RESUMO
Background: According to the World Bank, the medical tourism industry in 2016 generated more than $100 billion revenue turnover for the destination countries. This study aims to investigate the developmental requirements of medical tourism industry in Iran to identify sustainable development strategies within this sector. Methods: The present study was an applied-analytical study performed in a cross-sectional manner. A total of 25 experts, including policy experts, decision-makers, and managers with over 10 years of experience in the health system and familiar with the process of attracting medical tourists from foreign countries were asked to compare options for the development of the medical tourism. Expert opinions were analyzed using a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process using the open-source R Studio software. Results: Out of the 5 items included in the questionnaire, the criterion of "government policy making and related entities" was ranked the first in terms of importance and prioritization for medical tourism development (0.249) through attracting domestic and foreign investments followed by advertising and marketing (0.241). Also, the criteria of "destination characteristics" and "facilities and status of service capacities with 0.111 and 0.185 weights had the lowest weight among the 5 items, respectively. Conclusion: In general, governments play a key role in marketing and promoting the nascent medical tourism industry. Experts in the field believe that the role of government, policy and decision-makers in medical tourism can be an advantage for its prosperity and development.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Recently, quality is a serious concern in development of organizations. There are various indicators to assess quality and the purpose of this study was to identify the main indicators for quality measurement of Iranian health centers. METHODS: This qualitative study was conducted in three stages: first, review of the literature was performed to identify different indicators for quality measurement in health centers; second, a tworound Delphi process was used with participation of 18 experts in both rounds; third, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was applied to give weights to each indicator. RESULTS: Twenty-seven indicators were identified from the literature review stage. The Delphi method reduced the list to 4 indicators. Developing a quality plan in the health center had the highest weight (38%) and percentage of followed complaints the lowest (12%). The consistency rate was 7.2% indicating appropriateness of the data. CONCLUSION: This list of indicators can be used as a template for measuring quality of health centers in Iran and possibly in other developing countries.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Several studies suggest the existence of an effective relationship between individuals'characteristics and important factors such as occupational and organizational performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and etc. This study was designed based on the dimensions of personality (introversion /extroversion) of managers of Iran University of Medical Sciences at three levels (executive, middle and senior) with their career success rate. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study, whose population was all managers of Iran University of Medical Sciences. To collect data, two valid and reliable questionnaires were used. The first questionnaire assessed personality characteristics of each director, and the second measured occupational success. Related tests such as Pearson correlation test and independent comparison (independent t-test) at a significance level of 0.05 were used for data analysis. RESULTS: Findings revealed no significant relationship between variables of introversion and extroversion and occupational success among the senior managers, (p> 0.05). However, there was a direct but incomplete relationship between introversion and extroversion, which correlated with job success among middle and executives managers. CONCLUSION: It seems that in all three levels of managers, if the managers communicated more with employees and if the subject of communication was more of executive nature, the correlation rate would increase between extroversion and introversion with job success variables. Therefore, it is suggested to give attention to organizational interaction and communication, and contingency variables such as organization condition, structure, formality and complexity.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Households' financial protection against health payments and expenditures and equity in utilization of health care services are of the most important tasks of governments. This study aims to measuring equity in household's health care payments according to fairness in financial contribution (FFC) and Kakwani indices in Tehran-Iran, 2013. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2014.The study sample size was estimated to be 2200 households. Households were selected using stratified-cluster sampling including typical families who reside in the city of Tehran. The data were analyzed through Excel and Stata v.11software. Recall period for the inpatient care was 1 year and for outpatient1 month. RESULTS: The indicator of FFC for households in health financing was estimated to be 0.68 and the trend of the indicator was ascending by the rise in the ranking of households' financial level. The Kakwani index was estimated to be a negative number (-0.00125) which indicated the descending trend of health financing system. By redistribution of incomes or the exempt of the poorest quintiles from health payments, Kakwani index was estimated to be a positive number (0.090555) which indicated the ascending trend of health financing system. CONCLUSION: According to this study, the equity indices in health care financing denote injustice and a descending trend in the health care financing system. This finding clearly shows that deliberate policy making in health financing by national health authorities and protecting low-income households against health expenditures are required to improve the equity in health.
