Facilitate Continuous Improvement Essay

Assessment Activity 1 1. You work for an organisation that does not actively encourage its employees to participate in decision-making processes, and to assume responsibility and exercise initiative as appropriate. What would you say to convince the organisation’s management that they should actively encourage employees to assume responsibility and initiative? Write a transcript of what you would say. â€Å"Although not encouraged, recently I decided to let our ICT Support Specialist head up the roll out of our new Antivirus solution. I presented him with the project and advised that he will be managing it and will need to source the resources required and also the process. The only information I provided was a deadline of 4 weeks to complete the project/rollout Firstly the feedback I got from the Support Specialist was incredibly positive. He was excited to run his own project and make his own decisions on how to complete it. It brought out a different side to an employee whom sometimes finds it hard to stay motivated. The project is in its final stages now and has ran very smoothly and is well ahead of schedule. I believe encouraging employees to make their own decisions does boost initiative and this is one example of how extra responsibility and the opportunity for a non-management employee to work autonomously brings in very positive results. This is something I would like to encourage to my department more often as I believe I can get excellent outcomes on upcoming projects. 2. Do you consider group decision-making to be a valuable tool that will aid in encouraging employees to participate in decision-making processes, and to assume responsibility and exercise initiative? Explain. I strongly believe any decision making process privileges that one can grant to employees can be very beneficial as stated above in the example. This shows trust in employees, and I believe giving employees extra responsibilities can have a very positive effect. In a group decision making environment, this also promotes team work. Having a department making decisions together is a great way to encourage this. Assessment Activity 2 1. Your organisation has changed the way it accepts payments from customers/clients to make the process easier for clients/customers. What would you do to ensure that the organisations continuous improvement processes are communicated to all stakeholders? I believe this is something the whole organisation should be aware of, this way any client facing employees can better explain this to customers/clients in the event questions or queries are raised. Stakeholders would include clients/customers so I believe a communication in the form of a letter/email should be sent out to all the client base explaining how the new payment process works and how it will benefit them. The most important part is to promote it as a positive change for the client/customers. Assessment Activity 3 1. Define sustainability and outline why organisations should develop workplace sustainability policies. Sustainability in a business sense is the management the impact the organisation has in it’s environment. The impact can cover areas that not only include the â€Å"environment† but also the staff, client base and even the finances of the organisation. Developing Sustainability policies is very important in a number of ways. It can be promoted by the organisation that they follow this policy in order to achieve a smaller carbon footprint, however at the same time this could be saving the organisation money. For example, the organisation decides to implement double sided printing, now this is reducing paper usage which is fantastic to the environment, however it is also reducing the amount of paper the organisation is purchasing, therefor reducing expenditure. 2. Research environmental management issues for the workplace and state why these issues should be taken into consideration when planning and managing an organisation’s operations. The main issue as with most organisations is their impact to the environment and their footprint. This can effect a number of areas within the organisation, including reputation to their clients/customers, general publics views/opinions, employees and even the companies finances. In an office environment such as Status Industries. The main concerns are overuse of paper and printing products, lighting usage and power consumption. These can all be addressed. See table on next page how Status Industries has engaged these issues with policies. Environmental Issue Impact Resolution Result Over Usage of Paper in printing Environment, Cost of Paper, Paper Wastage Double Sided Printing forced on all Xerox devices within organisation Dramatic reduction in paper usage. Cost of paper saved. Colour Printing Usage in office High usage of colour toners where not needed, cost impact as colour prints more expensive than black and white. Force default Black and White printing. Requiring staff to have to select colour printing if they require it. All Staff email sent explaining cost of colour printing over black and white Black and White printing increased. Less colour toner usage. Cost savings. Lighting Lighting currently on 24 hours a day. Expensive power bills and waste of electricity Timers installed on lights to switch off at 8pm every night and to be off over weekend periods Dramatic cost saving and less usage of power. Cost saving on replacing globes. Electricity Wasting Computers and monitors switched on 24/7, wasted electricity usage, expensive electricity bills Email sent out by management detailing a new policy to switch off PC’s at night when finished. Exclusions from this are staff whom like Reduction in power. Reputation from general public boosted as windows are on main road and public can see Monitors are left on at night time. Assessment Activity 6 You have been asked to develop strategies to ensure that systems and processes are used to monitor operational progress and to identify ways in which planning and operations could be improved. In particular, your organisation wants you to determine whether processes currently carried out by employees are as efficient as possible. How would you go about doing this? Firstly you could perform an audit of the current processes. Let’s look at a new employee process and how this is setup from at an IT viewpoint. The current process below Now there have been several flaws in this process. Mainly the communication breakdown with Human Resource and IT which has resulted in accounts not been created in time. There are ways to alter the current process and instil new procedures to ensure the process is more successful. The proposed changes are below: A timeframe of at least 10 days for Human Resource to allow for the completion of IT’s account creation and asset allocation (PC/Laptop, Mobile Phone) Accountability to one staff member in Human Resources to communicate with an IT staff member regarding any change to the process and vice versa. A written and ISO approved document on the procedure. This is from the beginning stages with HR to the finishing touches on the IT stages. This is to be given to all staff members in both departments and signed by each staff member. So it is on record as being understood by each employee in case further action/education/disciplinary discussion is required. Assessment Activity 7 You have determined that adjustments should be made in your work team. Changes need to be made to the way customer complaints are recorded and dealt with. How would you go about