scholarly journals How to understand and manage Mucormycosis infections during Covid-19/ SARS-CoV-2/ novel coronavirus pandemic era in India & developing countries?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piyush Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
News Media ◽  
Therapeutic Options ◽  
Healthcare Sector ◽  
Patient Treatment ◽  
Diagnostic Tools ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
Natural Immunity ◽  
Early Therapy

AbstractThis time last year in May 2020 India was under lockdown phase, many theories invented and discovered without any scientific evidence about India’s surprisingly low rates of Sars-CoV-2 infection, included variety of factors such as hot weather, natural immunity, heard immunity, robust health system, highly qualified doctors, natural healers and the country’s high proportion of young people; some also attributed it to the country’s harsh lockdown . India was doing so well that in biggest cities like Mumbai and Delhi, officials had begun dismantling temporary COVID-19 facilities. Comparing it to current scenario in May 2021, covid-19 & Mucormycosis (new epidemic &notifiable disease declared by several states of India) cases and deaths are a big problem faced by healthcare system of India. There are chances of emergence of other diseases which can become epidemic in India due to several factors like improper techniques applied for disposing dead bodies of covid-19 patients etc in rivers low burials to be digged by animals and improper immunization and care of pregnant women. The shortage of medicine for treatment of Mucormycosis is so acute that people are dying daily waiting to get medicine and proper treatment at hospitals. Daily rates of covid-19 cases are currently about 200,000, but now the main concern in India is Mucormycosis death rate. Several theories are again being invented and discovered on daily basis coming through news media and other channels again misguiding peoples and creating panic. It seems that the Indian scientific bodies are not able to understand and formulate a proper protocol for treatment and management of pandemic and epidemic. Cases of Mucormycosis, or "black fungus," a potentially serious condition that causes blurred or double vision, chest pain and breathing difficulties, have surged in India, mostly among COVID-19 patients. At least 8,848 such cases have been found across the country as of May 21, according to the govt . The covid-19 pandemic have not subsided yet in India from which the healthcare system is struggling since2020 January .Mucormycosis represents a group of life-threatening infections caused by fungi of the order Mucorales which are difficult-to-manage owing to limited as well as less number of diagnostic tools and therapeutic options available till date particularly in developing countries like India having a large portion of population dwelling in villages with poor infrastructure and limited resources in healthcare sector. Fungi of order Mucorales belong to six families, all of which have capacity to cause Mucormycosis. Rhizopus oryzae is the most common cause of infection usually. Others are Rhizopus microspores, Rhizomucor pucillus, Mycoclaudus corymbifier, Apophysomyces elegans, etc. Reclassification have abolished class zygomycetes and placed the order Mucorales in the subphylum Mucoromycotina. Mucormycosis is highly invasive and progressive disease with >40% morbidity and mortalities. For diagnosis a very high index of suspicion and history of patient is necessary to initiate early therapy to achieve better outcome. I review here advances in pathological understanding, modern diagnostic tools including computed tomography (CT), and serum polymerase chain reaction and therapeutic options with different available medicines.KeywordsMucormycosis, fungal, patient, treatment, covid-19 Reverse Halo sign, PCR, Isavuconazole, Liposomal amphotericin B,

scholarly journals Healthcare in the news media: The privileging of private over public

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 574-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Lewis ◽  
Fran Collyer ◽  
Karen Willis ◽  
Kirsten Harley ◽  
Kanchan Marcus ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
News Media ◽  
Healthcare Sector ◽  
Public Healthcare ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Print News ◽  
Private Healthcare ◽  
Time Period

This article reports on a discourse analysis of the representation of healthcare in the print news media, and the way this representation shapes perspectives of healthcare. We analysed news items from six major Australian newspapers over a three-year time period. We show how various framing devices promote ideas about a crisis in the current public healthcare system, the existence of a precarious balance between the public and private health sectors, and the benefits of private healthcare. We employ Bourdieu’s concepts of field and capital to demonstrate the processes through which these devices are employed to conceal the power relations operating in the healthcare sector, to obscure the identity of those who gain the most from the expansion of private sector medicine, and to indirectly increase health inequalities.

