Health Services Resource Centrehttp://hdl.handle.net/10147/2448942024-03-25T15:47:41Z2024-03-25T15:47:41ZQuality assurance in nursingFitzsimons, Deirdrehttp://hdl.handle.net/10147/2519342019-08-30T12:15:38Z1992-04-01T00:00:00ZQuality assurance in nursing
Fitzsimons, Deirdre
In the commercial world quality has to do with survival. But why should a nonprofit
organisation operating in the health service need to establish service
differentials with its competition in order to survive? Why bother to compete when
people are queuing up for this service?
These questions arise because some people consider it strange to spend resources
on marketing a school or a hospital in Ireland. However, since the birth rate in
Ireland has dropped, there are fewer pupils enrolling particularly in rural west of
Ireland schools. The schools for the first time are competing for pupils and seek
to avoid closure by encouraging more pupils through extra courses .
Equally, some hospitals in Ireland are under threat of closure at the present time.
If they had understood this threat five or ten years ago, a strategy of excellence
in performance in patient care in a particular area of treatment might have
protected them. An example of such excellence is a small hospital in Dublin which
offers a specialist service and which was threatened with closure. One of the
ways it avoided closure was to open a day care centre, to pioneer a five day
service and provide services to patients specifically for the convenience of patients
but not necessarily for staff. Most patients required once daily treatment . In the
past this often meant occupying a bed in the hospital for weeks. Now patients can
get their treatment at 8.00 a.m. before going to work.
1992-04-01T00:00:00ZManagement and management development for doctors in IrelandBrady, Mariehttp://hdl.handle.net/10147/2465332019-08-30T12:05:57Z1993-12-01T00:00:00ZManagement and management development for doctors in Ireland
Brady, Marie
Doctors has always been involved in the management of their own professional
practices. Over the past five or six years or so, there has been an increasing
emphasis on introducing doctors to management in the hospitals and other
organisations where they work. This trend is especially evident in OECD
countries, and Ireland is no exception.
This paper: details possible reasons for this increasing interest in Ireland;
identifies the major barriers to successful involvement of doctors in the
management areas, and the critical success factors;
outlines the management training and development opportunities for Irish
doctors; and
concludes with a framework for management development that meets
doctors' needs in the future.
1993-12-01T00:00:00ZManaging for health gain: a question of attitudeKelly, Donalhttp://hdl.handle.net/10147/2465132019-08-30T12:06:00Z1993-09-01T00:00:00ZManaging for health gain: a question of attitude
Kelly, Donal
Health Gain has become an increasingly common phrase in the nineties among health care
managers and planners. This brief paper focuses on the implications of this concept for
the healthcare system, with particular reference to its implications for healthcare managers.
The concept of health gain has been closely associated with the work of the Welsh Health
Planning Forum. A key aspect of the Strategic Direction that has been adopted by the
National Health Service in Wales is that it is health gain focussed: RNHS Wales seeks to
add years to life through a reduction in premature death, and life to years through an
improvement in well being for the patients and the population at large
The Welsh
approach acknowledges that the healthgain concept alone does not provide an adequate
strategic direction for the health services, and that it must be supported by two other
themes concurrently: the effective use of resources and a people-centred service.
Doyle has provided a simple, clear definition of hea1th gain:
-Health gain is a descriptive term to indicate that patients, users or
consumers of care should receive an output from their care. The output
should be either an improvement in health status or quality of life; that
is the person receiving care should be better off after the intervention than
they would have been if no service was received".
In this definition, relative improvements in hea1th status are seen as constituting health
gain i.e. there is a gain relative to what would have obtained without the intervention
1993-09-01T00:00:00ZImproving health status in Ireland: some lessons for managersBrady, Mariehttp://hdl.handle.net/10147/2451512019-08-30T12:52:07Z1993-09-01T00:00:00ZImproving health status in Ireland: some lessons for managers
Brady, Marie
The purpose of this paper is to generate discussion about improving health status, with
special reference to Ireland, about the role of managers in this process, and about the
challenges they face in exercising that role.
I have some lessons to suggest to you from the Irish experience, but the title of this paper
is deliberately double-edged, so I would very much like to be able to bring home 'some
lessons for managers' as a result of our discussion.
In order to focus the discussion in this presentation, I would like to do three things:
I. to outline where I believe we in Ireland stand on the health status issue;
2. to give two examples of health-focussed initiatives from the
modest, one somewhat broader in scope, and
3. to offer some lessons for managers from that.
1993-09-01T00:00:00ZHealth Services Resource Centre briefing paper no 3 on the 1988 Childcare BillBrown, Patriciahttp://hdl.handle.net/10147/2449132019-08-30T12:14:03Z1989-06-01T00:00:00ZHealth Services Resource Centre briefing paper no 3 on the 1988 Childcare Bill
Brown, Patricia
The 1988 Child Care Bill was at Committee stage when the general
election was called. The Bill was restored to the Order Paper after the
election, on 20 July 1989. The Committee stage commenced in November
1989 and about 200 amendments were put down on the Order Paper.
Agreement was reached to refer the Bill to a Special Committee of the
Dail to continue the Committee Stage. In a speech on the Bill in the
Seanad on 8 November, Noel Treacy TD, Minister of State at the
Department of Health, emphasised the Government's commitment to ensuring
the earliest possible passage of the Child Care Bill'.
1989-06-01T00:00:00ZConsumerism in the health servicesO'Sullivan, TimHealth Services Resource Centrehttp://hdl.handle.net/10147/2441942019-08-30T12:37:13Z1993-12-01T00:00:00ZConsumerism in the health services
O'Sullivan, Tim; Health Services Resource Centre
The aim of this paper is to reflect on the model and language of consumerism, which has
grown in importance in recent years, particularly in the health services context.
Consumerism in a general sense is here to stay in the health services. Efforts to improve
quality or responsiveness to the views and needs of health services users can be seen as
one of the most encouraging trends of recent times. 'Consumerism' has grown in a
context where there seemed to be little comment by service users on the services they were
receiving; still less a sense of participation by them in decision-making about their care
and treatment.
Consumerism in this wider sense has been very closely linked with 'quality', which is
partly about improving responsiveness to the needs of individual service recipients. This
paper begins therefore (in Section 2) with an overview of quality and consumer-oriented
trends in the Irish health services.
1993-12-01T00:00:00Z