communicating the need for change to strategies to relevant stakeholders? Relevant stakeholders internally are first and foremost the executive team, they are the ones that make the organisational impact decisions. Changing the way customer complaints are dealt with is something they will need to provide input for. Once they have approved the said solution this should be communicated in several forms to the customer base. This can be done by posting letters, emails and on the main page of a website. In the planning stages communicating three different alternative solutions to Executive Management would be a good first step. Explaining and selling the reasons why this should be changed. The main goal in mind for making a change that effects customers, is to ensure it is a â€Å"better solution† A good example of this is a large organisation such as Telstra. They have a reputation for having less than satisfactory customer service via phone. Customers have complained about being transferred multiple times and not getting a solution. Telstra has made large steps to improve customer service and have introduced a â€Å"Chat† service. This is ideal for people who have a desk job and don’t have the time to be on a phone. You speak to one representative and can explain information a lot easier. This is a very positive step that other organisations in the industry have followed. Selling the vision to relevant stakeholders, explaining how it will benefit the customer base. Remembering please customers not only retains a base, it can increase reputation and perhaps even allow for expansion of customer base. Assessment Activity 9 2. Give examples of aids/tools that can be used to document the data from a checklist Several graphs and tables can aid the recording of this data and also to report on the data collected. Such Graphs that could be used in this instance are Pie Graph to show the amount of a certain defect on a certain shift to compare where most of the errors are occurring Line Graph to show where the peak period of errors occur Histograms to show similar to the above Example of a Pie Graph for the above table 3. Why do graphs and charts provide a good representation of data? Graphs and charts provide a graphical view of the overall picture. As shown above in the Table of Data and also the Pie Graph. Straight away by looking at the Pie Graph you can see the trend. When analysing data Graphs are the best way to do this instead of tables. It can be a quick reference guide compared to sifting through a large amount of numbers. On the subject of trends. Line Graphs can show this better than most methods in some cases where using a line graph is applicable. For example. To see how many defects over a 24 hour period took place in a factory environment. Here you can see where defects dipped and were at a minimum and also peaked and showed a maximum. From this data you can easily see where pain points are in a situation and then provide a possible resolution. Assessment Tool 2 1. How can an organisations continuous improvement processes be communicated to all stakeholders and how can individuals and teams be encouraged and supported to embrace it? Communicating change in any organisation is important. Stakeholders in certain situations depending on the scale of change could include almost every employee. Best practice is to have a seminar or training session to highlight the need for certain changes or continuous improvement. For example if the organisation wants to be ISO accredited in a certain area, then it becomes vital for all employees to play a part. Explaining the positives the improvement will entail will certainly sell the vision. 2. Having made a decision about what to do to improve an organisations processes, what should you do to plan for the implementation of that change? A Project Plan is always a good start. This can outline the schedule and resources required, identify the tasks and objectives associated. Communication again is very important with any change, to ensure all of the organisation (if applicable) is aware of the change. The key thing to remember is, people don’t like change if they haven’t been advised. 3. Explain the difference between Feedback and feed forward control. Feed-Forward Control is a measure that regulates inputs. This can be resources such as human resource, financial and material. This is a proactive measure to allow management to prevent issues instead of having to resolve them later. This is known to be a time consuming exercise, 4. What processes might be used to ensure that team members are informed of outcomes of continuous improvement efforts? Why is this necessary and how will this contribute toward further improvements? Reports can be sent to team members on a set time frame (monthly, quarterly) this could include data and graphs/tables. Graphs are a great way to visually see trends and also to gauge whether there has been improvement in  a certain area. It also determines where there are possible issues. It allows the team to strategize where and how they can improve. 5. What is continuous improvement? Continuous improvement is an infinite process to improve a service, product or process. Depending on the type of industry the organisation is in will determine what areas of will utilize this type of method. Let’s look at an IT department, who has an inbuilt database every employee uses for the day to day tasks. A prototype has been created of this software, and it is in production. However there will always be room for improvement for any software, so constant updating is done on the software, the applications team within the IT Department work each day on add-ons or improvements. What started out as version 1.00 has now turned into 2.34 in the space of 3 years. 6. What can you do to support improvements now and in the future? Improvement in an organisation comes with ideas from the team. This can be suggestions raised in meetings, feedback and communication. The only way to improve processes, products or services is to communicate with departments and key members of staff. Having evidence in front of employees such as graphs is a great way to visually demonstrate where improvement is needed in certain areas. Concentrating on weak points in the organisation is the key to improvement. Assessment Tool 3: Project Continuous improvement is common in most organisations in some degree. This is an exercise that can cover a number of areas. Usually the three areas are as follows Process Products Service Process in the context of continuous improvement can look at ways to improve the said process. Let’s look at the example of a crucial process in a majority of organisations. A login is required for every employee who starts with the company. This is for them to login to their desktop and perform day  to day functions. The process is as follows. The problem is with this process is communication is relied upon. There is no official area where data can be obtained. IT need to wait for HR to provide information, then HR have to wait for IT, The manager of a new employee has to wait for IT and HR. There has been several flaws with this. Improvement can be done is a number of ways. 1. Have a meeting with HR and IT to establish procedures and timeframes 2. Look at a more centralised system where details can be accessed. It was later decided a shared calendar on Sharepoint with email alerts when entries are created to be sent to all HR and IT staff. HR would enter a new starter on this calendar, IT would see the details and create the account. They would then add the relevant login details to the calendar and notify the manager. This is seen as a better process, but one that can still be improved upon. There can be a period of trial over a set timeframe to see if it can be improved even further. Taking as much manual labour out of the equation will reduce the amount of errors, oversights etc. Now looking at service. Customer Service or Service Delivery (in an internal environment) is extremely important in any industry. Good customer service means happy clients, more clients which leads to a successful organisation. Let’s look at the example of an ISP. They have 3 core call centre departments, a Sales, Billing and Technical Support area. How can we gauge what customers impressions are of the level of customer service? A good way is after a phone call to have a rating system where a customer can rate the level of service is received from 1-5. 