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Background/Aims Advice lines services (ALS) are a key aspect of providing coordinated patient care in rheumatology. Demand for rapid access to specialist advice increased during the pandemic due to the disruption of routine outpatient services but it is not clear whether this demand is sustained. We aimed to investigate the changes in demand for ALS, how this varied pre/during COVID-19 and audit the effect upon response times. We also aimed to assess the impact of introducing an email advice service on demand. Methods We audited the number of advice line contacts of a single rheumatology department, serving a population of 500,000 people. The telephone adviceline is provided as an answer machine with an email advice service set up in April 2020. The outcome of each contact is recorded as a) advice only b) action required (e.g., prescription, blood test, GP letter) or c) required appointment (monitor/nurse/ medical). We audited response times using the RCN guidelines of a two-day response1 as the gold standard. Results Demand for advice had been increasing pre-COVID with an average of 368 calls/month (1/1/19-1/7/19) to 420/month (1/7/19-31/12/19). Sixty percent were advice only calls but 27% required additional action. Response times met the audit standard in 97% of cases pre-COVID. During the first two months of COVID demand for advice services doubled, however demand continued to rise although outcomes were similar (Table 1). As the number of contacts increased the proportion of telephone contacts responded to within the audit standard fell. Numbers of email contacts were variable, but response times exceeded the audit standard. Conclusion This audit demonstrates the demand of adviceline services has continued to increase throughout the pandemic and beyond, impacting the ability of services to respond within a timely manner. Ongoing QI work is assessing mechanisms to manage increased demand (using healthcare support workers to triage calls) and investigating reasons for accessing ALS to ensure appropriate advice is available. (Table Presented).
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Purpose: With new hybrid working models in place post COVID-19, it is requisite that knowledge workers (KWs) stay agile. Knowledge-oriented leadership (KOL) can help employees with essential knowledge acquisition (KA) facilitating the journey toward hybrid work agility (HWA). This study, thus, aims to explore the impact of KOL and KA on HWA and reveal whether this effect stems uniformly from a single homogenous population or if there is unobserved heterogeneity leading to identifiable segments of agile KWs. Design/methodology/approach: Data was collected through stratified sampling from 416 employees from 20 information technology enabled services companies involved in knowledge-intensive tasks. Partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling approach, using SMART PLS 4.0, has been applied to examine the effect of KOL and KA on HWA. Finite mixture PLS, PLS prediction-oriented segmentation and multigroup analysis have been used to identify segments, test segment-specific path models and analyze the significance of the differences in the path coefficients for unobserved heterogeneity. Predictive relevance of the model has been determined using PLS Predict. Findings: Results indicate that KOL contributes to employees' KA and HWA. A significant positive relationship is also reported between KA and HWA. The model has medium predictive relevance. A two-segment solution has been delineated, wherein independent agile KWs (who value autonomy and personal agency over leadership for KA) and dependent agile KWs (who depend on leaders for relational and structural support for KA) have been identified. Thus, KOL and KA play a differential role in determining HWA. Research limitations/implications: The authors' major contribution to the knowledge body constitutes the determination of antecedents of HWA and a typology of agile KWs. Future researchers may conduct segment-wise qualitative analysis to delineate other variables that contribute to HWA. Practical implications: Technological advances necessitate that knowledge-intensive industries foster agility in employees for strategic agility of the organization. For effecting agile adaption of an organization to the knowledge economy conditions, it is pertinent that the full potential of this human resource be used. By profiling HWA of KWs on the basis of dimensions of KOL and the level of their KA, organizations will be able to help employees adapt better to rapidly changing work conditions. Originality/value: HWA is a novel concept and very germane in a hybrid working environment. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine the effects of the dimensions of KOL and KA in relation to HWA, along with an empirical examination of unobserved heterogeneity in the aforementioned relationship. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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Learning outcomes: After discussing this case, students will be able to understand the challenges faced by social entrepreneurs in starting a health-tech start-up in Africa;create and evaluate lean business models of health-tech companies as a social enterprise;evaluate how health-tech start-ups were developing innovative business models and supply chain networks to make prescription drugs accessible and available in Africa;understand how inorganic growth strategies can help health-tech start-ups scale up;and evaluate what promises investors were seeing while investing in social enterprises in the health-care sector in Africa and what social wealth they were creating. Case overview/synopsis: In August 2022, Gregory Rockson (Rockson), social entrepreneur and founder of for-profit health technology (health-tech) social enterprise in Ghana, mPharma, stated that he had plans to replicate the company's business model, which provided people access to drugs and at affordable prices, to other African nations, beyond the company's existing footprint. However, analysts pointed out that the fragmented drug supply chain and poor regulation in the health-care market across Africa could act as a challenge for mPharma to replicate its business model successfully across the African continent. People in Africa were forced to pay higher prices to buy life-saving drugs due to the continent's fragmented drug supply chain. To add to their woes, pharmacies struggled to keep life-saving and life-sustaining medicines in stock. Often, patients traveled miles to a pharmacy only to find out that the drugs they needed were not in stock. In addition to this, the markets were flooded with counterfeit drugs. And the Covid-19 pandemic only exacerbated the situation. mPharma managed the prescription drug inventory for pharmacies and drug suppliers using its proprietary vendor management information system. By using the technology infrastructure it had built, the company connected patients, pharmacies and hospitals through a cloud-based software. The system enabled doctors to track in real-time which drugs were available and at which location, thus giving patients reliable access to medicines. Patients registering with mPharma with their prescriptions and medical history received an alert on their mobile phones notifying them where the drugs they needed were available. mPharma bought drugs from major drug manufacturers such as Novartis International AG, Pfizer Inc. (Pfizer) and Bayer AG, on behalf of the pharmacies. This enabled the pharmacies to save on the up-front costs of stocking the drugs, reduced supply constraints and ensured availability of drugs to consumers in these underserved markets. The company had a consignment model wherein member pharmacies had to pay only for what they sold. Most pharmacies forecast the number of drugs they needed and purchased them from mPharma at pre-agreed rates. The company took the inventory liability to prevent pharmacies from going out of stock. As mPharma used its purchasing power to buy drugs in large quantities from drug manufacturers and suppliers, it was able to help patients realize cost savings of 30% to 60% in the purchase of medicines. mPharma was focusing on achieving its ambitious goal of dominating the health-care market in Africa in future. However, analysts felt that the company would face challenges related to poor regulation in the health-care market, high prices of drugs and the fragmented pharmacy retail market in the continent. Complexity academic level: This case is intended for use in MBA/MS level programs as part of a course on Social Entrepreneurship, Sustainability, Business Model Innovation, Disruptive Business Models, and Supply Chain Management in the Drug Industry. Supplementary materials: Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code: CSS 3: Entrepreneurship. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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Omicron is a relatively new form of COVID-19 that has created an unavoidable and life-threatening situation to the entire world since late 2021. Absence of appropriate vaccination, medication, the epidemiological cycle has become more complex. This study primarily concentrates on the analysis of genome sequence for COVID-19 variants. To conduct such analysis, two datasets are collected from Kaggle and GISAID. Using these datasets, the globally existing genome sequences are identified and insights regarding the countries that are carrying significantly higher genome sequence count are provided. This investigation analyzes the worldwide virus variants and further identifies that the United States and United Kingdom are the countries where proper inspection should be provided because of the genome sequence count. An adequate idea regarding the mutations of the Omicron virus is also considered in this study. To address this issue, recent genome sequence data ranging from February, 2022 to 10th March, 2022 is analyzed to understand how the latest arrival, Omicron, is perturbing the world. This study emphasizes on the constant surveillance of genome sequences among all the countries which in turn will benefit the health care professionals and frontline healthcare workers as well as the Governments can take necessary policies and precautions to combat such pandemic. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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More than half of rural households had at least one migrant worker prior to the pandemic, and for 94% of these households, their migrant workers' livelihood was adversely affected. There was large-scale reverse migration with a huge fraction of returning migrants spending as much as four to five months in native villages with limited opportunities for alternative work (including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act employment). The disruption of employment among migrant workers who stayed in destination areas led to drastic cuts in their remittances back home. About one-fifth of the migrant workers who had gone back to the destination areas were yet to resume work at destination sites at the time of survey. © 2023 Economic and Political Weekly. All rights reserved.
