An exploratory study of barriers to inclusion in the European workplace

Background: The European Disability Strategy (2010–2020) seeks to significantly raise the proportion of people with disabilities working in the open labour market. The ERGO WORK project is a collaboration of academic and industrial partners in six European countries, focused on understanding and tackling barriers to workplace inclusion for workers with disabilities.

Methods: This study sought to explore the perceptions and needs of stakeholders in terms of workplace adaptation to the needs of employees with disabilities. An exploratory online survey was completed by 480 participants across six countries.

Results: The analysis suggests that workplaces could be further improved to meet the needs of employees with considerable scope for training within companies to raise awareness about employees’ needs, employers’ obligations and workplace adaptation.

Conclusions: This snapshot suggests there is still a gap between intent and reality in workplace inclusion and further strategies are needed to improve the opportunities for employees with disabilities. The paper argues that ergonomics may have a key role to play in tackling these challenges and adapting the workplace environment and job design to suit the needs of individual employees.

• Implications for rehabilitation

• This study suggests there is considerable scope for workplace adaptation and improvements to meet the needs of employees with disabilities.

• Employers need and want further specialist practitioner guidance to facilitate workplace inclusion and support adaptation to individual needs.

• Organisations would benefit from training to raise awareness about potential solutions and approaches that would support more widespread employment of people with disabilities.

     

HIV同伴志愿者培训体系的构建

目的 构建HIV同伴志愿者培训指标体系,为扩充我国HIV同伴志愿者人员储备提供参考。方法 基于证实个案抽样开展描述性质性研究, 访谈医务人员、同伴志愿者以及HIV/AIDS患者三方利益关联人,以修订和完善课题组前期基于现实主义整合研究基础拟定的培训体系一级指标,以及研究团队讨论细化的二级指标和三级指标。结果 访谈对象提出将信息支持、工具性支持以及情感支持作为培训体系的重要内容,并对研究团队拟定的同伴志愿者培训指标体系的全面性十分认可。最终确定 HIV同伴志愿者培训指标体系包含信息支持、工具性支持、情感支持、社会互动性支持和决策支持5个一级指标,11个二级指标和26个三级指标。结论 形成的HIV同伴志愿者培训指标体系可用于培训HIV同伴志愿者。     

基于利益相关者理论的医生激励机制构建

利益相关者分析作为一种新的理论,已经广泛应用于西方国家的企业管理与卫生政策改革研究与实践中,并取得了初步成效。在介绍该理论的基础上,针对我国现行医生激励机制的局限性,从利益相关者分析这一新的视角,探讨医生激励机制构建的新思路。     

我国医疗机构分类管理政策实施进展评估

文章介绍了医疗机构分类管理政策的背景、目标及主要内容,并对政策的执行情况进行了评估。同时,在分析了社会各界对政策不同反应的基础上,借鉴国外相关改革及我国教育部门改革的经验,提出了进一步落实分类管理政策的建议。     

Why business modeling is crucial in the development of eHealth technologies

The impact and uptake of information and communication technologies that support health care are rather low. Current frameworks for eHealth development suffer from a lack of fitting infrastructures, inability to find funding, complications with scalability, and uncertainties regarding effectiveness and sustainability. These issues can be addressed by defining a better implementation strategy early in the development of eHealth technologies. A business model, and thus business modeling, help to determine such an implementation strategy by involving all important stakeholders in a value-driven dialogue on what the technology should accomplish. This idea also seems promising to eHealth, as it can contribute to the whole development of eHealth technology. We therefore suggest that business modeling can be used as an effective approach to supporting holistic development of eHealth technologies. The contribution of business modeling is elaborated in this paper through a literature review that covers the latest business model research, concepts from the latest eHealth and persuasive technology research, evaluation and insights from our prior eHealth research, as well as the review conducted in the first paper of this series. Business modeling focuses on generating a collaborative effort of value cocreation in which all stakeholders reflect on the value needs of the others. The resulting business model acts as the basis for implementation. The development of eHealth technology should focus more on the context by emphasizing what this technology should contribute in practice to the needs of all involved stakeholders. Incorporating the idea of business modeling helps to cocreate and formulate a set of critical success factors that will influence the sustainability and effectiveness of eHealth technology.     

Engaging Stakeholders in Review and Recommendations for Models of Outcome Monitoring for Substance Abuse Treatment

We present an example of a collaborative process designed to review models of outcome monitoring for substance abuse services, with a view to assessing the feasibility of different approaches in Ontario, Canada. A conceptual framework that describes the parameters of an outcome monitoring system and four models of outcome monitoring were identified. Consultations were held with stakeholders (managers, directors, researchers, clinicians, and governmental representatives) about the types of information they would like to obtain from an outcome monitoring system. Our process is useful as a model for collaborative research with respect to performance measurement. The study's implications and limitations are noted.     

Stakeholder collaboration in long-term care of older people in Lithuania

Demographic situation, changes in the role of women in society and growing demand for long-term care (LTC) of older people have challenged the ability to meet the growing LTC needs in most developed countries. In countries where responsibility for LTC is still largely laid on families, it is, however, even more critical and calls for improvements in formal LTC systems. More intensive stakeholder collaboration in LTC policy development, organising and delivery are of primary importance in improving LTC systems. Such collaboration, however, is not always successful; thus, it is critical to understand what makes it effective and efficient. In this paper, we specifically look into multistakeholder collaboration in LTC in Lithuania, one of the fastest ageing countries in the EU, with the demand for LTC services growing fast and exceeding the supply despite rising business and NGO engagement. To determine facilitators of such collaboration, we build on the data obtained through eight focus group discussions with all key stakeholder representatives (LTC policymakers, organisers and service providers [public, private and NGOs], 54 participants in total). Our findings indicate that in addition to national and organisational level facilitators studied in prior research, there are important individual level factors, such as meaningfulness at work, concern and care for others, possibility for personal growth and development, satisfaction with supervision, a sense of belonging and role clarity. On the other hand, our results show that collaboration is constrained by a shortage of human resources, increased workload caused by growing LTC demand, bureaucratic requirements, legal restrictions, lack of awareness of LTC service availability among elder persons, and prevailing social norms and attitudes to institutionalised care. Interestingly, a lack of financial resources is not perceived as a major constraint.     

Methods for Early Assessment of the Societal Value of Health Technologies: A Scoping Review and Proposal for Classification

ObjectivesEarly assessments of health technologies help to better align and integrate their development and assessment. Such assessments can take many forms and serve different purposes, hampering users in their selection of the most appropriate method for a specific goal. The aim of this scoping review was to structure the large set of methods according to their specific goal.MethodsA scoping review was conducted using PubMed and reference lists of retrieved articles, to identify review studies with a methodological focus. From the included reviews, all individual methods were listed. Based on additional literature and examples, we extracted the specific goal of each method. All goals were clustered to derive a set of subclasses and methods were grouped into these subclasses.ResultsOf the 404 screened, 5 reviews were included, and 1 was added when searching reference lists. The reviews described 56 methods, of which 43 (77%) were included and classified as methods to (1) explore the nature and magnitude of the problem, (2) estimate the nature and magnitude of the expected (societal) value, (3) identify conditions for the potential value to materialize, and (4) help develop and design the type of research that is needed.ConclusionsThe wide range of methods for exploring the societal value of health technologies at an early stage of development can be subdivided into a limited number of classes, distinguishing methods according to their specific objective. This facilitates selection of appropriate methods, depending on the specific needs and aims.