5 being exceptional and 1 being appalling. This is the first step in continuous improvement in customer service. The survey could be on going or could be over a set period. Either way reporting could be sent on the results to managers/team leaders. There might be a number of trends identified. Staff with exceptional consistent ratings could be rewarded. Staff with lower or appalling ratings could be trained to improve their skill. Reporting for this survey could be time stamped, so graphs could be created when staff aren’t providing a good level of customer service. You may see a trend like Monday being the worst performing day or  Friday afternoon. Education, Training are a number ways to continue the improvement of customer service. As well as awards or rewards as stated above. The final area is products. If an organisation is in the business of developing and distributing products, their main concern with continuous improvement will be developing this product to ensure it is the best in their market. If in a mass production environment, quality control would be paramount to ensure product defects are at a minimum or non existent. Earlier in this document a graph was created showing defect levels over certain shifts. This is a great way to isolate where improvement is needed. Why did a certain shift have so many defects? Is there something wrong with the team who is assigned to these shifts? This may involve further staff training, disciplinary action or new staff members involved. Sometimes it could be as simple as making a clearly defined process to get a product complete without issues. Let’s look at the example of Microsoft. They are the pioneers of operating systems. According to data for the years 2004 – 2009, Microsoft on average has covered around 90% of the market across the globe. (see graph on next page) This is an extraordinary number and one that comes with pressure and responsibility to ensure its product is up to an elite standard. Microsoft will release Operating Systems every 4 years on average, however after the release they will continue to build on the operating system. Adding features, fixing bugs, improving the overall experience. Also it offers support to customers with forums such as Technet and the obvious customer support. The updating is the main part of continuous improvement. This builds towards the next version of the Operating System which in some cases not all, will be an absolute improvement over the predecessor. Example being Windows 8, they have received overwhelming feedback that consumers are not favourable of the start menu being removed. They listened and implemented a start menu of some description in Windows 8.1 and it will return in Windows 10. Risk Management comes into play with most decisions or implementation of a new process. With the three examples shown above a Risk Management assessment of some degree/scale would be included. For the example. Microsoft would need to investigate whether continuing support for an operating system would be viable. They will usually release a statement to  the public explaining how long their support and updates will be created for Operating System. Microsoft also would have weighed the pro’s and cons for implementing a start menu feature into 8.1. Customer satisfaction is a high priority, however if it isn’t feasible it would be a risk to implement it. As you’re using resources and time to implement something rather major. Wouldn’t this be better spent developing on the next version. How does continuous improvement affect employees? This question is very important. As employees are a major part of how well an organisation succeeds. An example of this would be an entrepreneurial firm which is small. Employees are driven to succeed because a sense of ownership due to it being only around 20 staff members, each is aware of their responsibilities and are directly accountable for certain roles. However the firm’s hierarchy believe the best way moving forward is to grow. As the growth takes place the sense of ownership has decreased. The culture will understandably change. Therefor it is incredibly important in the early stages prior to making major changes such as growth, that the organisation creates a culture that values accountability and to provide for accountability in organizational design. Communication in a small company will be different to a larger one. There would be little need for formal communication and any sort of reporting as they are all in th e same small location. They also understand what is important to communicate due to the scale of workload. The change here as it grows would need to be subtle. Explaining to current staff the need/requirement to implement different ways we must communicate. It is logistically going to be impossible to have a general talk with another colleague about something critical when they are in the East coast of the United States and you are based at Head Office in Sydney Australia. If this is educated earlier, it will provide a better understanding from long standing employees on how it will benefit the organisation, this once again comes back to the culture created. The employee will see this will a positive for the organisation. Attitude towards change can vary dependent on factors such as the average age and tenure with the organisation as well. Why do organisations feel the need to incorporate continuous improvement sometimes is dependent on the type of industry. The pressures of certain industries almost forces organisation to  implement continuous improvement. The Business Environment refers to the factors that affect an organisation’s ability to be competitive in their market. Kodak for example, were a leader in photographic/camera film. However the environment changed around them dramatically in recent years with digital photography taking over the market. Film was no longer the medium used. It saw a decline in revenue ($14.5bn in 1995 to $2.35bn in 2013) A lot of companies would not of survived something this dramatic. Kodak revolutionised and changed their way of thinking. Kodak had to shrink in size and effectively start again, go back to basics. It kept the best minds they had to brainstorm how to continue. Kodak is now a leader in photo print paper, packaging, commercial film and speciality chemicals. Although Kodak isn’t a good example of â€Å"improvement† there is an argument for continuity. Not many companies have survived when hit with a change of the scale photography went through over 10 years ago. It is a credit to Kodak they were able to adapt to change and strive to succeed with improvement to the way they work in their industry.

