An Idea about the Various Fields of Investigation in the Health Care Sector - Annotated Bibliography Example

Michael Clinton, 1968, Overview of the Australian Health care system, Australian Catholic University Ltd In this chapter, Michael Clinton provides an overview of the various services in the Australian Healthcare system. The author discusses the main features, primary components, health services utilization, health workforce, user characteristics, demography, and the regulatory and legal aspects of the Australian health care system and the main purpose is to provide an overview of the characteristics of the Australian Health care system. The scope of the chapter is broad and generalized and intended to researchers, health care students and Health care service personnel. Statistics gathered from Australian Bureau of statistics (ABS) and Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) from the major strength of the article and the graphs and charts are used in an excellent manner to make the readers understand the concept clearly. The statistics on Australian Health care system expenses and comparison with other countries and systems in the years 1990, 1995 and 1999 is expressed well with charts as a tool of comparison. Australia ranks fourth as per OECD rankings next only to USA, Canada, and France in the expenses. Then another important comparison is about the growth of hospitals in Australia which is classified into Government, Non governmental and private sectors. The Workforce patterns in rural and urban areas, User and population characteristics are identified from the visit to the hospital and percentage analysis is done. This reveals the various diseases that people including Australians, aboriginals and overseas born Australians are treated with. Various demographic relations including age, gender, socio economic status and various variables are taken into consideration. Then the author concludes with various regulatory and legal norms in the Australian health care sector however there are no critical discussions on the various policy directions in the health care sector and the author concludes that critical evaluation must be done in the future with the changing health care trends and user characteristics. The author teaches the researchers about extracting current and useful statistics data from Australian Bureau of statistics (ABS) and Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) which will be very much helpful for my research. The limitation is that it provides an overview of the various aspects in Australian health care rather than focusing on a single aspect. This chapter will be a solid platform and serve as a starting point and an excellent source of theoretical and statistical data for my research. Daniel P. Skarlicki , Robert Folger, 2003, HRMR special issue: fairness and human resources management, Human Resource Management Review, Vol 13 (2003) 1–5 Daniel P. Skarlicki is the Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration at University of British Columbia, 2053 Main Mall Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T1Z2. Robert Folger is the faculty of Business Administration at Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA. The professors discuss about fairness and human resource management practices in the editorial of the Human Resource Management Review. The professors educate the human resource managers and the researchers on the various fairness practices through various case studies. The main aim of the paper is to illustrate the role of justice research in enhancing the fairness of HR procedures. The strength of the editorial is the case study methodology adopted in conveying the results to the readers. The authors discuss various researches but fail to give their opinion which is a critique. The authors discuss the work of Thibaut and Walker (1975) in formulating the concept of procedural justice and research on fairness at work. Their work researched about the decision taken by the HR managers in allocating work and being fair. The interpersonal relationship between managers and employees is clarified with the research done by Bies (1986). Jerald Greenberg researched on adopting systems to bring fair practice and studied fairness perceptions and sales performance among salespeople whose pay system was changed from salary to salary-plus-commission. This study explains the failure behind most pay plans. Stephen Gilliland and Donald Schepers studied the fairness practices towards employees during layoffs. Most of the lay off practices are unfair and the organization policies play a big role in this unfairness. Leung and Kwong discuss the fairness of in the international arena by studying the practices in international joint ventures. The authors propose that the HR practices are different between companies and explain the various factors that lead to unfair practices. Blader and Tyler formulated a framework of procedural justice that incorporates both justice type and source of fairness. The authors conclude that the research on organizational justice is filled with controversies, puzzles and this field of human resource management is to be explored further indicating a huge scope for the researchers. This article discusses about the fairness practices in various situations and can be used for my research to study the fairness practices in the Australian health sector and also the article provides with a strong theoretical background to relate with the application of research. Alex De Ruyter (2004), Casual work in nursing and other clinical professions: evidence from Australia, Journal of Nursing Management 12, 62–68, Blackwell Publishing Ltd Dr Alex de Ruyter is a professor at Birmingham Business School, Ashley Building, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom. The main objective of this paper is to explore the casual and temporary work in nursing and other clinical professions in the Australian hospital industry. The author through his research has found that the casual and temporary work has grown rapidly in recent years and provides the readers statistics from ABS to justify his findings. The author has conducted his research based mostly on secondary data obtained from confidential sources like ABS and AIHW. The author criticizes the Atkin’s model and proves that casual and temporary workers are used for core duties in most of the private sectors and some of the government hospitals also. The author fails to give a theoretical explanation of the Atkin’s model which forms the major aspect in the case study. Hence it can be assumed that the paper is intended to the health care reformers, researchers, politicians and health care analysts to reveal the employment practices and strategies adopted by the management in the Australian hospital industry. The author gives a clear picture on the growth of casual and temporary workers in various clinical professions in the health care sector using charts, graphs and tables. Dr Alex de Ruyter gives good explanations and reasons for the increase in non standard employment in the form of casual and temporary workers. The author gives a yearly statistic indicating the decline of the standard employment in the various professions in the health care sector of Australia and the standard employment has reduced to as low as 18% in private hospitals compared to 82% in public hospitals. These statistics indicate the cost cutting and profit making measure adopted by the private sector. The justifications and statistics provided to prove the author’s proposal is the major strength of the article. The author through this article has proved and concluded that non standard employees in the form of casual and temporary workers form a major workforce in various clinical professions especially in the private sector and are primarily responsible for performing core activities. This will be useful for my research as it indicates the changing labor use practices in the Australian health care industry and I will consider the casual and temporary workers as important respondents. Stefane M Kabene*1,3, Carole Orchard3, John M Howard2, Mark A Soriano1 and Raymond Leduc1, The importance of human resources management in