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Unemployment is a circumstance which arises when people above a specific age are not engaged in any kind of activities which contribute to the economic welfare of the individual and country. Unemployment is becoming a rising concern which is making the daily life of people difficult. Unemployment causes poverty and depression among the citizens. Nowadays there are different opportunities in different sectors. But people are not aware of those opportunities. Different states are there where there is a lack of skilled labour whereas many states are there that have skilled labour but less opportunities. Another reason for unemployment since 2020 is the COVID-19 pandemic. We have selected this topic to spread awareness among the citizens. This work attempts to detect the states of India which are in serious need of increasing employment opportunities. We have applied the concept of Supervised Machine Learning algorithms to detect the states with the lowest employment rate. The data visualization gives a better picture of the trends in unemployment rate over years. There has been a use of different popular algorithms like Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machine, K-nearest neighbors (kNN) Algorithm and Decision Tree. In the end we have tried to find the algorithm which is going to give us more accuracy so that necessary steps can be taken for the employment of the eligible and deserving people. © 2022 IEEE.
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The recent times have seen the global rise in infection rates from the virus Covid-19, leading to a pandemic. The exponential rise in infections and deaths lead to panic and nation-wide lockdowns across the globe. Advancements in biotechnical and medical research have paved the way for the development and mass distribution of vaccines. To build an understanding of the current situation we did a comparative analysis of the rise in infection rates among citizens across the countries and also the growth in vaccinations in the pre-vaccination phase and the post-vaccination phase of the on-going pandemic to determine whether the rate of vaccination is more than the rate of infection or otherwise. Then, a comparison is done among two prediction models we built, one using polynomial regression and other using SVM to determine which model provides better prediction results of infection rates in a country. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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Research methodology: This case study was prepared through secondary research. The secondary data was collected in electronic format from the internet. Archived data from the company sources as well as other resources available online was used. Financial reporting about Pfizer Inc. (Pfizer) was done using data from the company's annual reports. Case overview/synopsis: This case discusses US-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's successful rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine under the leadership of its Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla (Bourla). In March 2020, when the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic, leaders of pharmaceutical giants worldwide were in no way prepared to find a cure for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. On the other hand, Bourla stood up like a true leader and sought to do something to address the problem. Bourla's huge gamble paid off. In December 2020, the Food and Drug Administration approved the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer. Pfizer was ready with 50 million vaccine doses for global distribution. Complexity academic level: This case is intended for use in MBA/MS level programs as part of the curriculum on Effective Leadership and Decision-making, and Crisis Management. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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This study assessed the knowledge and practices associated with use of various drugs for the purpose of prevention and treatment of Covid-19, during the rapid rise period of the COVID-19 outbreak. A self-developed questionnaire was distributed online/offline to 397 participants via the authors' networks and through popular social media Platforms, later on collected and statistically analyzed. On analysis we found that most of the participants have moderate to good knowledge of COVID-19. Our study shows that drugs for prevention of Covid-19 were used significantly more by females as compared to males (p-value < 0.05). Healthcare worker's (HCW) use of drugs was quite high as compared to non-healthcare workers (NHCW) for prevention as well as for treatment of Covid-19 (p-value was significant < 0.05). ultivitamins, for prevention as well as treatment point of view (72.1% and 47.7% respectively). Next line of group used for preventive purpose was Antimalarials (Hydroxychloroquine/Chloroquine) used by 47.4% and then Ivermectin by 22.1% participants. Whereas from treatment point of view Antibiotics like Azithromycin and Doxycycline were next in line (used by 34.3% & 20.8% respectively). Copyright © 2022 Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications. All rights reserved.
