Examination of causes behind procrastination among Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences employees and proposing some strategies for their preventing: A study using the Van Wyk’s Model.

Background: Competition among the organizations and enterprises plays a particularly important role in the gathering of the profits and acquisition of internal and external resources. Procrastination is one of the main barriers to efforts made towards increasing the productivity and efficiency in the organizations. Accordingly, the main goal of this research was to explore the reasons of procrastination among the employees based on Van Wyk’s model and present some strategies for preventing it. Methods: Descriptive-analytical in nature, this study was conducted on a sample of 200 employees selected from Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences using a self-designed checklist developed based on the informational components incorporated in the Van Wyk’s model. This model consists of 9 factors affecting the level of procrastination observed among the employees i.e. resistance, boredom, perfectionism, last-minute syndrome, lack of motivation for a task, fear of failure, skill deficit, rebelliousness and disorganization. The validity of the developed checklist was checked using its assessment by the expert professors and its reliability was measured with Cronbach's alpha. Both of them were confirmed (Cronbach's alpha of 90%). To analyze the data, T-test and variance analysis were used. Results: The results of the study showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between employee’s resistance, boredom, perfectionism and lack of motivation for task and procrastination (p=0.001); however, the association between fear of failure, rebelliousness and disorganization and procrastination was not statistically significant (p=0.871). Conclusions: The availability of high quality organizational capital will enhance the chance of organization’s success, survival and advancement. As a result, identifying the attributes of human resources and the factors influencing their efficiency so as to exploit the human capital more optimally and remove the reasons of procrastination is of high significance.

A survey on hospital patients coding accuracy in Ahvaz, Iran.

Background: The diagnosis coding and medical procedure are methods of treatment that helps patients to organize and classify information correctly. Coding is a related factor with the quality to provide the data of illnesses and injuries. Aim: To examine rate of the coding accuracy of hospital patients of Imam Khomeini in Ahvaz (Iran) during spring 2010. Material and methods: In this cross-sectional study that was performed in 2010, society of investigation was 5062 records of patients admitted to the surgical ward of Imam Khomeini Hospital in Ahvaz from which 260 records were selected incidentally and orderly. Instrument of data collection was a checklist developed by the researchers based on library resources and the accuracy was confirmed in the narrative checklist used by expert faculty in this. After the data were collected, they analyzed using Excel software. Results: The most accurate coding was related to other procedures (92.61%) and least accurate coding was related to the major diagnosis (84.91%) and the lowest completeness of the encoding was related to other diagnosis regarding 66.88%. Conclusion: The results showed that the accuracy of diagnosis coding and procedure was optimal, but the level of completeness of diagnosis coding was too low regarding to hospital training.

Assessing the performance of the radiology information systems in use in the teaching hospitals of Isfahan city based on the Great Britain’s royal college of radiologists’ guidelines.

Background: Radiology Information System (RIS) coordinates the organizational processes and administrative based on information. The present study was an attempt towards a performance assessment of the RISs used in general Isfahan hospitals. Methods: This study was descriptive cross-sectional in nature. Its statistical population consisted of the general teaching hospitals of Isfahan city (Iran). Due to the limitedness of the population of study, the sample size was the same as the population size. The data were collected using a self-designed checklist produced based on the royal college of radiologists’ guidelines, i.e. input components (13 items), process components (10 items) and output components (8 items). The researcher collected the data through observation and interview. The validity of the checklist was assessed by the health information system field’s valid authorities. Finally, the gathered data were put into SPSS 16 software and analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: Among the RIS in the hospitals, Kashani, Isa Ibn Maryam and Nour & Ali Asghar had the highest rank for input components (mean score = 30.79%). As for process components, Al-zahra, Kashani and Isa Ibn Maryam gained the highest position (mean score = 38.9%). Finally, Al-zahra and Kashani hospitals with a mean score of 66.66% enjoyed the highest rank for output components. Conclusion: RIS must be capable of satisfying a number of requirements including satisfying the medical needs of the patients, producing the reports, image and report processing, patients’ appointment scheduling, the procedures for receiving and administrating the orders and other radiology procedures.

An evaluation of role of the informational components in decision-making process of health systems’ managers based on World Health Organization’s standards.

Background: Objective of current study was to enhance the effectiveness of the organization its goals, health system managers must possess sufficient knowledge about health information systems which are regarded as the basis of decision-making at different managerial levels. The present research tried to explore the extent of meeting the information management components and evaluate its role in decision-making of health systems' managers. Methods: Descriptive-analytical in nature, this study intended to examine the urban and rural health centers as well as health system. Data were collected through a self-designed checklist produced based on the World Health Organization’s standards which include the information presentation (6 components), information interpretation (5 components) and using information in decision-making process (1 component) for urban and rural health centers. The checklist designed for health system included needs-analysis and information collection, presentation, processing and interpretation components. The gathered data were then put into SPSS version of 13 and analyzed using independent t-test. Results: The findings of the study revealed that compared to urban centers, the rural health centers had a higher level in meeting the components in 3 main areas i.e. information presentation, information interpretation and information use in decision-making process (P <0.05). As far as sub-measures were concerned, the rural health centers gained a higher mean score for data presentation in the health system and other interpretation-related components (P <0.05). The level of meeting data presentation components revealed that the mean score for using data for decision-making purposes was high while the mean score for data processing was found to be low. Conclusion: Proper processing and appropriate use of data in the decision-making by the managers and public policy-makers are the missing requirements which must be taken into account.

Assessment of effectiveness expenditures of pharmacy information system in medication-related services in hospitals of Iran.

Background: On average, 40% of the gross income of each country is devoted to the health care with medication expenditures accounting for 19% of the total expenses. Less than ¼ of the medication expenditures is allocated to the inpatients department. The measures taken regarding the management of expenditures when selecting and implementing the strategies for managing medication expenditures have made the pharmacists to take the quality issues as well as the safety of the patients into account. Methods: The present research intends to explore the expenditures of effectiveness of Pharmacy Information System (PIS) for the medication services as far as effectiveness of delivered services is concerned in some selected hospitals in the city of Isfahan, Iran. The present research of applied and descriptive-analytical nature was conducted in the hospitals in the City of Isfahan, Iran. Instruments used for collecting data included self designed checklist conforming to the guidelines of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) the validity of which was assessed based on the viewpoints of the expert professors. The data gathered by interview and observation methods. Then, they were analyzed using non-parametric tests of Mann-Whitney and the Wilcoxon tests and SPSS software (11.5 version). Results: The highest rate of the expenditures of the effectiveness of the pharmacy information system belonged to the teaching hospitals with a mean score of 48.5%, while the lowest rate was found to be for private hospitals with a mean score of 28.1%. Based on the findings of the Wilcoxon test, no statistically significant difference was observed among the hospitals in terms of effectiveness-related expenditures. Conclusions: Given the results of the study, it can be noted that a successful plan for managing the medication-related expenditures must be information-based.