Note: In order to fulfill this assignment you need to have read Hasker: ch 3. You also need to have viewed the video presentation “The Mind/Body Problem” and the PointeCast presentation “Proposed Solutions to the Mind/Body Problem.” If you have not done so, please stop now and read that chapter.
Science fiction literature often raises philosophical issues and is a great source for philosophical speculation. This is especially true for the mind/body problem. For example, it is common in science fiction literature to encounter androids. An android is a robot which resembles a human being in appearance and behavior. Examples of androids in science fiction books, television programs or films are numerous (Star Trek, Star Wars, Aleins, Terminator, A.I., I Robot, etc.). In reality many computer scientists are currently working in the area of “artificial intelligence” or machines that can “think for themselves.” Many computer scientists believe this is the first step in creating these androids of the future and that in time the distinction between man and machine will be practically erased. These scientists speculate that androids with super-computer brains will have thoughts, beliefs, feelings and desires just like humans. Therefore, some argue, they will also have the same rights, responsibilities, and privileges that all humans have and should be treated as thus. Do you see problems with this view of the future? Do you think machines can ever become persons?
In order to explore this question, let us consider an episode of the popular television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation. It would be helpful if you could view this episode (perhaps you can rent it from your local video store or Netflix), but I have provided a synopsis so that you can fulfill this assignment without viewing the episode. You will need to have read Hasker, Ch 3 in order to fulfill this assignment.
For your initial post: After reading the synopsis (or viewing the episode) write a substantive response (at least 350 words) and post it on the forum. Your initial post must address the first question below. You may also address several of the other questions as well but the bulk of your response should be on the first question and relating the story to Hasker, Ch 3.
• From your reading of Hasker, and using the categories he uses, what view of the mind/body problem do you think is exhibited by Picard? By Maddox? Support your answer.
• Maddox lists three criteria for a being to be sentient: intelligence, self-awareness and consciousness. Are these adequate? Can you think of other properties or characteristics a being needs to have in order to be considered a “person?” What might they be?
• Do you think that artificial intelligence to the level as it is presented in the story will someday be possible? Why or why not?
• Do you think Maddox is right when he claims that Picard is being “irrational and emotional” in his view of Data?
• Do you agree with the JAG officers final ruling. Why or why not?
• If A.I. does become possible, will we have obligations to treat machines “ethically?”
SAMPLE ANSWER
Androids and the Mind/Body Problem
Following a comprehensive reading of the text, Picard appears to have a materialistic outlook. On the other hand, Maddox portrays a dualistic view of the data. A cardinal component of Picard’s crew is data, and therefore, he has a strong belief that data makes cognizant decision independently and possesses feelings similar to the other members of the crew. This implies that Picard sees data as possessing a mind and body as one entity (Hasker, 1983). Maddox on the other side, has a belief that the mind and body are separate. He strongly holds that one must be self-aware, intelligent, as well as conscious so as to be regarded a human. His argument regarding the data is that it possesses no brain and is only a computer.
The three criteria listed by Maddox are cardinal as they sum up a person. All people possess all these traits and they have to interact for a person to be complete. There are no other traits that correspond to these already known three.
Without doubt, there are high chances of the presence of artificial intelligence in future as narrated in the story. To illustrate this, there are numerous people presently who own iPhones, which have the Siri program. This program is essentially a kind of artificial intelligence in that it learns as well as adapts to commands and personal habits. In addition, there are robotics companies that are developing adapting and moving machines. There is a great need for artificial intelligence to pull limitless information using the internet so as to learn (Hasker, 1983). Many people are most likely to side with Maddox and assert that data is basically a machine, and this involves disregarding what Picard is arguing.
UNIT 2:Principles of Health and Social Care ( POWERPOINT )
SAMPLE ANSWER
Communication in Patient Care Facilities
Hospitals and social patient care facilities apply concepts of communication in their day-to-day running (Schwartz, Lowe, & Sinclair, 2010, p. 1). Without communication, it would be impossible for institutions to deliver their services or even run. Efficient art of communication is indispensable for organizational success. There are various approaches that could vary the efficiency of communication from one organization to the other. These include communication skills, systems, infrastructure, channels, regulations, and policies among others. In patient care facilities, communication particularly occurs between institutions and their clients, health professionals and patients, organizations and their staff, as well as facilities and the external environment. Inefficiency at any point during communication processes could impair running of patient care organizations. Usually, following the complexity of communication processes in institutions, challenges may present when purposing to achieve effectiveness of information delivery and use (Bramhall, 2014, p. 54). Under such circumstances, it would be necessary for institutions to find means of enhancing their communication. The approach entails focusing on various aspects constituting the process of communication. These include the previously mentioned factors such as communication skills among health care practitioners, organizational systems and so on. This essay considers the case of Gracefield Hospital and its attempts to improve its communication processes. The institution is located in one of the busiest parts of London City. It serves people of varied social backgrounds and medical needs. The hospital is about to be upgraded to a foundation, and one of the crucial factors that would see to its successful acquisition of the status is efficiency of communication in the institution.