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Introduction: Telemedicine acted as one of the biggest medium in treating Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) patients during the second wave of the still ongoing pandemic. Although the symptoms were taken care of and treated through teleconsultation, the loneliness and social support system of these patients went largely unrecognised. The morbidity pattern, effect of self-isolation and quarantine, uncertainties in social support were major contributors to loneliness among patients suffering from COVID-19. Aim: To estimate the proportion of loneliness and level of social support experienced by COVID-19 patients seeking advice from a telemedicine centre of Kolkata and to find out their socio-clinical profile and the associated relationship. Materials and Methods: An observational study with cross-sectional design was conducted on 403 COVID-19 patients who had taken advice from the telemedicine centre of Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research (IPGME and R), Kolkata for a period of 12 weeks (May-July 2021). Loneliness was assessed by the 11-item De Jong Gierveld Loneliness scale, whereas social support was assessed using 12-item Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support scale through telephonic interview. Data were tabulated in the Microsoft Office Excel 2019 (Microsoft Corp, Redmond, WA, USA) and the analysis was performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (IBM, New York City, USA) version 25.0. Results: Out of 403, more than half of the study population, 194 (48.2%) belonged to 18-35 years of age. Of the total, 235 (58.3%) were males, 319 (79.2%) were currently married and 300 (74.4%) were Hindus. About 142 (35.2%) respondents had experienced severe loneliness, while 297 (73.7%) had experienced high social support. There was a significant negative correlation found between loneliness and social support (r=-0.495, p-value <0.01). It was found that being male, belonging to nuclear family, education upto higher secondary level, being addicted, loneliness due to physical distancing, and those who had socialised frequently had higher odds of loneliness, whereas unemployed, unskilled, semiskilled and skilled occupation, having one chronic disease had lower odds of social support. Conclusion: About 338 (84%) patients had experienced loneliness which was strikingly high. This shows a deeper aspect into the actual picture of how COVID-19 impacts mental health of those who are affected. Future interventions are needed to address loneliness and develop social support system along with addressing healthcare needs of COVID-19 patients.
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Aim: Frontline Health Care Workers (FLHCWs) are the key workforce in the fight against ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. They hail from the community and are responsible for supporting the health system in generating awareness, implementing preventive strategies, contact tracing and isolating potential cases. In their job responsibilities, FLHCWs thus may perceive heightened risk of exposure to the virus, leading to overwhelming emotional response and psychological distress. The objective of this study was to investigate risk perception, cognitive awareness and emotional responses among FLHCWs trained to deal with Covid 19, to identify unmet needs of this training in India. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in a total of 131 frontline workers selected by a multistage sampling process from two states (Odisha and Himachal Pradesh) of India. The FLHCWs were interviewed personally (when feasible) with the help of a predesigned pretested semi-structured questionnaire. Results: The findings suggested that majority (90%) of the FLHCWs perceived that they are susceptible to nCoV-19 infection and 77.1% of FLHCWs felt high probability of them getting infected with the nCoV-19. Almost 90% of them responded that it is something they think about all the time and 41% of FLHCWs admitted that they feel helpless in the situation. About 63% of FLHCWs perceived that the nCoV-19 infection was a severe illness and 35% perceived it to be very severe and life threatening. Although most of them had received some unstructured and non-uniform training on preventive measures against COVID-19, yet only 38% felt that the knowledge was adequate to protect themselves from the nCoV-19 infection. The training sessions lacked psychological component for capacitating them with coping skills to address their emotional and psychological responses. Conclusion: The FLHCWs experienced heightened risk perception and symptoms of emotional distress in significant numbers even after trainings. A more inclusive public health policy dialogue to address the emotional and psychological coping skills is needed for capacitation of these frontline workers to address the challenges of Pandemic response now and in future. © 2022 Dobe et al;This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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The recent times have seen the global rise in infection rates from the virus Covid-19, leading to a pandemic. The exponential rise in infections and deaths lead to panic and nation-wide lockdowns across the globe. Advancements in biotechnical and medical research have paved the way for the development and mass distribution of vaccines. To build an understanding of the current situation we did a comparative analysis of the rise in infection rates among citizens across the countries and also the growth in vaccinations in the pre-vaccination phase and the post-vaccination phase of the on-going pandemic to determine whether the rate of vaccination is more than the rate of infection or otherwise. Then, a comparison is done among two prediction models we built, one using polynomial regression and other using SVM to determine which model provides better prediction results of infection rates in a country. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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Purpose and Background: The goal of this study is to examine the efficacy of various medications that are recommended for the treatment of patients in India who are suffering from mild-to-severe cases of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Method(s): In study carried out a retrospective, cross-sectional, observational and descriptive study. Patients diagnosed with COVID-19 ranging from mild, moderate and severe were given as part of this treatment. The primary objectives are to compare the categorical treatment protocols for COVID-19 (as per NIH Treatment Guidelines) infected mild, moderate and severe patients. To evaluate the efficacy of the drugs on the basis of at the time of discharge improvement in SPO2, RR, D-Dimer, PCT, CRP and Ferritin Values. Result(s): A total of 266 patients included in this study mild to severe COVID 19 infection led to significant improvement in SPO2, Respiratory rate (RR), D-Dimer, Procalcitonin (PCT), C-Reactive Protein (CRP) and Ferritin level. Conclusion(s): Adult patients with mild, moderate and severe COVID-19 infection, when treated with different drug combination, were more likely to improve in terms of inflammatory markers and disease severity markers and were more likely to have a better clinical profile at the end of the treatment period. Copyright © 2022, Anka Publishers. All rights reserved.