buy custom Leadership in Health Care essay

buy custom Leadership in Health Care essay In order to understand fully the concept of leadership in health care it is imperative to realize the meaning of a good leader. A good leader is the one who puts away the personal ambitions that he or she has for the better good of the community and the organization taken as a whole. Therefore, he or she is able to unite and lead the workers to teamwork as they aspire to come out with the best out of the business world. So as much as the success of business depends on the employees, it also depends on the type of leadership that is given. Consequently, true leadership means that the leader has to come out with new ways and means of ensuring that the outcomes of every decision are positive. This can be done through critical monitoring and analysis of the employees at the workplace. One other concept about leadership is that it requires constant fine tuning and this means that the employers should always be on their feet getting the best qualified leaders to do the job that they requir e. The concept is the same in healthcare (Oliver, 2006). Therefore, healthcare practitioners constantly need to revise the way they understand the concept of leadership and this means that they have to come out with newer and better ways of tackling the problem of conceptualizing the attributes that a true leader should posses. The meaning of a word is that the leader has evolved drastically from the normal meaning of someone whom is leading to someone who has the authority over his or her subjects but uses it appropriately. Therefore, an empowered leader is the one who is needed by an organization in order to prosper. In the modern world healthcare units, leadership is identified as a common but essential role that is needed to empower the organization and move the ideas that the practitioners have towards better side in terms of provision of services. Thus, leadership is no longer something that the health care practitioners can do without. There are numerous styles that are usual ly employed in the health care system in order to attain the kind of leadership that is not oppressive but at the same time is still not reluctant. There are usually a lot of similarities in the health care environment and also differences that are yet to be discovered. However, one factor that stands out is that the new healthcare environment does not employ the same kind of leadership that was employed in the past years but in contrast, the new leadership styles are not only diverse but also they are more effective. Nonetheless, the most common type of leadership is the open door type of one that is very common amongst the leaders of complex healthcare organizations. This type of leaders does not rely on one aspect but in contrast, the leaders are decentralized and this means that they are more participative in the issues of the organization. However, the type of leadership that is rarely seen is the autocratic leadership which has dictatorial tendencies. In the recent past, there was a new wave of revolution that has required that leaders change the way that they focus on ideologies and come out with newer ways and means of controlling their employees. So this means that the leaders have had to reconsider the way that they carry out their duties and in overall this means a reconsideration of roles (Goodwin, 2005). Employees in the new type of leadership are unwilling to work under authoritarian rule due to the fact that they have been enlightened of their rights and the ways and means that they can change the paternalistic leadership towards being an open door leadership style. The new type of employees have greater need than the ones of the past century and this means that they have to come out with newer ideas since they can no longer work in oppressive environments like the olden day workers. On the contrary, many contemporary organizations still operate on the same basic concepts as the ones that were used by our forefathers. Employees have started demanding the type of leaders that are not only intelligent but also thoughtful. This means that leadership has moved from a central figure to being distributive across the field. For that reason, the mismanagement of employees by their leaders in the healthcare organizations in order to achieve the goals that the organization has set forth is not possible longer. Roles and Responsibilities The roles of leaders in the organization has been considerably changing from being overseers to becoming the radical and complex people who champion the rights of their employees while they are knowledgeable and also not self centered (Barr Dowding, 2008). The new roles that they have taken include: Teaching Inspiring and giving the employees confidence Empowering the employees Improving the performance through clinical supervision Rewarding and recognizing individual efforts Recognizing the needs for service Leading and developing services through the implementation of change They act as a bridge between the senior managers and workers Supporting the organization with knowledge Ensuring the goals of the organization are in line with the needs of the society and the government As aforementioned, the roles of the leaders in the healthcare organization have become even more diverse than they used to be. The leaders first and foremost are viewed by the employees and the senior members who employed them as teachers. This means that they are the ones who are to supervise them and also guide the way that they carry out their duties and this should be through dialogue and not through dictatorship. It also means that they are the ones who ar supposed to come out with new ideas that would greatly help the healthcare organization to move forward in terms of growth. The other role that the leader plays is to give the employees overall confidence in the work that they are doing in order to work them harder. This is indirectly some form of incentive (Shanks, 2011). Inspiring the employees is a key role in ensuring that the organization meets its goals as an organization that does not have inspired employees usually failing to succeed. In the new healthcare leadership s ystem, the other new role is to empower the employees in order to give them an idea that they are better than other employees in other organizations. When the employees are empowered it will mean that they will want to be associated with the organization in order to ensure that they portray the image that they have been bestowed. The other role of the leader in a healthcare organization is to reward the employees who have worked diligently in order to boost their morale and also encourage other employees to join the initiative of working harder in order to become better and recognized. In order for a leader to be respected, the first and foremost duty that he or she has to carry ensuring that the services of the employee are recognized. This will later grow into appreciation and, therefore, the whole process will lead to better understanding between the employer and an employee. Styles The style of leadership that a leader uses usually depends on countless number of factors. However, one factor that stands out is that the leader is the one who has the key when it comes to the matter of running the show. However, this supposition does not mean that the leader is in any way tyrannical as the modern day health workers are aware of their rights. There are different types of leadership styles in the new era organization. However, the most common one