R. Zwingel, L. Jänicke, M. Stichler and A. Kost
While optimizing highly utilized induction machines — e.g. for traction applications — the problem of cooling is of importance. The necessary cooling ducts in the rotor lead to…
Abstract
While optimizing highly utilized induction machines — e.g. for traction applications — the problem of cooling is of importance. The necessary cooling ducts in the rotor lead to saturation problems in the rotor iron. As there exist no analytical means for solving the resulting nonlinear field problem, the effects on the magnetic field have to be investigated by numerical methods. This paper presents the application of the adaptive 2D finite element method for a study of the cooling ducts' effects.
Sonia Udod, Greta G. Cummings, W. Dean Care and Megan Jenkins
The purpose of this paper is to share preliminary evidence about nurse managers’ (NMs) role stressors and coping strategies in acute health-care facilities in Western Canada.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to share preliminary evidence about nurse managers’ (NMs) role stressors and coping strategies in acute health-care facilities in Western Canada.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative exploratory inquiry provides deeper insight into NMs’ perceptions of their role stressors, coping strategies and factors and practices in the organizational context that facilitate and hinder their work. A purposeful sample of 17 NMs participated in this study. Data were collected through individual interviews and a focus group interview. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six phase approach to thematic analysis guided data analysis.
Findings
Evidence demonstrates that individual factors, organizational practices and structures affect NMs stress creating an evolving role with unrealistic expectations, responding to continuous organizational change, a fragmented ability to effectively process decisions because of work overload, shifting organizational priorities and being at risk for stress-related ill health.
Practical implications
These findings have implications for organizational support, intervention programs that enhance leadership approaches, address individual factors and work processes and redesigning the role in consideration of the role stress and work complexity affecting NMs health.
Originality/value
It is anticipated that health-care leaders would find these results concerning and inspire them to take action to support NMs to do meaningful work as a way to retain existing managers and attract front line nurses to positions of leadership.
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This study aims to trace the relationship between the evidence-based design (EBD) process and decision-making during the architectural design process, the barriers to informing…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to trace the relationship between the evidence-based design (EBD) process and decision-making during the architectural design process, the barriers to informing health-care architects and possible methods to overcome these barriers.
Design/methodology/approach
This study aims to explore the barriers to the EBD process during the design process by reviewing the relevant literature and future steps to overcome these barriers and support design decisions.
Findings
The study shows that EBD is a relevant, useful tool for providing evidence that positively affects design decisions. This study divides EBD barriers into simple barriers and complex barriers, depending on the nature of the barrier. Additionally, methods to overcome these barriers are discussed to ensure the best use of EBD findings with a significant impact on health-care design decisions, as they are core elements in informing architects, especially when combined with the traditional design process. This study investigates how likely it is for the EBD to contribute optimally to design decisions depending on architects’ skills and cooperation with researchers.
Originality/value
This study can apprize health-care architects of the need to consider the role of EBD in improving the quality of design decisions, and the importance of combining EBD with the traditional design process to implement optimal design decisions.
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Kristin A. Horan, Mary T. Moeller, R. Sonia Singh, Rachel Wasson, William H. O’Brien, Russell A. Matthews, Steve M. Jex and Clare L. Barratt
This purpose of this paper is to investigate the possibility of non-linear relationships between supervisor support for stress management and intervention process ratings from a…
Abstract
Purpose
This purpose of this paper is to investigate the possibility of non-linear relationships between supervisor support for stress management and intervention process ratings from a workplace stress management intervention to highlight how context shapes intervention experience.
Design/methodology/approach
Data from 37 nurses and nurse aides assigned to the treatment group in an occupational stress management intervention were analyzed using polynomial regression in SPSS.
Findings
A quadratic function with a U-shape best explained variance in process variables for the relationship between supervisor support for stress management at baseline and ratings of intervention relation reactions and overall perceptions of session helpfulness in both sessions and for task reactions in session 1. Those with low and high supervisor support for stress management tended to perceive the intervention favorably, which is framed in terms of the intervention compensating for or complimenting their work environment, respectively.
Research limitations/implications
Although exploratory and based on a small sample, this paper lays the groundwork for future theoretically-grounded investigations of relationship between intervention context and process.
Practical implications
Results provide a rationale for training supervisors in stress management support as a supplement to a workplace intervention.
Originality/value
This paper investigates a novel molar supervisor support construct and challenges previous research that assumes that the relationship between context and intervention process or outcomes always conform to a simple linear relationship.
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Mai-Stiina Lampinen, Elina Annikki Viitanen and Anne Irmeli Konu
The purpose of this paper is to identify how the factors associated with sense of community at work are connected with job satisfaction among the front-line managers and middle…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify how the factors associated with sense of community at work are connected with job satisfaction among the front-line managers and middle managers in social and health-care services in Finland.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire prepared for this study was sent to 241 social and health-care managers (front line and middle managers) in Finland. A total of 136 of managers responded to the survey (response rate was 56 per cent). Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis and multiple linear regression analysis.
Findings
Alongside job meaningfulness, open communication and good flow of information within the organization, sense of security provided by close relationships at work and managers’ own superiors’ appreciation of their leadership skills all are related to managers’ job satisfaction.
Originality/value
The study adds to our understanding of factors which are connected to the job satisfaction among social and health-care managers’. The findings of this study can be used in the development of leadership to support managers in coping at work.
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Since prior empirical research has seldom compared causes of stress before, during and after organizational change the purpose of this paper is to identify stressors as change…
Abstract
Purpose
Since prior empirical research has seldom compared causes of stress before, during and after organizational change the purpose of this paper is to identify stressors as change unfolded over time and to identify what led to variations in stress levels.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2012 with 31 staff in clinical and non-clinical positions in a New Zealand public health organization that had experienced considerable change.
