Nurses as agents of disruption: Operationalizing a framework to redress inequities in healthcare access among Indigenous Peoples.

Health equity is a global concern. Although health equity extends far beyond the equitable distribution of healthcare, equitable access to healthcare is essential to the achievement of health equity. In Canada, Indigenous Peoples experience inequities in health and healthcare access. Cultural safety and trauma- and violence-informed care have been proposed as models of care to improve healthcare access, yet practitioners lack guidance on how to implement these models. In this paper, we build upon an existing framework of equity-oriented care for primary healthcare settings by proposing strategies to guide nurses in operationalizing cultural safety and trauma- and violence-informed care into nursing practice at the individual level. This component is one strategy to redress inequitable access to care among Indigenous Peoples in Canada. We conceptualize barriers to accessing healthcare as intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural. We then define three domains for nursing action: practicing reflexivity, prioritizing relationships, and considering the context. We have applied this expanded framework within the context of Indigenous Peoples in Canada as a way of illustrating specific concepts and focusing our argument; however, this framework is relevant to other groups experiencing marginalizing conditions and inequitable access to healthcare, and thus is applicable to many areas of nursing practice.

Critical success factors for the successful initiation of Lean in public hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal: a factor analysis and structural equation modelling study.

BACKGROUND: Lean thinking is one of several operations-management techniques which have yet to be fully embraced in the South African health care sector. In most health care managers' service delivery mandates, what needs to be done might be known, but it is how it should be done which might be alien to most managers. In order to recognise the "how", one needs to know the critical success factors for Lean initiation. METHODS: The research took the form of an observational descriptive study with quantitative methods. The objectives were to identify the key variables for the successful initiation of Lean and then to conduct factor analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) on these variables leading to the identification of critical success factors (CSFs) for Lean initiation. Simple random sampling was applied to select the participants from various categories of 500 senior managers across 73 KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) public hospitals. The sample size was 218, with a response rate of 96.8% (n = 211). For the purpose of identifying key variables for the successful initiation of Lean and then of conducting factor analysis and SEM on these variables, a self-administered, structured questionnaire was used. Data were reduced using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to identify latent constructs. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to determine the reliability and validity of these factors. Structural equation modelling (SEM) fit indices were then applied to assess acceptability of the measurement model. RESULTS: Certain variables were eliminated during EFA if they cross-loaded onto more than one factor, since this caused discriminant validity problems. In addition, if variables loaded weakly onto a factor, they were not retained. Three critical success factors (CSFs) were identified in this study: strategic leadership and organisational attitude; integration of Lean elements, tools, and techniques; and basic stability in operational processes. All reliability and validity conditions have been met (RMSEA = 0.085; CFI = 0.956 and χ2/df = 2.513), consequently rendering the model reliable and valid. CONCLUSION: None of the three CSFs can be viewed in isolation, as they all have significance at different dimensions of capability within the organisation. The use of these CSFs and the context, content, application, and outcome of Lean should be viewed in light of the organisation's strategic, technical, structural, and cultural environment. Further research in the effectiveness of these CSFs for the rollout of Lean in South African hospitals would be of benefit to the Lean body of knowledge.

Medical diaspora: an underused entity in low- and middle-income countries' health system development.