scholarly journals HEALTH CARE AS A SYSTEM-CREATING ELEMENT OF HUMAN CAPITAL: STRATEGIES OF ITS DEVELOPMENT BY THE CASE OF UKRAINE

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 176-181
Author(s):  
Yurii Safonov ◽  
Viktoriia Borshch ◽  
Oleksandr Rogachevskyi
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Human Capital ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Healthy Lifestyle ◽  
System Development ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Healthcare Sector ◽  
Regulation System ◽  
Human Capital Index

The main purpose of the paper is to analyze the process of the health care development as the system-creating factor of human capital. Methodology. This study combines economic and managerial analysis of healthcare and human capital. The background for this analysis is the data of the 2020 Human Capital Index in Ukraine and other developed and developing countries. The method of historical and logical analysis of the literature was used. The functional and structural analysis was used with purpose to research the main tools of human capital’s development. Methods of comparative and statistical analysis and their synthesis were used to study dynamics of human capital. Method of summarization was used to make conclusions and recommendations for improving human capital in developing countries. Works of scientists in the sphere of human capital were used as the informational basis for the conducted study. Findings. In the paper it was analyzed the Human Capital Index in Ukraine and its components from the period of 2010-2020. The problems of the development of Ukrainian healthcare sector as the system-creating element of human capital are viewed. Formation of a new model for organizing medical care based on the development of the four P’s model of medicine (predicting, prevention, personalization, participation) is considered as the main basis for developing effective healthcare sector in Ukraine. The authors of the article see the following key areas of necessary actions in Ukrainian healthcare sector: technological breakthrough, strengthening a healthy lifestyle, ensuring the availability of high-quality medical services, developing human resources, creating a system of effective drug provision, increasing the efficiency of financing. Practical implications. The results of this study form the methodological and practical basis for improvement of the state regulation system of Ukrainian healthcare as a system-creating element of human capital. The results of conducted research could be a framework for formation of effective healthcare system in Ukraine, ensuring its constant development. The main proposals could be used by the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine while working out the Concept of national healthcare system development, they should be taken into consideration by state and municipal Health Departments for implement them during the process of Ukrainian healthcare sphere’s reformation.

scholarly journals Advances in Environmental Detection and Clinical Diagnostic Tests for Legionella Species

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajeshwari Vittal ◽  
Juliet Roshini Mohan Raj ◽  
Ballamoole Krishna Kumar ◽  
Indrani Karunasagar
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Clinical Manifestations ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Clinical Samples ◽  
Detection Techniques ◽  
Conventional Culture ◽  
Legionella Species ◽  
Mild Fever

Abstract Legionella is a fastidious organism that is difficult to culture in the lab but is widely distributed in environmental, domestic, and hospital settings. The clinical manifestations due to Legionella infections range from mild fever to fatal pneumonia and multiorgan pathologies. Legionella outbreaks though prevalent globally are not reported in developing countries due to difficulties in isolating this organism and the lack of simple diagnostic protocols. Here, we review the literature from across countries to present various methods used to detect Legionella from environmental and clinical samples. We compare the sensitivity and the specificity of the conventional culture-based assays with the recent methods and discuss approaches to develop better detection and diagnostic tests. With better cost-effective detection techniques and regular monitoring of the susceptible sites, which may harbor Legionella colonies, most of the Legionella infections can be prevented. As a result, considerable burden, caused by Legionella infections, on the healthcare system, in especially economically weaker countries, can be mitigated.

scholarly journals Why Do Developing Countries Tax So Little?

