Staff Roster Research Articles

Development of the Business Plan for the Mini Oil Refinery: Theoretical, Methodological and Practical Aspects

Objective: The article presents the project for a mini oil refinery in one of the territories of the Russian Federation (hereinafter referred to as “identified territory”) where oil refining capacities are not yet in place. Methods: The research involved analysis of the topic related scientific and methodological literature, comparison, systematization, generalization and research of up to date materials. Results: General scientific and special methods supported the results of the study: the personnel list of a mini oil refinery was compiled and reflected in the staff roster; initial costs for construction of the mini oil refining business were calculated, as well as expenses for further maintenance and financial indicators for the enterprise best performance were developed. Conclusion: General characteristics of the refinery enterprise are reflected in the article including its capacity, location, name of the enterprise, sources of raw materials and location environment. Advantages and disadvantages of the mini oil refinery in the region are considered. The need for the mini oil refinery in the territory and favorable environment to its creation are both substantiated. Investments and financial calculations of the project are determined.

Interventions to promote cost-effectiveness in adult intensive care units: consensus statement and considerations for best practice from a multidisciplinary and multinational eDelphi study

BackgroundThere is limited evidence to guide interventions that promote cost-effectiveness in adult intensive care units (ICU). The aim of this consensus statement is to identify globally applicable interventions for best ICU practice and provide guidance for judicious use of resources.MethodsA three-round modified online Delphi process, using a web-based platform, sought consensus from 61 multidisciplinary ICU experts (physicians, nurses, allied health, administrators) from 21 countries. Round 1 was qualitative to ascertain opinions on cost-effectiveness criteria based on four key domains of high-value healthcare (foundational elements; infrastructure fundamentals; care delivery priorities; reliability and feedback). Round 2 was qualitative and quantitative, while round 3 was quantitative to reiterate and establish criteria. Both rounds 2 and 3 utilized a five-point Likert scale for voting. Consensus was considered when > 70% of the experts voted for a proposed intervention. Thereafter, the steering committee endorsed interventions that were identified as ‘critical’ by more than 50% of steering committee members. These interventions and experts’ comments were summarized as final considerations for best practice.ResultsAt the conclusion of round 3, consensus was obtained on 50 best practice considerations for cost-effectiveness in adult ICU. Finally, the steering committee endorsed 9 ‘critical’ best practice considerations. This included adoption of a multidisciplinary ICU model of care, focus on staff training and competency assessment, ongoing quality audits, thus ensuring high quality of critical care services whether within or outside the four walls of ICUs, implementation of a dynamic staff roster, multidisciplinary approach to implementing end-of-life care, early mobilization and promoting international consensus efforts on the Green ICU concept.ConclusionsThis Delphi study with international experts resulted in 9 consensus statements and best practice considerations promoting cost-effectiveness in adult ICUs. Stakeholders (government bodies, professional societies) must lead the efforts to identify locally applicable specifics while working within these best practice considerations with the available resources.

Workplace oral health promotion activities among community-aged care workers: A qualitative exploration.

The workplace is an ideal-and priority-setting for health promotion activities. Developing and implementing workplace health promotion interventions, including oral health promotion activities, can help create health-supporting workplace environments. To pilot workplace oral health promotion activities among staff working in the aged care sector, report their impact and explore participants' views on the factors that contribute to participation and effectiveness. This study comprised three phases: (i) the development and face validation of the resources, (ii) a 3-h educational session and (iii) five interview sessions with participants 4-6 weeks following the education session. The recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically. Eleven community-aged care workforce were invited to five feedback sessions. Ten participants were female and ranged in age from 18 to 64. All participants gave favourable comments about the content and delivery of the training session and accompanying resources. The participants felt that the benefits of WOHP include improved staff knowledge, awareness and oral care routine, the ability to share (and put into practice) the gained knowledge and information with their dependants, a lower risk of having poor oral health that adversely affects their well-being and work tasks, and potentially beneficial impacts on the organization's staff roster. Their attendance in the WOHP was facilitated by being paid to attend and scheduling the sessions during work time. Future WOHP suggestions include the possibility of a one-stop dental check-up at the workplace or staff dental care discounts from local dental practitioners and combining oral health with other health promotion activities. Planning and implementing WOHP was deemed acceptable and feasible in this study context and successfully achieved short-term impacts among community-aged care workers. Appropriate times and locations, organizational arrangements and a variety of delivery options contributed to successful programme planning and implementation.