BACKGROUND: At present, over 215 million people live outside their countries of birth, many of which are referred to as diaspora-those that live in host countries but maintain strong sentimental and material links with their countries of origin, their homelands. The critical shortage of Human Resources for Health (HRH) in many developing countries remains a barrier to attaining their health system goals. Usage of medical diaspora can be one way to meet this need. A growing number of policy-makers have come to acknowledge that medical diaspora can play a vital role in the development of their homeland's health workforce capacity. To date, no inventory of low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) medical diaspora organizations has been done. This paper intends to develop an inventory that is as complete as possible, of the names of the LMIC medical diaspora organizations in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia and addresses their interests and roles in building the health system of their country of origin. METHODS: The researchers utilized six steps for their research methodology: (1) development of rationale for choosing the four destination countries (the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia); (2) identification of low- and middle-income countries (LMIC); (3) web search for the name of LMIC medical diaspora organization in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia through the search engines of PubMed, Scopus, Google, Google Scholar, and LexisNexis; (4) development of inclusion and exclusion criteria and creation of a medical diaspora organizations' inventory list (Table 1) and corresponding maps (Figures 1, 2, and 3). Using decision criteria, reviewers narrowed the number to a final 89 organizations; (5) synthesis of information to collect the general as well as the unique roles the medical diaspora organizations play in building health systems; and (6) developing inventory of respective LMIC governments' diaspora offices (Table 2) to identify units/departments that facilitate diaspora's work. RESULT: In total, the authors found 89 medical diaspora organizations in 4 main countries: in the United States of America 60, in the United Kingdom 24, in Australia 3, and in Canada 2. These medical diaspora organizations tend to have three focuses: providing healthcare services, training, and when needed humanitarian aid to their home country; creating a social or professional network of migrant physicians (i.e., simply to bring together people with an ethnic and professional commonality) and; supplying improved and culturally sensitive healthcare to the migrant population within the host country. Sixty-eight LMIC countries have established a diaspora office within their government office. It is also equally important to note that many policy-makers may lack knowledge of models for medical diaspora engagement or of valuable lessons learned by other governments about working with diaspora. CONCLUSIONS: The medical diaspora remains an underutilized resource in both health systems policy formulation and program implementation.

Providing Veterans With Innovative Nursing Educational Opportunities.

This funded project assisted veteran students to obtain a baccalaureate in nursing by aligning the skills learned through military training with concepts and skills valued by professional nursing and taught to nursing students. Nine concepts or skills were identified by nursing faculty that validated for course credit. The identified concepts and skills were incorporated into four simulation scenarios. Veteran students' skills were validated through simulation experiences in place of taking a three-credit nursing course. Anecdotal data from the debriefing process were rich with students' experiences and gratitude for being recognized for their military knowledge and service.

About Face: Toward a Culture of Innovation.

Intellectual curiosity is the gateway to an innovative mindset. Success is contingent upon what we do with that knowledge to solve problems in our everyday professional practices. However, merely 13 to 25 percent of college graduates enter the workforce with the desirable innovative mindset. Rather, a culture of mediocrity persists within facets of academia as well as the professional workforce. Given that the youngest ranks of nurses emerge from institutes of higher learning and are the future of the nursing workforce, it is appropriate for academia to begin the charge toward change. This article presents a pragmatic discussion of key antagonists to the adoption of a culture of innovation, namely factors that comprise a culture of mediocrity. Strategies that promote creative problem-solving and a shift toward a collaborative culture of innovation will be presented for nurses practicing within academia and the health care system.

Educational renewal of physician training in Australia and New Zealand: Multiple educational innovations in a complex environment.

AIM: The Royal Australasian College of Physicians is renewing its specialty training programs and shifting towards competency-based medical education. Our aim is to improve the quality and rigor of training and graduate outcomes, and promote high standards of physician practice to serve the health of patients, families, and communities in a changing healthcare environment. METHODS: We are progressing holistic change and multiple educational innovations in a complex environment. Numerous stakeholders, a disparate training landscape and a largely volunteer supervisor workforce pose challenges in supporting effective implementation. This paper describes our progress and experience with three key components of our education renewal program: curricular renewal, a new selection process and faculty development. It offers reflections on the practical challenges, lessons learned and factors critical for success. CONCLUSIONS: Our experience highlights opportunities for training organizations to maximize their influence over workplace training experiences and outcomes by taking a systems approach to the design, delivery and evaluation of the components of education renewal. We found that design, development and delivery of our multiple educational innovations have benefited from co-design approaches, progressive and concurrent development, continual exploration of new strategies, and implementation as soon as viable with a commitment to iterative improvements over time.

Speakers of the House Calls.

Emblem Health and the Coalition of Asian-American IPA, a large physician group, wants to break down the language barrier to better help Asian American patients. The idea is that traditional health plan home-visit programs can too often turn out to be disruptive, rather than helpful.