health care: a global context, Human Resources for Health 2006, 4:20 Stefane M Kabene was the main person conceptualizing and conceived the paper, worked on research design, did data analysis and led the writing of the paper. The rest of the authors helped Stefane in data analysis and reviewed the data and approved the final work. Stefane M Kabene is a professor at Management and Organizational Studies, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, and a visiting professor at School of Nursing, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. The rest of the authors are also associated with these institutions. John M Howard is a professor at Schulich School of Medicine, The University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada. Hence the authors have profound knowledge in the field of health and medicine. The authors explore the health care system globally describing the role of Human resource management in delivery of health care services and improving the health outcomes of the patient. The authors carried out the study in Canada and made comparisons in the health care systems between various countries. The authors have relied mostly on the secondary data which is a limitation indicating that the research is history. Primary data could have added more value to the study. The authors have identified the success factors affecting health care practices and human resource management by exploring the published literature and based on these factors make a country wise comparison. There is a lack of theoretical models in human resource management that is to be adopted in health care and for the comparison. This makes the research weak and could be overcome by focusing on theory part in human resource management. The strength of the article is the way in which key success factors are identified. The authors have described the various challenges and suggested measures to overcome these obstacles to improve health care models. The authors conclude stating that human resources play a crucial role in health care and further research is essential to develop new health care policies. This research is highly useful for my research in understanding the role of human resource management in health care. I can derive important variables from this research for my study and understand the challenges faced in the human resource management. Dr. E. Farley, 2000, Achieving a balance between risk and return, Health care financial management, June 2000 Dr. E. Farley is the dean and vice president of health policy and analysis, HSS Inc, Mary land. The author has immense experience in framing health care policies based on risk management principles. In this article, the author suggests the health care organizations to get more return by adopting the appropriate risk management strategies. The author accuses hospitals and physicians that the health care financial management is currently focused on health avoidance and considers risk avoidance. The major strength of the article is the application of the Capital asset pricing model (CAPM) to assess the risk and return. The author states the policy makers have shifted the risk to other entities but the author suggests the organizations to assume the risk according to the CAPM model to get maximized returns by reducing the cost per patient. However, the author fails to explain about how assumptions on risk could be made pertaining to the health care sector as CAPM is a general financial model and its assumptions does not hold good for the health care sector and the assumptions are to be modified. The role of Information system in health care in maximizing return is very important and the author details this part. The author discusses the various risk management strategies that can be used effective in the health care sector to improve the return. This section details the strategies but the applicability of these strategies is doubtful. Finally, the author recommends the risk adjustment and case mix classification system to manage risk effectively. The research is subjective and empirically the various risk management approaches are not justified which forms a weakness of the article. The article concludes stating that appropriate information on health of the patients and health care services effectiveness has a direct impact on the risk management and return of the organization. Hence the author recommends the health care organizations to invest wisely in information systems to provide accurate information in managing risk. This article will help in my research about the approach taken by health care sector companies in controlling cost. From this research, I have understood that information on health care services, patient records, disease symptoms and other health related aspects can be collected from the information system of a health care unit. This information can be helpful for my research and can be used a primary source of data collection giving more meaning to the study. Conclusion The annotated bibliography has revealed the various types of research and has given an idea about the various fields of research in the health care sector. By reviewing and criticizing the various research studies, I understood the format of a research paper starting from objectives to conclusion and the various parts involved in the research study. Through criticisms, I have understood the strengths and weakness of each article and will be able to use the strengths in my research and avoid the weakness found in the articles in my research. The importance of theory and its application in the research is clearly understood. I explain the implications of the annotated bibliography in each part of the research study that will be applied in my research work in the research methodology and data collection part. Various methods of data collection and vital secondary sources like Australian Bureau of statistics (ABS) and Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) were made aware of through this study. I understood that there are two types of data including primary data and secondary data and will include both the data in my research work. Primary data for my study will be collected through Questionnaire which is the primary method of data collection. Most of the articles discussed in the annotated bibliography are based on the secondary data and I also will use them in my research extensively. Secondary data has been collected from reference books, annual reports, brochures, leaflets, publications, statistics institutes and websites. Secondary data was secured quickly and cheaply for the study. Once their source of documents and reports are located, collection of data is just a matter of desk work. Secondary data extends the researcher's space and time reach with wider geographical area and longer reference period may be covered without much cost. The use of Secondary data broadens the data base from which scientific generalizations can be made. This is especially so when data from several environmental and cultural settings are required for the study. The most important limitation of secondary data research is the available data may not meet our specific needs. The definitions adopted by those who collected those data may be different; units of measure may not match; and time periods may also be different. For example, population census data are published two or three years later after compilation and no new figures will be available for another ten years. Hence, I will be using both primary and secondary data in my research. Regarding the research methodology, various research methods like case study, literature review, secondary data analysis, information system and other methods were known. Hence based on the above discussions, I will carry out my research work with appropriate segments of the research including introduction, objectives, annotated bibliography, research methodology, data collection method, data analysis, conclusion and recommendations. Annotated bibliography has provided insight into the various researching areas in the health care sector and will help guide in conceptualizing the idea and objectives for my research work. 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