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 99-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Besley ◽  
Torsten Persson
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Low Income ◽  
News Media ◽  
Weak Sense ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Tax Revenue ◽  
Weak Institutions ◽  
Social And Cultural Factors ◽  
A Share

Low-income countries typically collect taxes of between 10 to 20 percent of GDP while the average for high-income countries is more like 40 percent. In order to understand taxation, economic development, and the relationships between them, we need to think about the forces that drive the development process. Poor countries are poor for certain reasons, and these reasons can also help to explain their weakness in raising tax revenue. We begin by laying out some basic relationships regarding how tax revenue as a share of GDP varies with per capita income and with the breadth of a country's tax base. We sketch a baseline model of what determines a country's tax revenue as a share of GDP. We then turn to our primary focus: why do developing countries tax so little? We begin with factors related to the economic structure of these economies. But we argue that there is also an important role for political factors, such as weak institutions, fragmented polities, and a lack of transparency due to weak news media. Moreover, sociological and cultural factors—such as a weak sense of national identity and a poor norm for compliance—may stifle the collection of tax revenue. In each case, we suggest the need for a dynamic approach that encompasses the two-way interactions between these political, social, and cultural factors and the economy.

scholarly journals Implementation of Fog computing in IoT-based healthcare system

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjana Maksimović
Keyword(s):  
Healthcare System ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Fog Computing ◽  
Healthcare Systems ◽  
Healthcare Sector ◽  
Smart Devices ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Healthcare Applications ◽  
Privacy And Security ◽  
Main Challenge

Nowhere do the technology advancements bring improvements than in the healthcare sector, constantly creating new healthcare applications and systems which completely revolutionize the healthcare domain. The appearance of Internet of Things (IoT) based healthcare systems has immensely improved quality and delivery of care, and significantly reduced the costs. At the same time, these systems generate the enormous amount of health-associated data which has to be properly gathered, analyzed and shared. The smart devices, as the components of IoT-driven healthcare systems, are not able to deal with IoT-produced data, neither data posting to the Cloud is the appropriate solution. To overcome smart devices’ and Cloud’s limitations the new paradigm, known as Fog computing, has appeared, where an additional layer processes the data and sends the results to the Cloud. Despite numerous benefits Fog computing brings into IoT-based environments, the privacy and security issues remain the main challenge for its implementation. The reasons for integrating the IoT-based healthcare system and Fog computing, benefits and challenges, as well as the proposition of simple low-cost system are presented in this paper.

Defining and Characterizing the Landscape of E-Health

2019 ◽  
pp. 377-390
Author(s):  
Yvonne O'Connor ◽  
Ciara Heavin
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Information Systems ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Market Place ◽  
Health Technologies ◽  
Electronic Health ◽  
Technical Solutions

There has been a surge of electronic health (e-health) technologies encompassing a range of services available to various stakeholders within the healthcare system in both developed and developing countries. As technology has evolved, the features and functionalities offered by e-health technologies have grown dramatically, leading to a proliferation of advanced technical solutions. As a result of this increased focus, various definitions for what constitutes the term e-health have emerged in the literature. This lack of consensus is further inhibited by a dearth of research documenting the characteristics (i.e., features and functionalities) of such e-health technologies. The authors propose to define and characterize the landscape of e-health technologies from an information systems (IS) perspective in this chapter. By examining existing literature and reviewing the market place, this study reveals that there is a need to integrate the various features and functions of e-health technologies, thereby arguing that integration and interoperability is important for the growth of e-health.

Interprofessional Education

2020 ◽  
pp. 259-285
Author(s):  
Izhar Faisal ◽  
Saima Salam ◽  
Manisha Arora
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Interprofessional Education ◽  
Institutional Support ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Collaborative Practice ◽  
Workplace Culture ◽  
Potential Barriers ◽  
Complete Overhaul

With an ever worsening shortage of healthcare workers, there has been a global shift towards strengthening of interprofessional education (IPE). IPE has existed as a powerful tool in developed countries, but in developing countries like India, it is still in its infancy. Several models of interprofessional education exist, yet India lags behind in implementing these models in academic curricula. Rudimentary curriculum, inefficient healthcare system, and maldistribution of health professionals are some of the potential barriers. A complete overhaul of the healthcare system along with progressive strategies of incorporation of IPE needs to be debated, and associated limitations need to be addressed. Adequate institutional support, well-constructed protocols, infrastructural revamp, and change of workplace culture are vital for IPE to succeed and be sustainable. This chapter provides an overview of IPE and collaborative practice in Indian settings and presents an account of an Indian institution utilizing IPP approach and highlights potential challenges in incorporating IPE in the academic curriculum.