Proposed changes to nurse education: get ready to have your say.

Elizabeth Rosser, Deputy Dean (Education and Professional Practice) and Professor of Nursing at Bournemouth University, examines the radical changes to undergraduate nurse education currently proposed.

Health Care Evolution Is Driving Staffing Industry Transformation.

The powerful transformation in the health care industry is reshaping not only patient care delivery and the business of health care but also demanding new strategies from vendors who support the health care system. These new strategies may be most evident in workforce solutions and health care staffing services. Consolidation of the health care industry has created increased demand for these types of services. Accommodating a changing workforce and related pressures resulting from health care industry transformation has produced major change within the workforce solutions and staffing services sector. The effect of the growth strategy of mergers, acquisitions, and organic development has revealed organizational opportunities such as expanding capacity for placing physicians, nurses, and allied professionals, among other workforce solutions. This article shares insights into workforce challenges and solutions throughout the health care industry.

Building a Value-Based Workforce in North Carolina.

Health care in the United States is likely to change more in the next 10 years than in any previous decade. However, changes in the workforce needed to support new care delivery and payment models will likely be slower and less dramatic. In this issue of the NCMJ, experts from education, practice, and policy reflect on the "state of the state" and what the future holds for multiple health professional groups. They write from a broad range of perspectives and disciplines, but all point toward the need for change-change in the way we educate, deploy, and recruit health professionals. The rapid pace of health system change in North Carolina means that the road map is being redrawn as we drive, but some general routes are evident. In this issue brief we suggest that, to make the workforce more effective, we need to broaden our definition of who is in the health workforce; focus on retooling and retraining the existing workforce; shift from training workers in acute settings to training them in community-based settings; and increase accountability in the system so that public funds spent on the health professions produce the workforce needed to meet the state's health care needs. North Carolina has arguably the best health workforce data system in the country; it has historically provided the data needed to inform policy change, but adequate and ongoing financial support for that system needs to be assured.

Transition of New Graduate Nurses to the Workforce: Challenges and Solutions in the Changing Health Care Environment.

New graduate nurses face a host of challenges that impact successful transition to practice. Health care organizations thus need to understand how changes in the health care landscape impact new graduate nurses who are transitioning to the practice environment. This commentary discusses challenges and possible solutions to successful transition of new graduates into the work environment.

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For the general internist: a review of relevant 2013 innovations in medical education.

We conducted a review of articles published in 2013 to identify high-quality research in medical education that was relevant to general medicine education practice. Our review team consisted of six general internists with expertise in medical education of varying ranks, as well as a professional medical librarian. We manually searched 15 journals in pairs, and performed an online search using the PubMed search engine for all original research articles in medical education published in 2013. From the total 4,181 citations identified, we selected 65 articles considered most relevant to general medicine educational practice. Each team member then independently reviewed and rated the quality of each selected article using the modified Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument. We then reviewed the quality and relevance of each selected study and grouped them into categories of propensity for inclusion. Nineteen studies were felt to be of adequate quality and were of moderate to high propensity for inclusion. Team members then independently voted for studies they felt to be of the highest relevance and quality within the 19 selected studies. The ten articles with the greatest number of votes were included in the review. We categorized the studies into five general themes: Improving Clinical Skills in UME, Inpatient Clinical Teaching Methods, Advancements in Continuity Clinic, Handoffs/Transitions in Care, and Trainee Assessment. Most studies in our review of the 2013 literature in general medical education were limited to single institutions and non-randomized study designs; we identified significant limitations of each study. Selected articles may inform future research and practice of medical educators.

Building workforce capacity for ethical reflection in health promotion: a practitioner's experience.