Use of Communication in Patient Care Facilities
Theories of Communication in Patient Care Facilities
Reputable patient care facilities have described communication as a central pillar that impacts on patient safety, quality of care, and patient satisfaction (Cleveland Clinic, 2013). As such, institutions should always purpose to have effective communication processes. However, ensuring that communication is effective is challenging for institutions. It is for this reason that facilities require pre-established models and theories for the ease of pursuing excellence in communication. Theories addressing communication matters in patient care facilities include the Theory of Planned Behavior and Health Belief Model. The Theory of Planned Behavior is an advancement of the Theory of Reasoned Action in that it adds up the concept of perceived behavioral control to its predecessor theory. The model hypothesizes that approaches that seek to cause behavioral change should target patient beliefs as they are the basis of attitudes (Niaura, 2013, p. 74). According to the model, behavior results from attitudes. The model further explains that behavior results from the intention of individuals either to perform or not to perform specific actions. In addition to attitude and perceived behavioral control, the theory also incorporates the concept of subjective norm. In patient care, health practitioners apply the Theory of Planned Behavior mostly when giving recommendations to their clients. The model enables practitioners to predict whether patients would adopt certain recommendations or not. Practitioners predict behavior by considering factors such as whether patients express positive attitudes or not. They also determine whether the subjective norm is supportive or not, and also, they evaluate the strengths of various behavioral intentions as expressed by patients. At Gracefield Hospital, clinicians apply the Theory of Planned Behavior when coming up with recommendations for their clients. By so doing, the professionals are able to offer the most applicable treatment and disease management approaches available.
On the other hand, Health Belief Model suggests that it is possible to predict patients’ behavior by evaluating the extent to which they consider themselves vulnerable (Jones, Smith, Llewellyn, 2013, p. 253). According to the model, people evaluate their vulnerability on the basis of their susceptibility to conditions as well as the severity of the consequences associated with such conditions. Usually, patient vulnerability and severity of the risks they face communicate whether patients would apply recommendations or not. By understanding such messages, practitioners would then offer effective advice to their clients (Bramhall, 2014, p. 53). At Gracefield Hospital, for instance, practitioners use Health Belief Model to offer health promotion advice to patients on the basis of their specific medical conditions. By so doing, clinicians at Gracefield Hospital utilize patient messages to enhance the effectiveness of their care.
Communication Skills in Patient Care
Communication involves much more than just the words people say (Royal College of Nursing, 2015). For instance, the tone and voice used in communicating would send certain messages to the recipients of information. Likewise, the attention that receivers of information offer sends a message to the persons delivering information. In other words, communication is not just about words, but also skills applied in the process (Ha & Longnecker, 2010, p. 38). Usually, communications skills could be verbal or non-verbal. The verbal aspects include the tone of communication, choice of words, and voice properties such as whether commanding, requesting, or begging. Other verbal skills include the speed of speech, fluency of communication, and articulation of ideas.
On the other side, non-verbal determinants are mainly body language, and they express one’s interest in communication (Royal College of Nursing, 2015). They include body posture, facial expressions, eye contact, gestures, and touch. For instance, a smiley face of a clinician would encourage patients to approach and communicate with their health care attendants than would do a frowning face. Again, a bored look such as when one is yawning would send the implication that clinicians are not interested in attending patients. In addition, practices such as failing to maintain eye contact create an impression of lack of confidence in one-self. Patients may not be interested to communicate their problems to care providers who fail to maintain eye contact. On the other hand, it is important that clinicians avoid staring at their patients when attempting to maintain eye contact. In addition, practitioners should understand that patients of different cultures may get different messages from maintenance of eye contact. For example, some cultures may regard it as a warm encounter while others could perceive it as being rude. In the same manner, different patients may have varied interpretations of practices such as making light touches and physical contacts depending on their cultural background.
In my earlier experiences at Gracefield Hospital, I made a few communication mistakes but for now I have corrected them. I recall that I used to tower over patients when communicating to them if they were lying on bed. I later learnt that the approach was not sending the right message to patients. Upon reflection, I realized that patient felt psychologically distanced from me. As for now, I set my stature to a reasonable level when attending patients so that they can feel that I am attached to them.
Handling Inappropriate Inter-Personal Communication in Patient Care Settings
Effective interpersonal communication is vital in patient care institutions (Ha & Longnecker, 2010, p. 38). As noted earlier, communication in these settings involve multiple parties including patients, clinicians, facility administrators, external parties such drug and equipment suppliers among others. For instance, nurses would require interacting with physicians, pharmacists, therapists, psychologists, dieticians and other relevant clinical personnel for them to understand the specific needs of patients. As such, it would be vital to have a system that promotes such interactions. Patient-centered communication is particularly critical and when it is inappropriate, it would directly impair the process of meeting primary goals of patient care institutions. When communication between patients and health care professionals is effective, patients achieve satisfaction, they tend to comply with treatment approaches, and eventually, they realize their desired outcomes (Negri, Brown, Hernandez, Rosenbaum, & Roter, 2010, p. 7). At times, interpersonal communication is impaired by certain factors within patient care setups. Such factors include language barrier, cultural differences, specific needs, and education disparities. Determinants also include ones associated with organizations, practitioners, and patients. So as to handle inappropriate interpersonal interactions, organizations should address the specific challenges impairing communication. For instance, relevant stakeholders would equip their facilities with modern communication devices to facilitate communication among healthcare professionals. Such infrastructure should also facilitate access of patient information so that practitioners can interact effectively with their clients. On the same basis, institutions should facilitate their interactions with patients by employing technological communication systems in patient follow-ups. For instance, institutions could have working call, messaging, and mailing services to encourage patients to keep in touch with their health care providers. Another effective approach applicable to handling inappropriate inter-personal communication include encouraging health care providers to employ effective communication skills. The strategy would include enhancing the skills of practitioners through training, capacity building, and internal campaigns. Adoption of communication policies would also effectively manage inappropriate interpersonal communication. At Gracefield Hospital for instance, communication policies define methods through which health care practitioners are expected to interact with their clients. These policies guide professionals in extending standardized and high-quality care to patients that is devoid of communication insufficiencies.