as aforementioned is the open door leader. The types of leadership are discussed below. Open-door Leadership Style This type of leadership style involves an open minded leader who is collegial in terms of the way that he or she runs the team. The leadership style is the most common nowadays due to various reasons and the most common reason as to why it is liked due to the fact that it leads to common satisfaction to both the leader and the employees. The ideas that are important move freely in a team are greatly encouraged. Therefore, this leadership style is one that is liked and very important in ensuring that an organization is steady and grows positively. The leadership style also ensures that everyone in the organization is given a chance to air out the ideas that he or she has in order to better the overall idea that would come out. One of the positive aspects of this type of leadership is the fact that it provides creative groups. This means that there is the flow of ideas amongst the team members and this overly leads to positive growth. In addition to that, it creates new concepts and id ea. The other positive aspect is that this type of leadership involves consulting. This is a major component that makes this leadership globally acceptable. The possibilities are widely explored before the final decision is made that would encompass all the ideas that are important (McConnell, 2011). The other positive aspect of this type of leadership is that it is very applicable to much of the service industry. This means that there are new ideas that help in the creation of a flexible environment. This in addition means that it is easily applicable since the demands of the patients are always considered. The other good aspect about this type of leadership is that it requires knowledge and, therefore, it is imperative that the leader who uses it has some basic education. This is in line with the modern way of leadership that requires knowledgeable leaders. In addition to these positives, this type of leadership is also quite effective considering some facts about it. The first fa ctor is that this type of leadership enables open communication. This type of communication is one that is open for business and also helpful since it helps to avert situations like strikes amongst health workers due to miscommunication. The leadership style is based on the notion that everyone needs to be free and willing to contribute whenever a matter of concern is raised. From the factors being discussed, it is evident that the open door style is the kind of leadership style that is bound to be present for a long period of time. On the other hand, one factor that the leader should always keep in mind is the boundaries that it creates and this is made to ensure that the employee does not have the notion that the leader does not require respect. This is good for both the organization and the individual. Authoritarians Authoritarian type of rule is linked to miscommunication and the unwillingness by leaders to share ideas and support unity amongst the employees. This type of leadership was considerably witnessed during the golden era but nowadays it is unheard of it in the health care system as the employees would no agree to it. The failure of a leader means that the whole health care system fails. In the past, the employees of numerous organizations did not get support from their heads and this meant that they had to involve themselves in activities that were not productive. In the healthcare system where this type of leadership was practiced, the new employees did not feel welcome and secure even if they were offered job security packages. This is obviously transslated to low productivity in the job area which meant that there was an overall failure by the company visvis the health care organization (Pelote, 2007). When these types of leaders are told of the wrongs that they are doing, the best response that they give is being even more aggressive and that is why this type of leadership is not welcome in the healthcare profession. Authoritarian leadership is not widely practiced but if it were, there would be numerous oppositions across the nursing world since the workers have come to know of their rights more clearly and would not accept the oppressions that it brings forth. However, one factor that stands out is that the Theories of Leadership in Western Health Care There are four major theories of leadership in western health care. The first one is the participative theory. This theory presupposes that the ideal type of leadership is one that takes the ideas of other people into account. Therefore, this type of leadership is centered on the unity of ideas and the will by people to come together and share whatever they have for the overall benefit of the health care organization. It is widely practiced in the western healthcare institutions as the new generation of employees prefers this type of leadership to the authoritarian rule. On the other hand, it is the leader who allows the input of specific members. The other leadership hypothesis is the management theory. This type of leadership is also referred to as transactional theory and is mainly focused on supervision of the workers. The other main focus is group performance as the aforementioned theory. This theory bases the leadership on rewards or punishments. That is, if an employee works h ard, he or she is rewarded and if he or she fails, he or she is punished. This type of leadership is also greatly and vastly used in the healthcare system. The third theory is the relationship theory which is also referred to as transformational theory and focuses on good connection between the healthcare leaders and the employees. Therefore, the leaders motivate and inspire their subjects as discussed earlier in this paper to come out with an overall good type of leadership. Thus, the main focus is unity for help. The other focus of this type of leadership is focus on positive performance and therefore, it is an important one at the job market and also the society on the whole (O'Grady, 2010). The members are additionally encouraged to focus on ways and means that they can fulfill their goals of excellent performance. Ethics and morals are what guide a leader of this type. The final theory of leadership style in western healthcare is the trait theory. This theory presupposes that p eople inherit some traits that carry the way that they perform and relate in the job area. These types of leaders assume some social class and traits that are not common amongst any type of leader and that is why they are viewed as unique ones. In overall, these theories of leadership in western health care are excellent since all of them subject to performance and unity plus universal decision making in the job area. There is the distance between the 'heroic' concepts of leadership and the present day reality of health care Heroic Leaders A heroic leader is one who uses the power that he or she has in his or her position to make unilateral decisions. Consequently, this type of leadership assumes all the blame that befalls on the employees and is something that is quite obvious in history. However, the new types of leadership are defined as post heroism leaderships. With that noted, there is a great distance between the concepts of heroic leadership and the current reality. In the current reality, the type of leadership that is happening is one that encourages individual participation unlike the heroic leader who is deemed as superior and the one who makes all the decisions. The