The Changing World of ICT and Health

2011 ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Prajesh Chhanabhai ◽  
Alec Holt
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Healthcare Sector ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Communication Techniques ◽  
Health Consumer ◽  
Information And Communication

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has undergone rapid change in the last decade and it is now readily accessible within many communities. This change has resulted in a revolution in the healthcare sector as technology has steadily empowered the health consumer. However, the problem of the digital divide remains and may be widening with the growth of technology. This chapter will examine how developing countries have overcome this problem by using varying communication techniques to share health information. The chapter also suggests how mobile phones can provide a more accessible conduit for sharing health information in developing countries as opposed to the Internet alone. These changes need to be embraced in order to provide a framework that will allow ICT to narrow, rather than widen the gap between the information poor and the information rich.

Value that matters: intellectual capital and big data to assess performance in healthcare. An empirical analysis on the European context

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ginevra Gravili ◽  
Francesco Manta ◽  
Concetta Lucia Cristofaro ◽  
Rocco Reina ◽  
Pierluigi Toma
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Organizational Performance ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Healthcare Sector ◽  
Healthcare Organizations ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Structural Capital ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to analyze and measure the effects of intellectual capital (IC), i.e. human capital (HC), relational capital (RC) and structural capital (SC), on healthcare industry organizational performance and understanding the role of data analytics and big data (BD) in healthcare value creation (Wang et al., 2018). Through the assessment of determined variables specific for each component of IC, the paper identifies the guidelines and suggests propositions for a more efficient response in terms of services provided to citizens and, specifically, patients, as well as predicting effective strategies to improve the care management efficiency in terms of cost reduction.Design/methodology/approachThe study has a twofold approach: in the first part, the authors operated a systematic review of the academic literature aiming to enquire the relationship between IC, big data analytics (BDA) and healthcare system, which were also the descriptors employed. In the second part, the authors built an econometric model analyzed through panel data analysis, studying the relationship between IC, namely human, relational and structural capital indicators, and the performance of healthcare system in terms of performance. The study has been conducted on a sample of 28 European countries, notwithstanding the belonging to specific international or supranational bodies, between 2011 and 2016.FindingsThe paper proposes a data-driven model that presents new approach to IC assessment, extendable to other economic sectors beyond healthcare. It shows the existence of a positive impact (turning into a mathematical inverse relationship) of the human, relational and structural capital on the performance indicator, while the physical assets (i.e. the available beds in hospitals on total population) positively mediates the relationship, turning into a negative impact of non-IC related inputs on healthcare performance. The result is relevant in terms of managerial implications, enhancing the opportunity to highlight the crucial role of IC in the healthcare sector.Research limitations/implicationsThe relationship between IC indicators and performance could be employed in other sectors, disseminating new approaches in academic research. Through the establishment of a relationship between IC factors and performance, the authors implemented an approach in which healthcare organizations are active participants in their economic and social value creation. This challenges the views of knowledge sharing deeply held inside organizations by creating “new value” developed through a more collaborative and permeated approach in terms of knowledge spillovers. A limitation is given by a fragmented policymaking process which carries out different results in each country.Practical implicationsThe analysis provides interesting implications on multiple perspectives. The novelty of the study provides interesting implications for managers, practitioners and governmental bodies. A more efficient healthcare system could provide better results in terms of cost minimization and reduction of hospitalization period. Moreover, dissemination of new scientific knowledge and drivers of specialization enhances best practices sharing in the healthcare sector. On the other hand, an improvement in preventive medicine practices could help in reducing the overload of demand for curative treatments, on the perspective of sharply decreasing the avoidable deaths rate and improving societal standards.Originality/valueThe authors provide a new holistic framework on the relationship between IC, BDA and organizational performance in healthcare organizations through a systematic review approach and an empirical panel analysis at a multinational level, which is quite a novelty regarding the healthcare. There is little research focussed on healthcare industries' organizational performance, and, specifically, most of the research on IC in healthcare delivered results in terms of theoretical contribution and qualitative analyzes. The authors even contributed to analyze the healthcare industry in the light of the possible existence of synergies and networks among countries.

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