Caring for Patients with Specific Communication Needs
In health care, patients may present varied communication needs (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou, 2014, p. 65). In most cases, people with physical, mental, and sociocultural disabilities would necessitate specified strategies to address their specific needs. The deaf and the blind are particularly special groups whose communication needs would require extra skills and modification of systems to settle. For example, so as to cater for the needs of the deaf, patient care facilities should consider employing sign language specialists. Such a move would facilitate communication and overcome challenges such as having to waste too much time seeking external help. So as to facilitate interactions with crippled persons who may need to communicate regularly with health care personnel, organization should adopt practices such as encouraging the use technological communication strategies such as video calls to overcome the inconveniences associated with travelling to hospitals. On the other hand, institutions should hire professionals who can use brails to cater for blind people. Other approaches include addressing the communication needs of illiterate patients. For such patients, health care practitioners should consider beefing up written messages with images. Additionally, practitioners should consider giving practical illustrations instead of just directing patients verbally or through written instructions. Another special group that patient care facilities should attend with extra attention constitutes people who are affected by language barrier. Language disparities are likely to impair communication in patient care as professionals may not get the messages of their clients. Likewise, patients may fail to understand their health care providers if they do not understand their language. So as to address the needs of the group, institutions should employ professional translators. Alternatively, institutions should consult families of their patients to connect with their clients. However, the approach may be associated with too many inconveniences and it may be unreliable. For organizations that deal with people of different geographical regions, hiring professional translators would offer one of the most effective approaches to handling challenges of language barriers. For instance, Gracefield Hospital has established the sources of its customers, and it has employed professional translators for languages such as Russian, Spanish, German, and Indian. The personnel work with the communication and customer support department. The personnel facilitate attendance of patients by giving accurate and timely translations to health care professionals.
Influence of Different Factors on Communication Processes in Patient Care Facilities
2.1Values and Culture
Values and culture are important determinants of communication strategies during patient care. Though the culture of health care professionals also count in influencing communication, the culture of patients poses most of the observed challenges. Clinicians and social health care professionals should understand the cultural values adopted by their clients so as to avoid possible inefficiencies in communication. Usually, culture instills in people certain values and beliefs that could either promote or hinder communication (Kalliny, Ghanem, & Kalliny, 2014, p. 145). For instance, people of different cultures may hold varied perceptions on communication strategies such as disclosure of personal information. For instance, people could hold beliefs such as those restricting them from counting their parities. Some cultures would consider such practices as a taboo, and therefore, patients with such backgrounds would hesitate to disclose the information to health care professionals. Another excellent illustration of the influence of culture and values on communication during patient care is the instance of cultures discouraging men from disclosing their problems to women. For such cultures, male patients may offer limited information to female healthcare professionals.
Usually, clinical and social care professionals are expected to offer culturally-sensitive services. As such, it would be out of order for them to deny patients preferences motivated by culture. Rather than challenging cultural beliefs and values held by their patients, health care providers should seek alternative means of attending patients. It is also advisable to note that though some cultural values could be disgusting and unreasonable from the perspectives of health care professionals, practitioners should not express their frustration to patients. Instead, they should handle such situations in a friendly manner.
Gracefield Hospital is a culturally-sensitive institution. It encourages practitioners to adhere to cultural ethics described in their respective codes of practice. The institution also enlightens its customers by addressing mythical beliefs about communication that could be generated in the society and cultural setups. The institution exposes unfounded beliefs to encourage patients to communicate more effectively with their clinicians. However, Gracefield Hospital does not deny patients the right of holding cultural and personal beliefs by any means. Personally, as an advocate of effective communication at Gracefield Hospital, I would give scientific evidence to patients for them to reconsider beliefs that impair care delivery.