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COVID-19 , Wine , Adult , Humans , COVID-19 Vaccines/adverse effects , COVID-19/prevention & control , Vaccination/adverse effectsABSTRACT
In today’s world, there is nothing permanent except change. We have seen the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0 over the last couple of years. Now is a perfect time to think about Industry 4.0 technology and leverage its advantages for the benefit of mankind. It cannot prevent the onset of pandemics;however, it can help and has helped prevent spread, educate, warn, and empower those on the ground to be aware of the situation, and noticeably lessen the impact. Industry 4.0 can fulfill the requirements of customized facemasks, gloves, and collect information for healthcare systems for proper controlling and treating of COVID-19 patients. Major technologies of Industry 4.0 are required to solve the problems of this virus. It is useful to provide day-to-day updates of an infected patient, area-wise, age-wise and state-wise with proper surveillance systems. We also believe that the proper implementation of these technologies would help to enhance education and communication regarding public health. These Industry 4.0 technologies could provide a lot of innovative ideas and solutions for fighting local and global medical emergencies. Today, we need to focus on technologies like mobile, cloud, analytics, robotics, AI/ML, 4G/5G, and high-speed internet;it has become possible to test several innovative approaches to pandemic response. The objective of this book is to bring together leading academic scientists, research scholars and professionals to exchange and share their experiences and research results in Industry 4.0 and Intelligent Business Analytics. This research-oriented book will provide a common platform to all researchers in this domain. It covers different verticals of industry and academics, which is an added advantage of this book. © 2022 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
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The recent Covid-19 pandemic has raised a lot of questions regarding the mode of transmission of the virus. The rapid spread across the globe has compelled researchers to focus on this issue. Theories claiming droplet transmission, fbmites as well as airborne transmission have cropped up. The primary concern for the autopsy surgeons is whether the dead bodies harbor the virus and if so for how long. The present study was undertaken to find out the possibility of the virus being isolated from the human cadavers by testing at specified intervals after death. Out of the 74 cases examined, 59.5% of cases tested positive 1 day after death and 20.5% were still positive 5 days after death. The diflerence between males and females was not significant. The age of the subjects in our study ranged from 20 days to 90 years. The results of the study clearly indicate that the virus persists in the human cadavers for a sufficient period of time to act as a potential source of infection. Adequate precautionary measures while packing the body and autopsy examination are of utmost essential to prevent the spread of the disease among the dead body handlers and the family members while performing the last rites © 2022. Journal of Indian Academy of Forensic Medicine.All Rights Reserved.
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Tomato flu is an infectious disease caused by an unexplained virus. The main symptoms of the infection are tomato-shaped blisters all over the body which enlarges to resemble the shape of a tomato, therefore being named as ‘Tomato flu’. Most commonly affects children below the age of 5 years. Tomato flu is considered a “Hand, Foot and Mouth disease”. The clinical manifestation of most cases is mild. It is a self-limiting infection;which gets resolved on its own in 7-10 days. The diagnosis is based on the clinical history and physical examination, especially in regions where there are outbreaks. This infectious disease etiological agent, its treatment regimen, and vaccination stills remain unknown and is a crucial area of research at present. COVID-19 has taught us lessons for outbreak preparedness and management of cases in emergency conditions by repurposing drugs and vaccines which is also synonymously being tried to curb the condition at present situation.