heroic leader is someone who is focused on one goal while the present day healthcare leaders even though they deal primarily with the health care system are the diverse in thoughts and actions (Benington Hartley, 2010). A good example would be to look at the governance that was in the olden day health care institutions and the one that has bee n assumed in the contemporary health care institutions to note the great difference in the way the leader was revered but not respected unlike the contemporary leaders. Therefore, the two type of leadership not only have differences but also diverse ones that are born with time and ideas that the employees have on leadership. In the past, the employees preferred a leader who was authoritarian and the legal system could not assist them come out strongly unlike the current times. Sometime the heroic leader was usually defined more of a state than a realistic version. This is because this type of leader is not easily found in the society due to the fact that he or she is the one who takes the blame of the team. It is highly unlikely that a leader like this would be effective in terms of decision making and that is why the new breed of leaders are the best as long as they do not encourage tyrannical rule. Heroism does not really help when it comes to matters of decision making due to th e reasons that have be listed above. The new world order is quite different and that is why the role of the health practitioners in addition to the ideologies are changing and that is why democracy which sometimes is referred to open minded leadership is the one that contemporary leaders really use. The discussion above clearly shows the pros of being a good leader which are known to cause the success or failure of a company visvis in this case scenario of the healthcare centers. Buy custom Leadership in Health Care essay

Advanced Mouse Processing in Delphi Applications

Advanced Mouse Processing in Delphi Applications You might already know how to handle some basic mouse events like MouseUp/MouseDown and MouseMove. However, there are times when you want your mouse to do what you tell it. Basic API stuff Many of us write programs that are designed to work only with the mouse. If we are writing programs that require mouse presence and/or are dependent on the mouse we have to be sure that various things are set up the right way. Is Mouse Present? The quickest way to see if the mouse is present: Animated Mouse Cursor Heres how to use animated cursors (or even how to use a BMP as a CUR): Positioning the Mouse The SetCursorPos API function moves the cursor to the specified screen coordinates. Since this function does not get a windows handle as a parameter, x/y have to be screen coordinates. Your component does use relative coordinates, e.g. relative to a TForm. You have to use the ClientToScreen function to calculate the proper screen coordinates. Simulations On most occasions we want the mouse to move to a certain position on the screen. We know that some components do not respond to a cursor change until the user moves the mouse, we have to provide some small move-from-code technique. And what about simulation mouse clicks without calling the OnClick event handler? The following example will simulate mouse click event on Button2 after the click to Button1. We have to use mouse_event() API call. The mouse_event function synthesizes mouse motion and button clicks. Mouse coordinates given are in Mickeys, where there are 65535 Mickeys to a screens width. Restrict The Mouse Movement Using the Windows API function ClipCursor, it is possible to restrict the movement of the mouse to a specific rectangular region on the screen: Mouse Enter, Mouse Leave? Detecting entering and exiting of the mouse pointer over a component is often coming up when writing your own component. All descendants of TComponent send a CM_MOUSEENTER and CM_MOUSELEAVE message when the mouse enters and leaves the bounds of the component. You will need to write a message handler for the respective messages if we wish to respond to them.

Judaism and Islam Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Judaism and Islam - Research Paper Example It is also referred to as the Pentateuch because it is composed of the five books of Moses, namely, The Book of Genesis, The Book of Exodus, The Book of Leviticus, The Book of Numbers, and The Book of Deuteronomy (Jewish Globe). Interestingly, these books are also found in the bible used by Christians and the accounts contained in these books can also be found in the Moslem Qur’an. They believe that the words contained in the Torah are the very words of God; they are not mere words of men who were inspired by God. The Torah contains the words of God himself. For this reason, the Torah is revered as the holiest of all the holy documents of Judaism. As a matter of fact, once it is destroyed and rendered unserviceable, it is given a ceremonial burial. A case in point is the elaborate burial of 11 Torah scrolls that were destroyed by fire in July 2010 in Bnei Brak, a city located on the east of Tel Aviv, Israel. Members of the faith mourned the scrolls’ destruction during an electrical fire at the synagogue. They placed death notices around the city and the burial rite which was attended by several rabbis and thousands of ultra-orthodox Jews made headlines around Israel. (Ettinger) It is worth noting that the Jewish tradition invests a lot of time, energy and resources in order to reproduce their sacred texts as they appear in the original form. Especially in reproducing scrolls for use in the synagogues, they still use the traditional materials, namely, the parchment paper and quill pens of the ancient times. Even the manner, the method and the stroke of writing the texts are maintained in its original appearance. As a matter of fact, the Jews take pride that â€Å"the oldest known parchments (the Dead Sea Scrolls, produced shortly before the Common Era) are virtually identical to those produced today† (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Judaism has several sacred texts. At the pinnacle of the hierarchy of sacred texts is the Torah. The other sacred texts in Judaism are the Nevi’im and the Ketuvim. Together with the Torah, these three sacred texts form the Jewish Bible known as the Tanakh. Unlike the Torah which is the word of God that was reve aled unto Moses, both the Nevi’im and the Ketuvim were written by prophets over an extensive period of time from the thirteenth century BCE to the sixth century BCE. (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs) In order to assist the faithful in reading and understanding the laws contained in the collective body of sacred texts called the Tanakh, religious and biblical scholars make commentaries on specific texts, words and lines in the Tanakh. Called the Targumim, these commentaries are â€Å"interpretive and contain fragments of exegesis and legend†

Joint Venture entry mode of Marks and Spencer in China Essay