Law Enforcement and Persons with Mental Illness: Responding Responsibly

According to a Washington Post database, in the USA, police-involved shootings have killed over 5680 people since January 1, 2015, with 1359 (23%) of those deaths involving a person with a mental illness. It has been asserted by Fuller et al. that people with an untreated mental illness are approximately 16 times more likely to be killed in a police-involved shooting than other community members. In response to this issue, several practices have been implemented to help prevent negative outcomes in police and person with mental illness interactions and promote safety for all involved parties. Three practices have developed into models for police departments which include the following: Community Oriented Policing, Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) programs and training, and co-responder mental health teams. In addition to the foregoing three practices, other individual-level approaches and techniques can be implemented that are evidence-informed, such as increased utilization of stress-reduction training techniques and implicit bias training. Based on an additional examination of the existing literature, this problem can be addressed at the macro level, through amending policies and procedures (e.g., use-of-force guidelines, use of community-review board) as well as increased access to non-lethal weapons, presence of civilians on the police staff roster, and utilization of special consideration response registries. This review aims to incorporate existing literature in an effort to synthesize best practice responses for law enforcement in improving outcomes related to interactions with persons with mental illness.

Changes in clinical laboratory operations and biosafety measures to mitigate biohazard risks during the COVID-19 pandemic

Changes in clinical laboratory operations and biosafety measures to mitigate biohazard risks during the COVID-19 pandemic

Staff rostering, split team arrangement, social distancing (physical distancing) and use of personal protective equipment to minimize risk of workplace transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic: A simulation study

BackgroundThe recent global survey promoted by the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) Taskforce on COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) described staff rostering and organization as significant operational challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. MethodA discrete event simulation was used to explore the impact of different permutations of staff roster, including the number of shifts per day, the number of staff on duty per shift, overall number of staff accessible to work in the laboratory (i.e. overall staff pool), the frequency of shift changes (i.e. number of consecutive days worked), fixed work-rest days and split team arrangement on workplace transmission of COVID-19 by a simulated index staff who acquired the infection from the community over 21 days. Additionally, the impact of workplace social distancing (physical distancing) and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) were investigated. ResultsA higher rate of transmission was associated with smaller overall staff pool (expressed as multiples of the number of staff per shift), higher number of shifts per day, higher number of staff per shift, and longer consecutive days worked. Having fixed work-rest arrangement did not significantly reduce the transmission rate unless the workplace outbreak was prolonged. Social distancing and PPE use significantly reduced the transmission rate. ConclusionLaboratories should consider organizing the staff into smaller teams/shift and reduce the number of consecutive days worked. Additionally, our observation aligns with the IFCC biosafety recommendation of monitoring staff health (to detect early infection), split team arrangement, workplace social distancing and use of PPE.

COVID-19: A Home Dialysis Nurse Perspective.

As the nurse supervisor of a home dialysis program, I admit that this has been one of the most challenging times of my dialysis career. The home program training facility is one of seven satellite dialysis facilities in the state of Vermont, and one of five satellite facilities that are under the umbrella of the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVMMC). Due to its physical layout and central location in the state, our training site was the ideal location for the UVMMC coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) dialysis treatment facility. The resultant change in the use of our clinic space, however, has affected both our routine workflow and usual procedure practices, prompting us to reexamine unit operations. Setting up our COVID-19 treatment corridor took careful planning, more planning, and replanning. We designated three of our six private exam rooms as COVID-19 treatment rooms and the hallway became known as the “COVID corridor.” Additional travel staff were hired and a designated COVID-19 staff roster was developed. Our home program uses NxStage machines but, based on the number of estimated cases positive for COVID-19 and the limited number of staff familiar with NxStage technology, we decided to bring in Fresenius machines and portable reverse osmosis machines to dialyze the patients positive for COVID-19 in these rooms. There is a plan in place to employ NxStage machines if the number of patients exceeds the Fresenius fitted room capacity, but we have not needed to do so. Having the right equipment available in the corridor has been essential to provide safe care and eliminate the need to send out for additional items necessary during treatment. Affording easy access to supplies and setting up makeshift storage areas was a struggle due to the limited corridor space, but with a lot of creativity and old-fashioned ingenuity, we …

Estimating institutional physician turnover attributable to self-reported burnout and associated financial burden: a case study