2.2 Impact of Legislation, Charters, and Codes on Communication in Patient Care Setups
Communication is a critical aspect in patient care. It entails requesting information, handling it, reacting to it, sharing it, and managing it. If not properly conducted, communication may impair service delivery, patient satisfaction, as well as patient safety. For such reasons, stakeholders have developed regulations and guidelines directing various practices involved in communication. The regulations range from legislative laws, charters, policies, codes of practice, as wells ethical guidelines. The application of these regulations discourages malpractices that could result with inappropriate means of carrying out various processes of communication. Some of the communication approaches considered worldwide is patient information on drugs. Laws and regulations protect patients from misguidance that could be motivated by financial interests of clinicians and social health care professionals. While the law encourages health care professionals to keep their clients updated on available therapeutic strategies, it discourages them from having vested personal or business interests when recommending management practices. Regulations also define interactions that hospitals should have with pharmaceutical companies (Francer, Izquierdo, Music, Narsai, Nikidis, Simmonds, & Woods, 2014). Such laws define concepts such as product promotion, non-promotion, and scientific knowledge and describe how such factors should be handled in communication between pharmaceutical companies and healthcare professionals or the community. Other regulatory communication laws include the ones that define knowledge delivery to patients and subsequent requests for treatment consent. Usually, ethical guidelines of patient care practice involve autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence, as well as justice (Selinger, 2009, p. 50). So as to grant autonomy to patients as directed through ethical guidelines patient care professionals require promoting patient awareness by communicating necessary information to their clients. After doing so, then professionals may request their clients to give them consents to take care of their needs. In the UK, professionals who may treat their patients without consent, or those who would use wrong information to acquire patient consent face severe legal consequences, and they are charged with battery (Selinger, 2009, p. 51). Other crucial legal frameworks governing communication in patient care institutions include the Disease Control Act established in 1984. The Act requires healthcare professionals to notify the public about infectious diseases and offer mandatory treatment for illnesses such as tuberculosis. There are also legal frameworks requiring health care professionals to promote patient confidentiality in their practice. For instance, practitioners are required to professionally evaluate the necessity to disclose patient information to other parties such as the police before acting. Other frameworks that influence patient communication with healthcare professionals include advanced care directives. Usually, practitioners are required to refer to such directives, more so if their patients are unconscious at the time of treatment. Gracefield Hospital has achieved its current position by avoiding communication malpractices that by adhering to professional laws as well as the British Constitution.
2.3 Organizational Policies and Appropriate Practice of Communication
Organizations shape the communication conduct of their staff through policies and systems. For instance, institutions could impose fines to their own staff that compromise patient privacy by inappropriately disclosing patients’ personal information. Again, institutions could influence various practices in communication such as the application of specific communication skills when attending patients. For instance, institutions would require their practitioners to always welcome their clients with a warm handshake or verbal salutation. On the other hand, organizations could structure and implement policies that would discourage practices such as distracting patient interviews. For example, institutions may require practitioners not to put their personal phones in silent mode when interviewing or educating patients. By so doing, organizations would set up a culture that impact on communication significantly. It is also possible for organizations to influence communication conduct by focusing on personal appearance and dressing code of practitioners. Usually, patients get certain messages by evaluating the general appearance of their health care providers (Ha & Longnecker, 2010, p. 40). In addition, patient care facilities would influence communication to patients and among professionals by adopting certain channels such as ICT devices. For instance, institutions could set up mailing, messaging, and calling facilities that would be facilitating the interaction of patients with their clinicians. Again, the mechanisms of staff supervision that patient care facilities adopt would impact significantly in shaping appropriate communication conduct. For example, if institutions are keen to patient responses about the conduct of practitioners, then the staff would most likely adopt good communication strategies to impress their clients so as to earn a reputable image by the management.
Gracefield Hospital is keen on setting up systems that promote appropriate communication conduct. The hospital has a working system where patients’ compliments and complains are discussed. Staff members are encouraged to handle their clients wisely and those who receive overwhelming complements from patients are rewarded. As such, staff members feel obliged to offer services that meet or surpass communication standards of the facility.
2.4 Improving Communication Processes in Patient Care Facilities
Social and health care institutions can enhance their communication systems through numerous approaches. For instance, organizations can better the efficiency, reliability, and speed of communication by adopting technologically advanced instruments (Robertson, Creswell, Takian, Petrakaki, Crowe, Cornford, & Sheik, 2010, p. 4564). An excellent illustration of technological systems that patient care facilities can utilize is the electronic health records (EHR). The systems would improve interactions between clinicians in different disciplines such as nursing, medicine, and pharmacy. Additionally, adopting EHR systems would provide practitioners with an opportunity to easily access patient information and make safe decisions. The other approach that could lead to improved communication processes is staff training and capacity building. This would entail advising practitioners on appropriate ways of handling patient information, updating them on patient care communication policies, and advising them on the best practices of handling controversial situations. Institutions should also focus on special groups when purposing to improve their communication systems. For instance, they can hire translators to facilitate communication with patients who present with language barriers. For the blind, institutions can higher sign language specialists, and for the blind, patient care organizations should hire professionals who can utilize brail services. Other approaches to improving communication with patients include educating patients. Such approaches would include addressing cultural beliefs that patients hold concerning the disclosure of their personal information under certain circumstances. Institutions should also educate patients on beliefs founded on myths. By so doing, there would be a reduction in situations of cultural hindrances to communication.
Gracefield Hospital has already focused on improving its communication processes. The organization has instituted a committee that has been mandated to investigate communication challenges in the facility and offer recommendations for bettering the system. The process of improving communication in the institution is currently underway and the committee includes professionals from relevant medical fields.
