKEL SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE FOR POTENTIAL AND ADMINISTRATION MANAGEMENT OF VILLAGE

As the smallest part of the system of administrative governance in Indonesia, the village still has a conventional government in terms of data processing and delivery of information to the village. That the system of government and public services are clean, fair, and transparent is a challenge that must be addressed by central government agencies to ensure that regional and village government is carrying out its functions. The advances of information and communication technology so rapidly open up opportunities for community and village government, including online information access, management and administrative services, and information about the potential of the village. The purpose of this research is to design and implement a cloud EDesKel program to address the problems faced by residents and village officials. E-DesKel is appropriate technology for the task; it performs a public service by implementing cloud computing in the form of Software as a Service (SaaS) to achieve content management and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) as a storage medium. E-DesKel provides facilities for the village administration and public services, reducing operating costs and delivering information quickly and accurately. The software development of cloud E-DesKel, using the linear sequential method, includes four phases: analysis, design, coding, and testing.

Management in New Public Service Systems: Reframing the Position of Managers and Their Training and Development

Management training and development (T&D) plays an important part in enabling managers to deal with complexity and change associated with new public service systems. Using a service-dominant logic approach, this paper explores the relevance of T&D in preparing managers for changing roles, responsibilities and relationships that integrated service systems demand. Exploring the views of service managers working in Community Health Partnerships, the study establishes that present management T&D does not support the delivery of integrated services which require different abilities and new ways of working. New public service systems demand new processes of learning where re-framing the position of managers and their T&D becomes increasingly necessary.