Joint Venture entry mode of Marks and Spencer in China - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that entering into a new market has been commonly accounted as one of the major challenges faced by companies seeking the benefits of internationalization market expansion. In its course to diversify in the global plethora, the company needs to deal with many barriers including cross-border trade regulations, cultural paradoxes and various other socio-economic factors that are deemed to influence business operations in the targeted host country. Contextually, entering into the market of China also posed considerable challenges to Marks & Spencer (M&S), which is a renowned British multinational retail chain. Critics have thereon argued that it is fundamentally owing to lack of market understanding and appropriate strategies adopted by companies to mark its failure in Asian countries like China. Several challenges and problems encompass the entry of M&S in the market of China. With the opening of their first outlet in the Chinese market, the company experienced a dip in its performance, which was accounted as considerably lower than the expected level in the Chinese market. The outlets opened by M&S, at the initial phases of its operations in the Mainland China, failed to satisfy the needs of the Chinese local customers owing to the company’s lacuna to identify customers’ preferences in the market and offer services accordingly. For instance, the M&S stores were unable to provide garments of smaller sizes, as preferred by the customers in China. (Wood, 2012). Reportedly, the supply chain of the company was also lacking its usual effectiveness, which further inhibited the reputation of the company in the Chinese market, at its introductory phase. Additionally, it was also known that the management of the retail chain was implementing its strategic experiences gained from its operations in Hong Kong, irrespective of the fact that the consumer buying behaviour are found to be considerably distinct in these two regions. This again depicts the lack of market survey of the company taking into account the tastes and preferences of customers in the host country (China Retail News, 2009). In addition, the decisions taken by the company for not collaborating with any of the local firms in China, i.e. ignoring the benefits of JV also barricaded the utmost efficiency of its strategies by restricting the cooperation of local firms to a certain extent. It was thus considered as a mistake made by M&S, which retarded its smooth entry in the Chinese market. However the company focused on concentrating on its size and range of services offered to the Chinese customers as its major Unique Selling Propositions (USPs). Subsequently, the first shop of the company was opened in the Mainland and was propounded to be one of the biggest shopping centres in Asia. Nonetheless, this decision of the company came as a surprise for many investors in the stock market, as opening of the store came just after the global economic turmoil that kept investors wondering regarding the finances of M&S. It has also been noted that competition level from the local marketers were observed to be quite h igh in this area, as the local retailers are more competent in serving the customers in the market providing products preferred by customers of lower age groups and lower income groups. On the contrary, it would be vital to mention that the products

Registered Nurse who is being interviewed by magazine about roles and Research Paper

Registered Nurse who is being interviewed by magazine about roles and responsibilities - Research Paper Example To a professional nurse, it this would call for an understanding of the theories and principles upon which nursing practice bases. Therefore, a professional nurse essentially needs to exhibit social perceptiveness, active listening, critical thinking and effective communication skills. Nursing profession has greatly been stereotyped. Some of these stereotypes include nursing as a profession for kind but dumb women, widely perceived to be doctors’ handsmaidens. Timby (2009) blame the media for propagating these stereotypes. Nurses are in reality highly intelligent, required to have a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing before practicing, of which one requires to have had a diploma in nursing or passed high school proficiency examination before enrolment. Moreover, men increasingly choose nursing as a career and do well in specialties such as operating room, emergency and intensive care nursing. What the public does not know is that nurses’ roles include being a clinica l specialist and practitioner. For example, a clinical nurse expert in cardiac disease would provide expertise care to cardiac disease patients and nurse practitioners have been providing primary care health services in health institutions, especially in rural areas. Virginia Henderson, a theorist in the nature of nursing, is my role model theorist. This is because she appreciates the basic role of a nurse as assisting persons, both the sick and the healthy, gain independence, by putting oneself in the patient’s position. Nurses do not have it easy as it seems. Despite the limited room for conscientious objection to doctor’s orders, perceived as a challenge to doctor’s clinical judgment and psychiatry ethos, nurses do not just follow orders since they become morally culpable for every action they take. Thede (2012) cites the notion of moral agency that presumes every rational being as having the ability to reason morally hence responsible for their actions. As s uch, just following orders would be insufficient. Nurses require scientific knowledge to be able to decide the appropriate course of action despite having orders from doctors. The public could not be aware of the nurses’ responsibility of commitment to patient and informatics. Hence, for example, nurses have to ensure that patients sleep on pressure-relieving bedding materials so as to keep them safe from pressure ulcers. The informatics responsibility requires them, say, to use advanced computer and information technology to record patients’ notes faster and sooner than the traditional handwritten notes. There are values that are foundational in nursing career to ensure wellness outcome and optimal health in patients. Three of these that are core to keep during my nursing career include altruism, human dignity and autonomy. Altruism will see to it that I am concerned for the well-being and welfare of others as noted by AACN (2008). This would be reflected by my advoca cy and concern for the welfare of not only patients, but also nurses and other healthcare givers. The value of human dignity which entails respecting the inherent uniqueness and worth of populations and individuals will be reflected through respecting and valuing all colleagues and patients. Finally, autonomy which refers to the right to self determination will be

Health and Nutrition of Developing Nations

Health and Nutrition of Developing Nations Timothy Lee It may seem as an overwhelming task when attempting to understand the factors that are related to the health and nutrition of many, if not all, of the developing nations around the world. There is though one reoccurring factor that is constantly mentioned no matter where you begin your research into the issue, poverty. The mentioning of the term â€Å"developing nation† has become synonymous with the term poverty in my own mind. The issue at hand is how to turn these nations from developing to developed, which in turn would also contribute to the improvement of proper health needs and adequate nutrition standards for all. From malaria stricken nations to malnourished nations across the developing spectrum poverty plays a role. It is becoming more difficult now though to just blame poverty since there has been such a large influx in foreign aid to these developing nations[LL2]. Help is being offered, and it is upon the citizens of these unhealthy nations to take full advantage of these benefits, even if that means teaching the local populations the benefits of say sleeping under a bed net or