Findings
For most respondents the transition phase was the most stressful as it created job insecurity and was handled with insufficient information, consultation and support. For the balance stress increased after the change, which created additional demands that usually needed to be met with fewer resources. The stress of others emerged as a new category of stressor during the transition stage.
Research limitations/implications
Memories fade and the lines between stages of change are often blurred with one change sometimes occurring simultaneously with another or following it. Further studies could explore stressors at different points in time, in different national contexts and in private and public organizations.
Practical implications
Leaders of public sector organizations need to be mindful of the deleterious effects of stress from organizational change and create cultures, strategies and practices that mitigate the stress.
Originality/value
This is apparently the first qualitative study that traces the causes of stress as organizational change moves through various phases.
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Jörg W. Kirchhoff and Jan Ch. Karlsson
First-line nurse managers are frequently torn between conflicting demands from management and employees, and previous research suggests that nurse managers use a variety of…
Abstract
Purpose
First-line nurse managers are frequently torn between conflicting demands from management and employees, and previous research suggests that nurse managers use a variety of responses to cope with these demands. The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of social support on nurse managers’ responses to role-conflict.
Design/methodology/approach
Two focused ethnographic studies involving participant observation and interviews with seven first-line nurse managers were completed. One study included first-line nurse managers from four units in two municipalities (2005), while the second included three first-line nurse managers from a hospital in Norway (2015-2016).
Findings
Three types of responses were identified: the embracing managerialism career, the emphasising managerialism career and the emphasising professionalism career. Emphasising managerialism was associated with role distance from the role of nurse, whereas emphasising professionalism involved role distance from the managerial role.
Originality/value
This study provides insights into first-line nurse managers’ responses to role conflict, by identifying the mechanisms involved and an opportunity to develop a theoretical framework for future studies among nurse managers.
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Nadeeshani Wanigarathna, Fred Sherratt, Andrew D.F. Price and Simon Austin
A substantial amount of research argues that built environmental interventions can improve the outcomes of patients and other users of healthcare facilities, supporting the…
Abstract
Purpose
A substantial amount of research argues that built environmental interventions can improve the outcomes of patients and other users of healthcare facilities, supporting the concept of evidence-based design (EBD). However, the sources of such evidence and its flow into healthcare design are less well understood. This paper aims to provide insights to both the sources and flow of EBD used in three healthcare projects, to reveal practicalities of use and the relationships between them in practice.
Design/methodology/approach
Three healthcare case study projects provided empirical data on the design of a number of different elements. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify the source and flow of evidence used in this design, which was subsequently quantised to reveal the dominant patterns therein.
Findings
Healthcare design teams use evidence from various sources, the knowledge and experience of the members of the design team being the most common due to both ease of access and thus flow. Practice-based research and peer-reviewed published research flow both directly and indirectly into the design process, whilst collaborations with researchers and research institutions nurture the credibility of the latter.
Practical implications
The findings can be used to enhance activities that aim to design, conduct and disseminate future EBD research to improve their flow to healthcare designers.
Originality/value
This research contributes to understandings of EBD by exploring the flow of research from various sources in conflation and within real-life environments.
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Susan Brandis, Stephanie Schleimer and John Rice
Building a new hospital requires a major investment in capital infrastructure. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of bricks-and-mortar on patient safety…
Abstract
Purpose
Building a new hospital requires a major investment in capital infrastructure. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of bricks-and-mortar on patient safety culture before and two years after the move of a large tertiary hospital to a greenfield site. The difference in patient safety perceptions between clinical and non-clinical staff is also explored.
Design/methodology/approach
This research uses data collected from the same workforce across two time periods (2013 and 2015) in a large Australian healthcare service. Validated surveys of patient safety culture (n=306 and 246) were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics.
Findings
Using two-way analysis of variance, the authors found that perceived patient safety culture remains unchanged for staff despite a major relocation and upgrade of services and different perceptions of patient safety culture between staff groups remains the same throughout change.
Practical implications
A dramatic change in physical context, such as moving an entire hospital, made no measurable impact on perceived patient safety culture by major groups of staff. Improving patient safety culture requires more than investment in buildings and infrastructure. Understanding differences in professional perspectives of patient safety culture may inform organisational management approaches, and enhance the targeting of specific strategies.
Originality/value
The authors believe this to be the first empirically based paper that investigates the impact of a large investment into hospital capital and a subsequent relocation of services on clinical and non-clinical staff perceptions of patient safety culture.
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Cynthia J. Sieck, Shannon E. Nicks, Jessica Salem, Tess DeVos, Emily Thatcher and Jennifer L. Hefner
Patient engagement has been a focus of patient-centered care in recent years, encouraging health care organizations to increase efforts to facilitate a patient's ability to…
Abstract
Patient engagement has been a focus of patient-centered care in recent years, encouraging health care organizations to increase efforts to facilitate a patient's ability to participate in health care. At the same time, a growing body of research has examined the impact that social determinants of health (SDOH) have on patient health outcomes. Additionally, health care equity is increasingly becoming a focus of many organizations as they work to ensure that all patients receive equitable care. These three domains – patient engagement, SDOH, and health care equity – can intersect in the implementation of social needs screenings among health care organizations. We present a case study on a two-phase social needs screening implementation project and describe how this process focuses on equity. As health care organizations seek to increase patient engagement, address SDOH, and improve health equity, we highlight the need to move away from a siloed approach and view these efforts as interrelated. By approaching efforts to address these challenges and barriers as the duty of all those involved in the patient care process, there may be larger strides made toward equitable health care.