BackgroundAwareness of the economic cost of physician attrition due to burnout in academic medical centers may help motivate organizational level efforts to improve physician wellbeing and reduce turnover. Our objectives are: 1) to use a recent longitudinal data as a case example to examine the associations between physician self-reported burnout, intent to leave (ITL) and actual turnover within two years, and 2) to estimate the cost of physician turnover attributable to burnout.MethodsWe used de-identified data from 472 physicians who completed a quality improvement survey conducted in 2013 at two Stanford University affiliated hospitals to assess physician wellness. To maintain the confidentially of survey responders, potentially identifiable demographic variables were not used in this analysis. A third party custodian of the data compiled turnover data in 2015 using medical staff roster. We used logistic regression to adjust for potentially confounding factors.ResultsAt baseline, 26% of physicians reported experiencing burnout and 28% reported ITL within the next 2 years. Two years later, 13% of surveyed physicians had actually left. Those who reported ITL were more than three times as likely to have left. Physicians who reported experiencing burnout were more than twice as likely to have left the institution within the two-year period (Relative Risk (RR) = 2.1; 95% CI = 1.3–3.3). After adjusting for surgical specialty, work hour categories, sleep-related impairment, anxiety, and depression in a logistic regression model, physicians who experienced burnout in 2013 had 168% higher odds (Odds Ratio = 2.68, 95% CI: 1.34–5.38) of leaving Stanford by 2015 compared to those who did not experience burnout. The estimated two-year recruitment cost incurred due to departure attributable to burnout was between $15,544,000 and $55,506,000. Risk of ITL attributable to burnout was 3.7 times risk of actual turnover attributable to burnout.ConclusionsInstitutions interested in the economic cost of turnover attributable to burnout can readily calculate this parameter using survey data linked to a subsequent indicator of departure from the institution. ITL data in cross-sectional studies can also be used with an adjustment factor to correct for overestimation of risk of intent to leave attributable to burnout.

Publication Rates of Social and Administrative Sciences Pharmacy Faculty in Non-Research Intensive Pharmacy Schools

Objective. To assess the level of publication rates from 2011 through 2015 by Social and Administrative Sciences (SAS) faculty at non-research intensive pharmacy schools. Methods. The Web of Science database was searched using faculty names identified from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) faculty and professional staff roster. Publication rates of SAS faculty were calculated and compared using several demographic subcategories such as public/private school, part of an academic health center, schools with PhD program, funding status, etc. Results. The 208 SAS faculty members from 59 colleges contributed to 478 publications with a mean of 95.6 publications per year and 1.62 publications per institution per year. The number of publications increased 45% over the five years from 67 publications in 2011 to 122 in 2015.The average number of publications was 0.92 per year per SAS faculty compared to 0.82 publications per year per faculty from other basic pharmaceutical sciences divisions. The most commonly published research was research articles in the area of scholarship of teaching and learning. The significant predictors of publications were being part of an academic health center, having a PhD program, and higher percent of faculty members who are SAS faculty. Conclusion. Despite being affiliated with institutions with missions less targeted on research, this study showed SAS faculty members at non-research intensive institutions consistently contribute to published literature. Further studies are needed to examine reasons for the lack of publishing by almost half of the SAS faculty and ways to increase research and publication in the field of SAS.

Reviewing a Homeless Program in Tasmania

The aim of the Oakleigh Accommodation Service (Oakleigh) review, undertaken in late 2013, was to analyse service activities, including staff work hours, rosters and client episodes, to inform recommendations on how to improve the crisis and transitional accommodation service delivered to people who were homeless, at risk of homelessness, or escaping domestic violence. To achieve this aim internal evaluators collected feedback from staff, clients and external stakeholders to evaluate the homeless program's performance, and identify any program issues, opportunities, challenges and gaps in service delivery. This review also compared the Oakleigh staff roster, work hours and client episodes with another Salvation Army homeless program McCombe House (McCombe). The review found that the staff, external stakeholders and clients were generally very satisfied with the Oakleigh service, which they regard as both valuable and worthwhile. However, the review identified areas needing improvement in terms of teamwork, program planning, vehicle usage, access to tenancy information and after-care support. A key recommendation was the redrafting of the staff roster to achieve consistency across the two sites, Oakleigh and McCombe, to enhance the delivery of emergency accommodation for clients.