feeding your children proper nutritional meals even on the low income budget that they have, as a few of the Millennium Development Goals have referenced. Source[LL3]: http://ih887.pbworks.com/w/page/5284039/Micronutrient%20Deficiency One of the biggest health related diseases that impacts such a large number of people and yet can be prevented is that of Malaria. In the case of providing bed nets to all families of developing nations to help in the prevention of malaria, the cost of providing the nets is very small and are in rather ample supply[LL4]. The benefits from using the bed nets, those being less infected citizens, stronger workforce due to the advancement of the individuals’ health, etc.., greatly outweigh any monetary cost[LL5]. The individuals that would use the bed nets would get sick less often, be able to work harder, and the overall income gains would easily cover the initial costs plus more. There are two sides to the argument of providing these simple bed nets for free. The first being that in developing nations where malaria is rampant, the poverty trap is so deep that they are to the point where they can’t even afford to purchase the necessities for the prevention of the disease, thus people like Jeffery Sachs suggests that if we were to finance malaria eradication for these developing nations then they would end up on the right side of his S-shaped curve on the road to opulence. The other side of the argument is that skeptics are not positive that malaria is the actual cause for that countries poverty and that maybe it is because of a corrupt government for their failure to eradicate malaria, and if that is true, then getting rid of the disease wouldn’t help. In my opinion, both arguments make valid points. It is reasonable to assume that a country is poor because of the health of its citizens and if health improved then so to would its economy[LL6]. That being said, it could also be seen as being naà ¯ve to think that the health of a nation would be the only factor in that nation’s economic well-being[LL7]. Despite the size, governments of all countries play an enormous role in their citizens well-being health wise, economic wise, and etc. b ut to look at a poor country and determine that one cause, that being malaria in this case, is the reason for that nation’s poverty, in my opinion, would be a misinterpretation of the causes of poverty as a whole. Note that Malaria is not the only disease that is rampant and plaguing developing nations but is by far the easiest example to point to and say, â€Å"It can be done†, the â€Å"it† being the prevention of the disease, the repossession of several million able body workers into the workforce, and ultimately the building of a weak economy. The next step for a developing nation would be to tackle the nutritional standards of its population and ensure that those needs are being met in a way to guarantee that the population stays healthy. â€Å"Just as micronutrient deficiencies can lead to increased susceptibility to infectious diseases, infectious disease can also contribute to micronutrient deficiencies since the body requires increased micronutrients when combating disease. Worldwide, between 140 and 250 million children suffer from Vitamin A deficiency (VAD[LL8]).Primary VAD is usually caused by prolonged dietary deprivation, in particular lack of vegetables and animal products, and is particularly endemic in areas where rice is the staple food (Muller Krawinkel, 2005).† The absence of adequate vegetables and animal products cannot be blamed on the average citizen but rather on the lack focus on the ecology, the economy, and the culture of the regions being observed[LL9]. Sachs view on the health of developing nations is that we should begin â€Å"scaling up† our efforts on the international side and support community health workers. While in previous Sachs arguments, that being about the poverty trap, I would’ve agreed with his views, but when it comes to providing educational matters related to health, or providing all the tools to a nation to improve their own health care system then when would that nation become self-sufficient and no longer need aid, educational help regarding nutrition, or their basic needs be met? [LL10]How long would we as the international community stand by and continuously pour money into these nati ons? In conclusion, there is without a doubt a definite need for foreign aid when it comes to the health and nutritional standards of developing nations[LL11]. These countries are in a rut, also known as â€Å"The Poverty Trap†, and can only climb out of such trap when the proper ladder is offered to help bring them out from the hole they find themselves in as Sachs explains it. This doesn’t however excuse these developing nations from all responsibilities involving their population and the providing of proper education, food, and economic well-being for its citizens. When a nation [LL12]has so called â€Å"low-hanging fruits† available to them but doesn’t or won’t take full advantage of these â€Å"fruits† even after the international community has exhausted its capabilities to educate, influence, and integrate proper health and nutritional standards then in my opinion said nations should be coerced [LL13]into following the protocol that other de veloping nations are following by having some sort of aid reduction policy implemented so that countries would feel obligated to begin doing for themselves what they should be doing all along[LL14], and until they show evidence of taking advantage of the â€Å"low-hanging fruits†. Works Cited[LL15] Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Esther Duflo. Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. New York: Public Affairs, 2011. Print. â€Å"Micronutrient Deficiency.† Ih887 /. Web. 25 June 2015. Muller, O., Krawinkel, M., (2005)Malnutrition and Health in Developing Countries.CMAJ, 279-286. Sachs, Jeffrey. A Call to Scale-Up Community Health Workers. The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com. Web. 25 June 2015. [LL1]Nice job Tim. Organization needs a little more work though. It’s a little hard to tell if your focus is on aid or health, or both and you’re missing a few opportunities to apply more critical analysis. Esp. conclusion seems a bit abrupt and doesn’t seem to link closely to your intro. It’s a bit short of the word count laid out in the syllabus, and a bit short on analysis and discussion in a few places. Otherwise, a nice project. Grade: 80 [LL2]Can you develop this more? How does the influx of aid make this more difficult? [LL3]Need to discuss/explain/introduce this graphic as part of your discussion. This is a bit choppy. [LL4]Need to cite these two claims. [LL5]According to who? So why don’t more people use them? [LL6]Develop this argument a bit more. [LL7]Good point. [LL8]Citation? And why is this bad? [LL9]Can we blame any other factors? Why are there fewer elephants in Kenya than in Zinbabwe? [LL10]I think I get your basic point, but the wording /structure is making it hard to follow you. [LL11]Not sure you’ve established this point†¦ your intro seemed to suggest that you saw merit in the idea that aid might hurt more than help†¦ [LL12]Do you mean the government/members of government or the population at large? [LL13]By who? We should send in the army? [LL14]Need to develop this idea a bit more in the preceding paragrphs†¦ what are some things that can be done, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of these proposals? Do they seem reasonable to you? Etc. [LL15]Works cited doesn’t seem quite uniform