Information Communication and Technology in Patient Care
3.1 Accessing and Using ICT in Patient Care
ICT tools are designed to facilitate communication in patient care and hence impact positively on service delivery and eventual treatment outcomes. ICT-enabled records facilitate access of information by different health professionals at different levels of treatment (NHS Choices, 2015). For this case, EHR systems offer an excellent illustration to accessing and using ICT in patient care. Basically, EHR systems are electronic versions of the previously used traditional paper medical records (Advanced Data Systems Corporation, 2012). They are cloud-based, and therefore, the entered information is secure and only accessible to certain users, who for this case are healthcare professionals. The system is internet-based and one requires devices such as a computer, smart phone, tablet, or laptop to access it. Usually, health care professionals are issued with login information including a password for them to access the system through EHR website. Once they have logged in to the system, users get access to patient information including medical history, personal data, and financial information and so on. Health care professionals using EHR systems also get access to crucial medical information such as laboratory test results and findings of physical diagnoses (The British Psychological Society, 2011, p. 4). In addition to viewing information, users of EHR systems can also modify patient information by adding data.
Gracefield Hospital has adopted EHR Systems and replaced paper-based medical records. The systems are particularly important in that they enable physicians to make referrals with efficiency. Again, doctors at the hospital use the system to communicate with one another and discuss patient matters. The systems have also been of great use in expanding the knowledge of health care professionals in the hospital. For instance, users of the system stay updated on matters such as those concerning disease outbreaks. Professionals at Gracefield Hospital also find the systems handy in getting scientifically-proved information concerning diseases and their treatment.
3.2 Benefits of ICT in Patient Care for Patients, Practitioners, and Organizations
There has been wide use of ICT in patient care institutions worldwide (Robertson et al., 2010, p. 4564). ICT has remarkably influenced service delivery in patient care institutions. One of its greatest impacts is speeding communication (The British Psychological Society, 2011, p. 5). Unlike in earlier times where there were no major technological developments, it is possible to communicate fast with the help of ICT. For instance, patients used to deliver their records physically to different health care providers when clarification of issues was necessary. Nowadays, health care providers contact each other on phones, computers, and other gadgets through calls, messages, and mails whenever needs of clarification arise. ICT has also promoted patient safety. For instance, systems such as EHR minimize chances of error as they present information in a standardized way. Again, patients are protected in that they cannot lose their medical history as would have been the case had they depended on paper records solely. They are also protected in that their medical and personal information is only accessible to authorized persons. To patient care organizations, ICT has significantly facilitated management. Usually, one of the greatest worries of organizations is managing and using data. When organizations use computers and online systems to store data, it becomes easier for them to handle such data. They can retrieve it when necessary and also make modifications as needs to do so arise. On their side, health and social care practitioners enjoy benefits such as attending patients accurately. Professionals are able to make accurate decisions as they have sufficient patient information at their disposal, and they can access it timely. At Gracefield Hospital, ICT has mostly contributed to the institutions current position. Technological tools have facilitated care delivery and the overall efficiency of running the facility.
3.3 Impact of Legal Factors on Communication Systems in Patient Care
ICT has both benefits and shortcomings, especially depending on the means of its application to service. For instance, while technological systems facilitate data storage and retrieval, they could easily compromise its security. In abnormal circumstances, people entrusted with keeping information may expose it to unauthorized parties. For such situations, the impact of ICT would be detrimental to the privacy of the owners of information. Bearing such considerations, governments institute legal measures concerning the use of technology. Such legislations have significant impact on the application of ICT in patient care settings. In England, one of the most influential policies is the Data Protection Act instituted in 1998. The Act controls the manner in which institutions use information that they collect from people (Gov.UK, 2015). In patient care institutions, The Data Protection Act requires that facilities only use information from their clients for treatment purposes only. Again, the act requires that such data be applied accurately and precisely to its stated purpose. Additionally, the Act limits the transfer of patient data by requiring that data be accorded adequate protection if it is to be communicated beyond the European Economic Area. The act also influences data handling by requiring patient care institutions to apply extra caution and security on sensitive information such as sexual health, ethnic background, and criminal records. At Gracefield Hospital, the Act encourages practitioners to handle patient information appropriately. Actually, the Act offers patient an opportunity to sue the organization in situations where they would feel dissatisfied with the institutions use of information that it collects from them.
Francer, J., Izquierdo, J. Z., Music, T., Narsai, K., Nikidis, C., Simmonds, H., & Woods, P. (2014). Ethical pharmaceutical promotion and communications worldwide: codes and regulations. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine : PEHM, 9, 7. http://doi.org/10.1186/1747-5341-9-7
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Niaura, A. (2013). Using the theory of planned behavior to investigate the determinants of environmental behavior among youths. Department of Environmental Sciences, 1(63), 74-81.
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Most of the challenges faced in healthcare are associated with poor communication processes. It is vital to explore the process of communication to appreciate on how it affects the healthcare stakeholders in delivery of their services (Department of Health, 2010). Most of the healthcare staff lacks the understanding of the legal frameworks that govern the process of transferring information within the healthcare and the social care settings. It is vital to note that effective communication within the organization should lie within the context of the healthcare job role, and the principle of confidentiality of information must be supported (Rasheed, Hetherington, & Irvine, 2014). In this contest, this paper describes the on ways to understand the health and safety communication legislation is implemented in the work place. The paper will also explore on ways in which the health and safety requirements influence the various healthcare stakeholders, and how the safety in healthcare and the social care workplace can be reviewed and monitored.
