A Feasibility Study on the Implementation of Teleconsultation in Tuberculosis Patients in Zabol City of Iran.

Teleconsultation can be used for tuberculosis patients, especially in deprived area. We surveyed all of 60 employees in health centers and tuberculosis center in such area in Iran about feasibility (organizational, technical, human and environmental readiness) of implementing teleconsultation and its barriers. We found that human readiness was moderate and other aspects were weak. Furthermore, the main obstacles were the shortage of computer equipment (40%), technical infrastructure (35%), lack of funds (33.3%), lack of awareness (33.3%), and employee resistance (33.3%). Implementing teleconsultation for tuberculosis patients is not completely feasible in this area and requires improvement in organizational, technical and environmental factors.

Development of balanced key performance indicators for emergency departments strategic dashboards following analytic hierarchical process.

Dynamic reporting tools, such as dashboards, should be developed to measure emergency department (ED) performance. However, choosing an effective balanced set of performance measures and key performance indicators (KPIs) is a main challenge to accomplish this. The aim of this study was to develop a balanced set of KPIs for use in ED strategic dashboards following an analytic hierarchical process. The study was carried out in 2 phases: constructing ED performance measures based on balanced scorecard perspectives and incorporating them into analytic hierarchical process framework to select the final KPIs. The respondents placed most importance on ED internal processes perspective especially on measures related to timeliness and accessibility of care in ED. Some measures from financial, customer, and learning and growth perspectives were also selected as other top KPIs. Measures of care effectiveness and care safety were placed as the next priorities too. The respondents placed least importance on disease-/condition-specific "time to" measures. The methodology can be presented as a reference model for development of KPIs in various performance related areas based on a consistent and fair approach. Dashboards that are designed based on such a balanced set of KPIs will help to establish comprehensive performance measurements and fair benchmarks and comparisons.