Challenges to care coordination posed by the use of multiple health IT applications

Coordinating care for hospitalized patients requires the use of multiple sources of information. Using a macroergonomic framework (i.e. the work system model), we conducted interviews and observations of care managers involved in care coordination across transitions of care. When information is distributed across multiple health IT applications, care managers experience a range of challenges, including organizational barriers, technology design problems, skills and knowledge issues, and task performance demands (i.e. issues related to individual information processing and management and sharing of information). These challenges can be used as a checklist to evaluate the proposed IT infrastructure that will allow the integration of multiple health IT applications and, therefore, support coordination across transitions of care.     

An equation to predict maximum acceptable loads for repetitive tasks based on duty cycle: evaluation with lifting and lowering tasks

Recently, an equation was developed to predict maximal acceptable effort (MAE) for repetitive tasks based on the product of task frequency and effort duration (ie. duty cycle). This equation has been shown to closely match data from psychophysical studies of the upper extremities. In the current paper, the applicability of this equation was tested on lifting and lowering data from Snook and Ciriello (1991) and was found to fit closely, even at very low duty cycles.     

The Involvement of a Concerned Significant Other in Gambling Disorder Treatment Outcome

Interpersonal distress is a common feature in gambling disorder and adding a concerned significant other (CSO) to the recovery process could be an effective tool for improving treatment outcome. However, little empirical evidence is available regarding the effectiveness of including a CSO to interventions. We aimed to compare treatment outcomes (i.e. compliance with therapy guidelines, dropout from treatment, and relapse during treatment) in a CBT program involving a CSO to CBT treatment as usual (TAU) without a CSO. The sample comprised male gambling disorder patients (N = 675). The manualized CBT intervention consisted of 16 weekly outpatient group sessions and a 3-month follow-up period. Patient CSOs attended a predetermined number of sessions with the patient and were provided with resources to acquire a better understanding of the disorder, to manage risk situations, and to aid patients in adhering to treatment guidelines. Patients with a CSO had significant higher treatment attendance and reduced dropout compared to patients receiving TAU. Moreover, patients whose spouse was involved in the treatment program were less likely to relapse and adhered to the treatment guidelines more than those with a non-spousal CSO. Our results suggest that incorporating interpersonal support to gambling disorder interventions could potentially improve treatment outcomes.     

Leading a Large‐Scale Distributed Social Enterprise

Distributed social enterprises with national or international footprints face unique management challenges. To cast a lens on these challenges, we analyze the case of the US‐based social enterprise Goodwill Industries, a century‐old, hybrid nonprofit organization with annual business‐related revenue of more than $5.5 billion. The economic benefits that accrue from this business are used to support a social mission that has continued to evolve for more than 100 years. We explore how Goodwill is organized and how its management works to continually balance economic and social objectives to facilitate long‐term success.     

Learning-by-doing in an ambiguous environment

How well do revealed ambiguity preferences predict how people choose to seek new information about uncertain events? In an economics experiment, we apply a new instrument to measure ambiguity preferences, and in a later session observe to what extent the measure predicts the choice to receive costly information in a learning-by-doing game. Ambiguity averse subjects are more willing to pay to receive information, while risk averse subjects are not. Holding ambiguity preferences constant, risk averse subjects tend to perform worse than risk loving subjects. The returns to experimentation, especially for ambiguity averse subjects, suggest a not-well studied but important role that ambiguity preferences play in decision-making under uncertainty.     

Resource Immobility and Sustained Performance: A Systematic Assessment of How Immobility Has Been Considered in Empirical Resource‐based Studies

The core notion of the resource‐based view (RBV) is that the possession of certain resources can result in superior performance and, in order for this performance to be sustained, these resources cannot be perfectly mobile. Whereas previous reviews have mainly focused on the relationship between resources and temporary performance, no studies have systematically analyzed the extent to which empirical RBV studies have specifically considered immobility of resources. By analyzing a sample of 218 empirical RBV studies, the authors found that 17% of the studies directly measured some dimension of immobility (by, for example, actually measuring the level of social complexity, unique history, tacitness or tradability). Fewer than 2% of the studies measured the outcome of resource immobility, i.e. sustained performance differences. Based on these results, this paper discusses the consequences of overlooking this key dimension of the RBV (i.e. immobility) and suggests that, and discusses how, future research should consider resource immobility to a greater extent.     

Multidimensional analysis of temporal and layered microclimatic behavior of subtropical climber green walls in summer

Urban Ecosystems - Existing studies emphasizing the magnitude of green-wall thermal benefits paid little attention to temporal microclimatic behavior. To bridge the knowledge gap, we employed...