Task 1.1
There are various legal communication frameworks that can be used to implement efficient communication in Silver Meadows healthcare facility (NHS, 2014). These includes legislations such as Health and Safety at workplace Act of 1974, COSHH 2002, Food and Safety Act 1990, Care Standard Acts 2000, Workplace regulations 1992, Mental Health Act 2007, Food Safety regulations 1992 and RIDDOR 1995. These legislations have been put forward to place order within the healthcare setting and sustaining safe working environments (Department of Health, 2010).
Failure to implement these legal frameworks, Silver Meadow healthcare facility is faced with numerous challenges associated with miscommunication, putting the safety and the quality standards of the healthcare facility and patient’s life in jeopardy. The healthcare facility must identify ways to communicate on important risk issues such as fire evacuation plan, the fire escape procedures or liability plan.
A policy procedure of implementation consists of 3 parts;
a) A general statement that describes the organization intent- i.e. philosophy of the healthcare facility regarding health and safety
b) Organization- of the staff, chain of commands and their responsibilities in health and safety management
c) Arrangements- including the procedures and systems. These include safe systems, training, machine area guarding, noise control, fire safety, prevention etc.
During the implementation process, Silver Meadow staff must consider the mode of communication that is most effective. The information can be through various modes of communication such as verbal, audio visual or even verbal communication (Rasheed, Hetherington, & Irvine, 2014). Irrespective of the mode of communication chosen, the information must be clear, succinct as long information could lead to confusion. Some of the most effective communication implementation plan is through the use of diagrams. This includes policy manuals or the health and diagrams/ charts to indicate what should be done in case of emergency (Department of Health 2013b).
A short video can be displayed to help those who cannot read or write understand the risks involved if certain safety measures are not followed, thus protecting the service providers and the service users form injuries. The common means of communication that is universally accepted by the European Unions (EU) are the most effective tools that should be used to convey important information within the healthcare settings (Rasheed, Hetherington, & Irvine, 2014). This process aids in conveying the same message across the globe, irrespective of the type of communication barrier such as language, and physical disabilities such as deaf, low proficiency in the national language, age, education level among others. Examples of such symbols are shown below:
Source: Victory Graphics Art, 2014.
The employers as well as directors of health and social care have a statutory duty by Health and Safety at work 1974 to prepare and store revised written information of safety policy within their work place. The policy statement and any information revised must be brought to the employees attentions through notification, posters and issuing of documents. This policy document should have information for employer’s duties, training courses requirements and any other important briefing sessions of the employees. The organization policies and manuals must be documented into a single manual to ensure that every person in the healthcare facility can access the piece of information; the risks are evaluated and controlled. The organization must assign one person is responsible for the maintenance of a safety organization. This is to ensure that all the equipment is evaluated, first aid regulations are followed, and all safety equipment that is missing gets replaced. This ensures that healthcare facility safety is maintained, and the quality standards of the organizations are sustained (HSE, 2014).
The law also expects that the employee must be consulted on health and safety issues. This facilitates creation and maintenance of safe healthy environment; and also motivates the staff, making them become aware of the health as well as safety issues. The safety information that must be given to the employees includes the dangers and risks associated with their work. This promotes the planning of safety measure, which is achieved through training (Social Care, n.d.).
Additionally, the management of health and safety work regulations 1992 states that employers must assess safety risks at their work places in order to identify risks early enough, and to develop protective measures. This helps in ensuring that the employees work related injuries are reduced; thereby creating a safety culture within the organizations. This helps the employer to meet legal duty of protecting the health as well as safety issues of the employees (Social Care, n.d.).
Therefore, Silver Meadow’s must also conduct health assessments as stipulated by the Patient Led Assessment of Care Environment (PLACE). These assessments aids in ensuring that the healthcare organizations are safe and protect all the stakeholders that work within the organization. This is clearly stipulated by the NHS standard Contract 2013/2014, which illustrates a candour contractual responsibility for the organization staff to ensure that the healthcare facility is safe. The standards ensures that the healthcare facility have adequate light, ventilation, working space and the continual training of the staff to ensure that they sustain a safety culture within the healthcare facility (RCN, 2013).
Task 1.2
The healthcare provider’s responsibilities in maintaining safety in healthcare facilities is well illustrated by Health and Safety responsibilities in the health and safety work Act 1974. Responsibility is defined as an obligation to perform a specific task to completion that one is mandated to fulfil, and one that have a consequent penalty if not fulfilled. Each person has a responsibility to ensure that they have responsibility (RCN, 2013).
For instance Health and Safety commission have proposed to Secretary of state the health and safety regulations, for example Noise at Work regulation 1989. The health and safety executives should mandated to ensure the health and Safety commission proposed acts are carried out on daily basis. They should be involved in the investigation of risky incidents. They are expected to inspect healthcare facilities without any warning to identify if regulations are being breached. They can give two types of notices; a) improvement notices- notices that tell the employer to improve certain condition within a stipulated period of time; and b) prohibition notice- that is only given if the inspectors have evidences that indicate high risk of work related injuries (RCN, 2013).
