efficiency of general public hospitals in Fars province, southern Iran

Regarding the increase in expenses for health care services in inpatient settings, much effort has been made to compare the performance of hospitals in recent years and measure their efficiency. In this study, Data Envelopment Analysis [DEA] is applied to measure the technical, scale and economic efficiency of the general public hospitals in Fars Province, southern Iran. Twenty one general public hospitals in Fars province, southern Iran in the first and second six months of the years 2005 and 2006 were enrolled. There was an attempt to compare their rate of development or otherwise, using Malmequist index and also to determine their return to scale and rank during these years. The data, were collected through a questionnaire by interview and the existing documents were analyzed separately for each year by Algebraic Modeling System [GAMS] software. Fifteen hospitals [71.4%] were technically efficient and in the next three periods, 14 hospitals proved to be efficient. With respect to scale efficiency in the first 6 months of 2005, 7 hospitals were completely efficient [33.3%], but in the second 6 months of the same year, the number of efficient hospitals was reduced from 7 to 5. In the next two periods, 4 hospitals [19%] were recognized as highly efficient systems. As to the economic efficiency in all 4 studied periods, 4 hospitals [19%] were recognized as completely efficient. As to the average technical efficiency, state-run public hospitals in Fars Province are in a higher level as compared with those in other studies. However, their average of the scale efficiency is less than that reported in other studies. It seems that the hospitals under the study do not seek profitability since they are public; therefore, they lack any motivation to select a combination of inputs in order to minimize the expenses. It is recommended that hospital managers and decision makers should use DEA to determine the best method of using the available resources

Cancer occurrence in Fars Province, Southern Iran

Cancer is a significant health problem in the developing countries, and one that is likely to increase in future. Due to unavailability of data concerning cancer during the last 15 years in our area and young age structure of our country, this active hospital-based study was undertaken to determine the occurrence of cancer in Fars Province, southern Iran. Data including face-to-face interview with patients and a survey of their medical and demographic records in relation to all invasive cancers were actively collected from 1990 to 2005 from four university hospitals. Among 2993 cases of registered malignant neoplasms presented by site and sex, the crude incidence [CRs], and age-specific incidence and age-standardized incidence rates [ASRs] per 100,000 were determined, using the world standard population. Over a 5-year period, 1495 and 1620 cancer cases were registered in males and females, respectively, while breast cancer was at the top of 10 cancers in both sexes. With regard to the top 10 types of cancer, there was a remarkable difference between the results of our study and the estimated cancer incidence for Iran by Globocan 2000. Ethnic, racial and environmental factors may explain these differences but more studies in a longer time span are needed to clarify the causes

Academic staff's view points on the implementation of lesson plan

Lesson plan is considered a vital component of the teacher training and successful teachers are in variably good planners and thinkers. The present study was conducted to survey the academic staff's views about lesson plan in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in 2001. Moreover, considering the finding of the study there was an attempt to seek the experts views on how to perform lesson plan practically through forming a focus group. This is a descriptive study indicating the attitudes of 152 academic staff about lesson plan. The data were collected using a questionnaire. The findings of the first stage was followed by forming a focus group in the second stage. Ten authorities and experts in the field were selected. They were interviewed on how to perform lesson plans in Shiraz university of Medical Sciences in three sessions. It was concluded that the main barrier for designing and performing the lesson plan is the academic staff's lack of awareness about its advantages. Of the population under the study, 30% were females and 70% males. The majority of the academic staff [126 individuals, 85.1%] believes that they need a lesson plan in their field and that the implementation of lesson plan contributes to the improvement of education. 70.9% [1.5] of them believe that lesson plan does not limit the educational process. Some of their coworkers [51.5%] consider lesson plan as necessary and are ready to cooperate in this way. 44.6% of them [42] state that designing a lesson plan somehow conforms to our country s educational system. The majority of them [75.8%] state that they know the [must learns] but believe that there is no sufficient education about lesson plan. The experts in the cus group presented their recommendations with regard to lesson plan as follows: 1 - Continual education of the academic staff; 2- Compilations of logbook; 3- Application of those sections with lesson plan; 4- Compulsory regulations for using lesson in university. The findings of this study reveal that the academic staffs have a positive view about lesson plan. However, their active participation in designing and implementing lesson plan requires educational programs to be compiled. This entails special managerial strategies