Publication Rates for Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Members at Nonresearch-Intensive US Schools of Pharmacy

To provide benchmarking data for faculty productivity by determining publication rates for pharmaceutical sciences faculty members at nonresearch-intensive schools and colleges of pharmacy between January 2010 and December 2013. Scopus and Web of Science databases were searched using faculty names from the AACP faculty and professional staff roster. Annual publication rates were calculated and compared for various demographic subcategories. The average annual publication rate for the 4-year period was 0.82 per faculty member, and 10.95 per institution. Publication rates were significantly higher in departments offering a PhD program or with NIH funding. Because institutional missions are diverse, it can be useful to evaluate faculty scholarly productivity in relation to similar organizations. Pharmaceutical science faculty members at nonresearch-intensive institutions contribute to the literature despite institutional missions less focused on research.

Assessing the impact of systems modeling in the redesign of an Emergency Department

Systems modeling has been used to redesign care in the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. However, assessing the benefits of such modeling is problematic. This paper examines the impact of two complementary techniques, process mapping and simulation, in the redesign of Emergency Department (ED) systems. Using the example of one significant change prompted by systems modeling, the introduction of a new staff roster, the impact on patient-time in the ED is examined. Any assessment has to recognize the effect of changes in the environment, notably staff experience and volume of activity. Using a performance model that incorporates these variables, the main quantifiable impact of the new roster was identified as a reduction in the mean patient-time of 16 min, for the 87% of ED patients classified as minor. Attributing credit for any improvement requires care but systems modeling can provide valuable insights into the design of ED systems resulting in quantifiable improvements.

A tabu search algorithm applied to the staffing roster problem of Leicestershire police force

This paper presents an application of the tabu search algorithm to a staff rostering problem relevant to Leicestershire Police. The aim is to address the issue of structuring staff rosters to enable effective use of staff to meet the demand on the Police to reduce and deal with crime-related incidents. This problem is defined through the compilation of a time-varying level of required staff and an associated staff roster. The objective is an optimised work set-up, maximising staff resources and the meeting of demand. Optimisation of staff levels to demand is sought through use of a series of tabu search algorithms, making use of two diversification techniques and an intensification technique individually and in compilation. The tabu search is shown to be a well-suited optimisation approach to the type of problem defined, with individual conclusions drawn for each of the technique combinations used.

Forecasting daily attendances at an emergency department to aid resource planning

BackgroundAccurate forecasting of emergency department (ED) attendances can be a valuable tool for micro and macro level planning.MethodsData for analysis was the counts of daily patient attendances at the ED of an acute care regional general hospital from July 2005 to Mar 2008. Patients were stratified into three acuity categories; i.e. P1, P2 and P3, with P1 being the most acute and P3 being the least acute. The autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) method was separately applied to each of the three acuity categories and total patient attendances. Independent variables included in the model were public holiday (yes or no), ambient air quality measured by pollution standard index (PSI), daily ambient average temperature and daily relative humidity. The seasonal components of weekly and yearly periodicities in the time series of daily attendances were also studied. Univariate analysis by t-tests and multivariate time series analysis were carried out in SPSS version 15.ResultsBy time series analyses, P1 attendances did not show any weekly or yearly periodicity and was only predicted by ambient air quality of PSI > 50. P2 and total attendances showed weekly periodicities, and were also significantly predicted by public holiday. P3 attendances were significantly correlated with day of the week, month of the year, public holiday, and ambient air quality of PSI > 50.After applying the developed models to validate the forecast, the MAPE of prediction by the models were 16.8%, 6.7%, 8.6% and 4.8% for P1, P2, P3 and total attendances, respectively. The models were able to account for most of the significant autocorrelations present in the data.ConclusionTime series analysis has been shown to provide a useful, readily available tool for predicting emergency department workload that can be used to plan staff roster and resource planning.

Flexible working patterns: Balancing service needs or fuelling discontent?

Concern for the organization of working hours was widespread among respondents to the Why do Midwives Leave study (Ball, Curtis and Kirkham, 2002). This was especially important to midwives who gave ‘family commitments’ as their main reason for leaving. Managers in the Talking to Manager study (Curtis, Ball and Kirkham 2003) reported the availability of a variety of flexible, ‘family friendly’ working patterns. However, they felt constrained to restrict their availability in order ‘to balance the needs of the service’ and to enable an adequate skill mix to be maintained. Managers were also concerned that family friendly working was exacerbating discontent within midwifery and fuelling divisions between midwives, for family friendly working hours may leave ‘unfriendly’ gaps in the staff roster that others have to fill.