Employers are expected to comply with the established legal requirements. They should take employee’s liability insurances. They should follow standard operation procedures to ensure that the machinery is used properly minimizing risk of injuries. They should ensure that all the work equipment is maintained. All toxic and lethal substances must be stored in safe cabinets and out of people reach (HSE, 2010). In general, employers are expected to safeguard the health and safety of their employees. They should provide instruction, training and supervision of all activities that promote patient safety. They should write safety polices; and publishing them on notice board for all the employees to see. They should provide the health and safety poster to each employee as mandated by Health and safety at work Act 1974. The written policy should be comprehensively indicates organization rules in terms of manpower, terms of system and policy implementation. The policy must name all managers and directors and their responsibilities (Fraser, 2014).
The employee’s responsibilities include taking care of themselves to avoid work related injuries. This is achieved by taking great care of themselves as well as their colleagues. This is achieved by following written policy. They must not interfere with any of medical devices. The employees must report hazards, risks and accidents to relevant authorities. They should avoid wearing jewellery or loose clothing during machinery operation. They must cooperate with their members and employers, especially during safety training. They must always use PPE appropriately. If there are any reasonable concerns about safety, they must be report them to Health and Safety Executive. The employees have right to rest breaks at work, time off the work with annually paid holidays. Employees are represented by health and safety representatives that are appointed by trade unions. To represent employees on safety, health and welfare issues. They must consult on health and safety issues that affect their members. They should attend safety committee meetings (Rasheed, Hetherington, & Irvine, 2014).
In the Silver Meadow’s case study, the organization has much responsibility in ensuring that the new clinical guidelines on organizational culture. This includes the process of ensuring that the risks are managed effectively One of the directors in the Silver Meadow’s healthcare facility must be mandated with the organization security, safety and quality of care. This designated person will ensure that the healthcare facility understands the relevant legislations and standards of health and safety. This can be done through meetings where the healthcare organizations will be mandated in ensuring that all the stakeholders (external and internal) are adequately informed on the safety regulations and the quality standards. If necessary, training can be done to ensure that the service providers and the service users are at par (Rasheed, Hetherington, & Irvine, 2014).
The junior staffs are responsible of every action they undertake. Therefore, before performing any practice, a risk assessment must be performed to ensure that the activity will not harm the service users and service providers in Silver Meadow’s healthcare facility (Social care, n.d.). They must always report the accidents or near misses, so that the cause can be evaluated, and solutions to solve the accidents as well as strategies to avoid such incidences in the future are met. These reports must be submitted to the secretary in the department of health, which are used during inspection to see if the health and safety regulations meet the required criteria (Francis, 2013).
The Silver Meadow’s board members have the responsibility to ensure that inspections are conducted regularly. This will ensure that the healthcare facility observes the established safety standards and legal frameworks within the healthcare facility. Additionally, the NHS board members have the responsibility of assessing the healthcare facility including the workplace environment to ensure that the employees are not posed to risks or work related hazards (Francis, 2013). They must ensure that the working condition complies with the Healthy and Safety executive standards. Where the board members are dissatisfied with the standards in the organization, then they have the full responsibility to ensure that they advise the healthcare facility management on issues to rectify. If the issues are not improved, then the relevant penalties can be issued to the healthcare facility. The penalties include hefty fines or even the closure of the healthcare facility, but they largely depend on the magnitude of healthcare irregularity practiced (Fraser, 2014).
The employer’s responsibility is to ensure that the employees have a safe working condition. They must issue the employees with protective working apparatus to ensure that they are protected from unsafe environment (Social care, n.d.). They must insure the employees on medical covers and other liabilities associated with their work. The employers must report all incidences of injuries and the near misses to the secretary in the Department of health. Additionally, they must be the key decision makers, and where the healthcare providers are faced with numerous challenges or ethical dilemmas, they must inform their employers, and the path chosen must be align with the employers wills (HSE, 2010).
The employees must document the organization policies and standards. They must also identify the organizations mission, objectives and aims. They are mandated in ensuring that they deliver quality care and sustaining of a safe culture within the organization (RCN, 2013). Each of the employees must be assigned safety responsibilities such as quality control, maintenance of equipment and fire training. This must be coupled with effective leadership. This is because the organization standards are largely influenced by the type of leaders (Francis, 2013).
Task 1.3
The healthcare priorities should comply with health and safety regulations. Examples include COSHH, FIRST AID PRECAUTIONS, RIDDOR, WORK EQUIPMENT etc. The first priority includes that of reporting incidents, diseases and dangerous occurrences reporting (RIDDOR). The health care staff must ensure that all accidents and near misses that could have resulted in injury must be reported. These also include violent incidences such as verbal threats. Incidences such as deaths should be reported to the government (HSE, n.d.)
