Formation of Data Science Teams based on Scenario Characteristics

The objective of this research was to identify a set of attributes to characterize data science scenarios to assists in the formation of an accompanying data science team. The six scenario characteristics were developed in consultation with a Subject Matter Expert (SME) to identify the important aspects of a data science endeavor. Concurrently, a generalizable role by task matrix was developed that captures the high-level data science functions and potential team member roles. This matrix was based on the NATO data science process function definitions, linked to the U.S. Department of Labor social science work activities, and data science role definitions. The mapping of the characteristics to the role by task matrix results in guidelines for forming a data science team; an example scenario with its characteristics and proposed team design is described. This work suggests methods to customize team information for specific data science needs based on scenario attributes.

General Processes

This section discusses the general processes of hospice care. The role of hospice is to deliver the most effective end-of-life care in the most efficient manner possible to all dying patients. This section defines the essential steps that need to be followed, or at least considered, in the process of caring for patients at the end of life. These steps serve as a teaching tool and reminder of the fundamental goals of patient-centered care within a larger system of health care. While there are many elements that contribute to an exceptional hospice, the interdisciplinary team is at its core. The interdisciplinary group may be composed of identical professional members as the multidisciplinary paradigm, but the role definitions are purposefully blurred and the boundaries are widely overlapping. Authority is shared, as is decision making, and innovation is encouraged wherever necessitated by patient need and circumstance. The section then outlines the clinical documentation process, which serves several important functions.

Evidence-Based Strategies for Improving Occupational Safety and Health Among Teleworkers During and After the Coronavirus Pandemic

Objective To review practical, evidence-based strategies that may be implemented to promote teleworker safety, health, and well-being during and after the coronavirus pandemic of 2019 (COVID-19). Background The prevalence of telework has increased due to COVID-19. The upsurge brings with it challenges, including limited face-to-face interaction with colleagues and supervisors, reduced access to ergonomics information and resources, increased social isolation, and blurred role definitions, which may adversely affect teleworker safety, health, and well-being. Method Evidence-based strategies for improving occupational safety, health, and well-being among teleworkers were synthesized in a narrative-based review to address common challenges associated with telework considering circumstances unique to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results Interventions aimed at increasing worker motivation to engage in safe and healthy behaviors via enhanced safety leadership, managing role boundaries to reduce occupational safety and health risks, and redesigning work to strengthen interpersonal interactions, interdependence, as well as workers’ initiation have been supported in the literature. Application This review provides practical guidance for group-level supervisors, occupational safety and health managers, and organizational leaders responsible for promoting health and safety among employees despite challenges associated with an increase in telework.

Identifying indicators sensitive to primary healthcare nurse practitioner practice: a review of systematic reviews protocol

IntroductionPrimary healthcare nurse practitioners (PHCNPs) practice in a wide range of clinical settings and with diverse patient populations. Several systematic reviews have examined outcomes of PHCNP roles. However, there is a lack of consistency in the definitions used for the PHCNP role across the reviews. The identification of indicators sensitive to PHCNP practice from the perspective of patients, providers and the healthcare system will allow researchers, clinicians and decision-makers to understand how these providers contribute to outcomes of care.Methods and analysisA review of systematic reviews is proposed to describe the current state of knowledge about indicators sensitive to PHCNP practice using recognised role definitions. Outcomes of interest include any outcome indicator measuring the effectiveness of PHCNPs. We will limit our search to 2010 onwards to capture the most up-to-date trends. The following electronic databases will be searched: Allied and Complementary Medicine Database, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Cochrane Library Database of Systematic Reviews and Controlled Trials Register, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, EMBASE, Global Health, Health Economics Evaluation Database, Health Evidence, HealthStar, Health Systems Evidence, Joanna Briggs Institute, Medline, PDQ-Evidence, PubMed and Web of Science. The search strategies will be reviewed by an academic librarian. Reference lists of all relevant publications will be reviewed. Grey literature will be searched from 2010 onwards, and will include: CADTH Information Services, CADTH’s Grey Matters tool, OpenGrey, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ProQuest Dissertation and Theses and WHO. The PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews will be searched to identify registered review protocols. The review protocol was developed using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols recommendations. A narrative synthesis will be used to summarise study findings.Ethics and disseminationNo ethical approval is required for the study. The data used in the study will be abstracted from published systematic reviews. Dissemination strategies will include peer-reviewed publication, conference presentations and presentations to key stakeholders.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42020198182.

Detecting missing IS-A relations in the NCI Thesaurus using an enhanced hybrid approach

Background The National Cancer Institute (NCI) Thesaurus provides reference terminology for NCI and other systems. Previously, we proposed a hybrid prototype utilizing lexical features and role definitions of concepts in non-lattice subgraphs to identify missing IS-A relations in the NCI Thesaurus. However, no domain expert evaluation was provided in our previous work. In this paper, we further enhance the hybrid approach by leveraging a novel lexical feature—roots of noun chunks within concept names. Formal evaluation of our enhanced approach is also performed. Method We first compute all the non-lattice subgraphs in the NCI Thesaurus. We model each concept using its role definitions, words and roots of noun chunks within its concept name and its ancestor’s names. Then we perform subsumption testing for candidate concept pairs in the non-lattice subgraphs to automatically detect potentially missing IS-A relations. Domain experts evaluated the validity of these relations. Results We applied our approach to 19.08d version of the NCI Thesaurus. A total of 55 potentially missing IS-A relations were identified by our approach and reviewed by domain experts. 29 out of 55 were confirmed as valid by domain experts and have been incorporated in the newer versions of the NCI Thesaurus. 7 out of 55 further revealed incorrect existing IS-A relations in the NCI Thesaurus. Conclusions The results showed that our hybrid approach by leveraging lexical features and role definitions is effective in identifying potentially missing IS-A relations in the NCI Thesaurus.