A Simulation-Enabled Dss For Allocating Check-In Agents

A decision support system (DSS) is developed from a descriptive resource simulation of Air Canada’s passenger check-in process previously created in 2001 with Arena 3.0. Through time study and analysis, the impacts of 9-11 on customer arrival and service times are reflected in the updated model. The integration of a Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) front-end enables Air Canada management staff to easily enter and manipulate flight and staff schedules. What-if analysis can now be performed to Understand the significance of different situations and changes Air Canada may encounter daily. A key output of the DSS is a feasible staff roster to meet the airline’s internal service standards by more closely matching customer arrival patterns.

The ethics of entrepreneurial medicine

To present this lecture in place of Dr Francis D Moore is a great privilege. My sense of privilege calls to mind Dr Moore’s splendid autobiography, A Miracle and a Privilege. In that book he set out a fascinating account of his life in clinical surgery, research, teaching, and administration. Dr Moore developed at Harvard and its hospitals an uncommonly favorable climate for biologic investigation so that his own work and the work of many other investigators flourished. The results of that research facilitated a new era of surgical biology, noted by a cover story about Dr Moore in a national weekly news magazine. The thrust of the cover story indicated that surgical operations had already been made safe for the patient, and in this new, biologic phase of surgical science we were aiming to make the patient safe for the surgical operation. During the American College of Surgeons meeting in San Francisco 9 years ago, we heard the exciting news of the Nobel Prize award to Joseph E Murray, FACS, a member of Dr Moore’s department and another exemplar of the productive fusion of bench research, clinical investigation, and compassionate patient care, all subsumed under an individual ethic that puts the patient in first place. Now we have come to an era of overarching technology, juxtaposed with a phase of commercialization, consolidation, and merger mania in our daily lives, and mutatis mutandis in the field of medical care. Underlying these radical changes is the bedrock of our moral foundation, which Dr John J Conley wisely and generously recognized by his support of this ethics and philosophy lectureship and by many other philanthropic endeavors related to ethics during more than half a century as a Fellow of this College. At the time of his recent death, Dr Conley was emeritus professor of otorhinolaryngology at Columbia Presbyterian in New York and a poet of substantial accomplishment. His books of poetry entitled Word Paintings underscore his emphasis on the liberal arts. He inspired a host of admirers by his generosity and his professional achievements. The title of Dr Moore’s projected lecture, “Ethics: From Percival to G.B.S.,” implies that many physicians are aware of Thomas Percival and his assignment by the trustees of the Manchester Infirmary in England to draw up guidelines for the conduct of the Infirmary’s physicians in the late 18th century. Percival admonished staff physicians to behave politely so as not to bring discredit on the medical profession by fighting over hospital privileges. The Infirmary’s services had been seriously strained by an overload of patients incident to an epidemic of what was probably typhoid fever, and hospital authorities increased the staff roster with practitioners whose capacities the established staff considered inferior in quality to their own. Percival was not writing originally about ethics in the present sense but rather about etiquette among physicians. The word ethics did not appear in his initial presentation, and a concern about patients was not a focus of his original stipulations. Early ethical pronouncements of the American Medical Association borrowed heavily and even explicitly from Percival’s early formulation, so that we had for many years a confusing mix of ethics and Based on an Ethics and Philosophy Lecture delivered at the Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons in San Francisco, October 13, 1999.

Using Genetic Algorithms on a PC to Compile Staff Rosters

Aim: We aimed to develop an automated staff rostering system for pharmacy staff working on Saturday rotations that was fair to all concerned, required minimal input and was simple to modify as needs changed.Method: The roster was prepared on a 33 MHz 486 IBM personal computer (PC) in the spreadsheet package Microsoft Excel v4, using Evolver 2.0, the genetic algorithm add‐on for Excel.Results: A staff roster was prepared in the form of a spreadsheet that could be adjusted to meet the constraints of annual leave, rostered days off and many more variables. The genetic algorithm software, linked to the spreadsheet, automatically produced an acceptable roster with no timetable clashes.Conclusion: Pharmacy staff favour the new system since many variables can be assessed with little manual input. A workable roster that is fair and equitable can be easily obtained.