Health promotion does not have a code of ethics, although attempts have been made to assist practitioners in their understanding and application of ethical concepts. This article describes and analyses one such attempt, sustained from 2006 to 2014 in rural South Australia. The attempt comprised capacity-building activities that were informed by principles of organisational change management, especially the principle of creating champions. The article also presents a framework (largely comprising ethical questions) that may help practitioners as a prompt and guide to ethical reflection. The framework was developed to be as accessible as possible in light of the diverse educational backgrounds found in rural settings. Finally, the article highlights some philosophical dimensions to the framework and defends its role, proposing that ethical reflection is integral to good practice and never simply the province of theorists. The article does all this with a view to stimulating discussion on how to increase the frequency and quality of ethical reflection undertaken by health promotion practitioners.

A changing landscape: mapping provider organisations for community nursing services in England.

AIM(S): To scope the provision of community nursing services in England after implementation of the Transforming Community Services Programme. BACKGROUND: Over the past decade, significant UK policy initiatives have shaped the structure, organisation and responsibilities of community nursing services. Understanding these organisational changes is important in the context of organisations seeking to deliver 'care closer to home'. METHOD(S): A systematic mapping exercise to scope and categorise community nursing service organisation provider models. RESULTS: There are 102 provider organisations representing a range of organisational models. Two-thirds of these organisations have structurally integrated with another NHS Trust. Smaller numbers reorganised to form community trusts or community interest companies. Only a few services have been tendered to an accredited willing provider while a small number have yet to establish their new service model. Local discretion appears to have dominated the choice of organisational form. CONCLUSION(S): National policies have driven the reorganisation of community nursing services and we have been able to describe, for the first time, these 'transformed' structures and organisations. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Providing detail of these 'new' models of service provision, and where these have been introduced, is new information for nurse managers, policy makers and organisational leaders, as well as researchers.

Transformation by design: nursing workforce innovation and reduction strategies in turbulent times of change.

The evolution of care delivery from an acute care and inpatient standard to the outpatient setting and health promotion model is generating the need for innovative workforce and infrastructure adjustments to meet the new paradigm of population health management. Successful transformation of the nursing workforce necessitates a positive style of thinking that addresses rational concerns during times of difficult transition. Nurse leaders are called to recognize and appreciate the strengths of the nursing workforce by involving them in the course of change through collaboration, planning, and discussion. One unique way to plan and develop new care delivery models is to adopt the framework used in health facility planning and design for new services, units, or hospitals. This framework is flexible and can be adjusted easily to meet the objectives of a small nursing workforce innovation project or expanded to encompass the needs of a large-scale hospital transformation. Structured questioning further helps the team to identify barriers to care and allows for the development of new concepts that are objective and in accord with evidence-based practice and data. This article explores the advantages and disadvantages of implementing innovative workforce redesign and workforce reduction strategies.

Finding and keeping health care providers in rural communities: culture change in recruitment at rural health group.

Transforming rural primary care is possible only when leadership is committed to a core set of competencies. Northeastern North Carolina, not always seen as an attractive locale for health professionals, has been developing a primary care medical home that emphasizes team-based care built upon respect, trust, and professionalism.

[Prevention of noncommunicable diseases in a local therapist's practice: content, problems, solution ways, and prospects].

High-risk and secondary prevention strategies for noncommunicable diseases in primary health care are mainly implemented by local therapists. The large-scale clinical examination of an adult population (a high-risk strategy), which has been launched in the country since 2013 to solve the problems of detecting people with noncommunicable diseases and their risk factors and making a prevention counseling, is simultaneously a mechanism for the formation of a full therapeutic area passport to identify follow-up groups (a secondary prevention strategy). Currently, there is an obviously insufficient follow-up of inadequate quality. The reasons for this situation are a lack of regular training of local doctors in follow-up in addition to staff shortages. Medical teachers and professional communities working on the basis of common guidelines must be attracted to solve this problem. The actual introduction of a local therapist's efficient performance measures, the setting up of special structures in charge of primary care prevention in the health authorities, and the active involvement of medical prevention and health centers (for people at high risk in the absence of proven non-communicable diseases) in this process will be able to enhance the efficiency of a follow-up. Information technologies, including a tele-follow-up, are an important reserve in implementing the high-risk and secondary prevention strategies.