Crystallizing Coaching: An Examination of the Institutionalization of Instructional Coaching in Three Educational Systems

Background Instructional coaching has gained popularity as a reform instrument, yet it varies widely across contexts. This variability plays a role in weak implementation or even rejection of coaching within schools. Further, there are gaps in our understanding of how coaching is adopted and accepted in different educational systems. Purpose: This article uses concepts from organizational institutionalism to gauge the legitimacy and taken-for-grantedness of coaching in two charter-management organizations and one public school district. It surfaces the processes as well as the outcomes of the institutionalization of coaching. Research design I collected qualitative data for this study in three systems to draw out comparisons in the structures, practices, and norms regarding coaching: This included 38 interviews, over 20 observations, and over 30 documents. I coded and analyzed the interview, observation, and document data to answer questions about how and why coaching was institutionalized in each system. Findings My findings reveal that coaching was more highly institutionalized in the two charter-management organizations than in the public school district. In particular, coaching was deemed appropriate and desirable by most educators in the charter systems. Additionally, coaching was embedded in system-level policies and school-level routines in the charter systems. My findings also indicate that organizational structures, actors’ role definitions, and artifacts were associated with the institutionalization of coaching. Conclusions This study sheds light on how and why coaching, as a counternormative lever for instructional reform, is institutionalized in various educational systems. It points to the importance of system and school leaders’ routines for increasing the legitimacy and taken-for-grantedness of coaching.

Democratising systems of innovations based on Blockchain platform technologies

PurposeBlockchain is expected to have a significant impact on Systems of Innovation as the new General Purpose Technology. The purpose of this study is to investigate how Blockchain can revolutionise the Systems of Innovation by investigating its overall structure, actors and relationships.Design/methodology/approachThis study used the systematic mapping method to explore and integrate the Blockchain and Systems of Innovation literature for the creation of a new conceptual model of Blockchain-enabled Systems of Innovation. In that scope, 37 Blockchain-related and 32 Systems of Innovation-related papers, besides two major books in the field of Blockchain, have been reviewed and then integrated based on the Systems Thinking approach.FindingsThe key findings for Blockchain-enabled Systems of Innovation are that there is (1) an increased distribution of networks and collaborations, (2) increased trust through the use of reputation systems, (3) an emerging new nature of platform characteristics, (4) a democratisation of entrepreneurship by the new funding landscape and (5) an increased significance of technological drivers, such as energy.Research limitations/implicationsThe study shows new Systems of Innovation-related research implications. Accordingly, a new type of actor, relationship and attribute has been introduced where the boundaries of the role definitions are blurred and more distributed. This is where larger organisations can expect to lose their central position. The different types of actors are replaced by a network of actors as a result of the distributed new Blockchain-based system. The threshold for the Bottom of the Pyramid is expected to be reduced, leading to a more democratised innovation system.Practical ImplicationsBlockchain appears to reduce the effects of distrust in collaborative innovation practices with its consensus mechanisms and the new Blockchain-enabled Systems of Innovation is expected to revolutionise the interactions in the future.Originality/valueThere are very few studies that have been found to integrate innovation management practices with Blockchain. This is the first Blockchain-based Systems of Innovation study enabling the fundamental revision of its structure, types of relationships and actors.

Diversity, Inclusive Leadership, and Health Outcomes

In this time of polarization and divisiveness across increasingly diverse communities, health policy and management research offers an important insight: engaging diversity meaningfully through inclusive leadership—that embraces staff across hierarchies and engages difference perspectives so that all healthcare workers of all kinds feel they can speak up and participate—can save lives. In multiple studies of quality in cardiovascular care, top performing hospitals have been shown to exhibit the capacity to embrace staff across hierarchies and engage differences so that healthcare workers of all kinds feel they can speak up and participate meaningfully in improvement efforts. Most recently, in the two-year, longitudinal Leadership Saves Lives study of 10 hospitals, the ability to adopt a culture of improvement rather than blaming was linked to significant reductions in risk-standardized mortality rates. Moreover, the guiding coalitions (ie, quality improvement teams) in six of the 10 hospitals that were most successful were distinguished in three ways that give insight about effective modes of engaging differences: (1) including staff from difference disciplines and levels in the organizational hierarchy, (2) encouraging authentic participation by the members, and (3) using constructive patterns of managing conflict (ie, having clear role definitions, working to surface minority viewpoints, and collectively revisiting the shared goal of saving lives). Based on this literature, adequately engaging a wide range of diverse viewpoints and staff roles can have a marked impact on health outcomes. Although the studies reviewed do not examine racial/ethnic diversity per se, they do lend insight into effectively navigating environments with extensive diversity of perspectives, professional identities, and experiences. Future research may assess whether these insights have application to other forms of diversity as well. In this time of extreme polarization and division globally and locally, health policy and management research has an opportunity to share evidence that could help navigate an increasingly diverse environment, at least within the field of healthcare, towards a more inclusive, humane, and life-giving approach to our collective future.

Transitional care planning: A pilot study to explore patient, hospital, and primary care perspectives

The care plan aims to align key stakeholders via the exchange of meaningful, timely, and actionable patient care information during transitions of care. This exploratory study used a qualitative approach that includes field observations and semi-structured interviews to further understand the barriers and current process of care planning. A thematic analysis identified clinician strategies in addition to barriers at system, care-team, and patient levels. Specific themes included limited time and resources to establish value-based care, inconsistent/vague role definitions across settings, disconnections in care team communication, inconsistent care planning definitions and goals, patients’ lack of knowledge of care planning, and social behavioral determinants that prevent patients from engaging in their care planning. Further research is necessary to gain a deeper understanding of these barriers and clinician strategies to support a clearer definition of the care planning process.