Other priority includes prevention of falls. The employers are expected to ensure that they protect any areas below or above the ground are protected, and if one must work above the ground, they must be protected. Use of PPE and machines such as stepladders should be used. All prevention training must be followed. The following issues must be avoided including stepping in ladder, chairs or tables. Additionally, employees must be discouraged from standing on the fork-lift truck. The healthcare providers must establish welfare facilities such as toilets, sanitary disposal facilities and washbasins (Francis, 2013).
The environment space should have sufficient space, well-lit and ventilated. Employee’s chairs must remain safe and comfortable. The environment temperature should be reasonable, at least 16 degrees Celsius for office area and three degrees lower in areas with physical work. In regions with high weather temperatures, the employers should provide local cooling systems such as fan. The healthcare facilities should establish first aid protocols (HSE, n.d.). This includes having a green first aid box, with one employee being appointed to take charge during emergencies. There should be well written notices to inform the employees on what to do during emergencies, and whom to contact. Fire precautions Regulations of 1989 must be followed. This includes putting arrangements on ways to prevent fires, raise alarm, emergency evacuations and how to use emergency evacuations. Manual handling, lifting weights and equipment maintenance should be conducted as stipulated by manual handling of operations regulations 1992 states that policies to be followed to reduce injuries associated with manual handling of things (Francis, 2013).
From the case study, the first priority is to establish safety and quality organization culture. This involves training to ensure that the all the stakeholders are taught on the most effective strategies to identify and address quality associated risky activities. Silver Meadow is a healthcare home, and therefore are most likely dealing with the elderly patients, and people in their end of life stage (Francis, 2013).
Their first priority is to safeguard these patients. Some of the strategies that can be incorporated within Silver meadow clinic include the introduction of walking aids. The rooms must be adequately lit to ensure that the patients do not have blurred vision due to too much light or due to inadequate lighting (Rasheed, Hetherington, & Irvine, 2014). Additionally, there must be enough ventilators and ensure that the floors are not slippery. All the hazards identified must be identified and labelled using symbols and signs as indicated by the EU. The use of the assistive devices must be incorporated in the healthcare facility such as use of cameras and bedside bells can really improve safety issues in the healthcare facility (Francis, 2013).
The other priority is to ensure that all safety issues are documented. All accidents and near misses must be documented and reported to help note the potential risks within the healthcare facility. Any other type of unsafe practice must be reported. These include activities such as mistreatment or verbal abuse must be reported (World Report, 2013). Patient safety must be trained to all employees, which should include training on how to help the patients with their daily living activities such as bathing, toileting, use of the catheters as well as psychological factors. They must be trained on ways to manage healthcare safety such as hand hygiene to ensure that spread of hospitalized acquired infections are not spread. The issue of proper protective equipment must be maintained, and risk assessment activities must be conducted before performing every activity (HSE, n.d.)
Task 2.1
Risk assessment refers to a careful examination of the workplace to identify hazards and risks in order to protect workers. Hazards include things that cause harms such as electricity, noise, chemicals, bickering and bullying. On the other hand, risk is refers to the chance or likelihood that a hazard will cause an injury. Complete elimination of risks is known as zero risk. The perception of risk is influenced by a person’s experiences on adverse effects, beliefs, socio- cultural backgrounds, ability to control the risks, ways of gaining information among others. Risks are characterised by its extent and nature (World report 2013).
Risk assessment comprises of five main steps; a) identification of hazards, b)determination of hazards nature and extent, c) evaluation of risks and deciding on precautions, d) recording of findings and implementation and e) reviewing of an assessment and updating of information where necessary (RCN, 2013).
To identify the hazards, the inspector should walk around the work place to check if all regulations have been met. Employees can be interviewed by their representatives on what they feel as hazards. Practical guidelines are published in HSE website, which indicates the main sources of hazards and ways to control them. To determine hazards extent and nature, each hazard must be described comprehensively, including the people that could be harmed and how they could be harmed (World report 2013). This aids in establishing the best approaches to manage and control the risks. Evaluation of risk factors includes finding ways to control the identified risks. According to regulations, one is expected to do as much as they can to protect the public. In this case, controlling of risks implies preventing access to hazards and organizing work in a manner that reduces exposure to such hazards (RCN, 2013).
Other preventive measures will include use of protective personal equipment, provision of welfare facilities and looking for an alternative that are less risky. The findings found must be written down and shared with the higher authorities. The assessment must be suitable for the work place in order to be efficient. Efficient risk assessment indicates that a proper check was done; the affected group have been identified and have dealt with the significant hazards (World report 2013). Additionally, the precautions picked must be reasonable to ensure that they maintain the risks at low levels. An efficient risk assessment is one that involves the staff and their representatives directly. For short term remedies, an easy am cheap interventions should be applied for temporary measures. Risks with worst consequences require long term solutions. This includes performing refresher training to remind the employees of their mandated responsibilities (RCN, 2013). Regular checks must be assessed to ensure that they put measures in place and that all responsibilities are clear on how the actions will be led. The last step is reviewing of the risk assessment to ensure that the organizations standards of a safe organization are maintained. New changes must be integrated in the healthcare policies, and improvements noted. Lessons learnt from near misses must be used as a guide to protect the public from harm in the future (Francis, 2013).
The information collected facilitates the development of effective care planning. The risk assessment covers manual handling. This is an essential requirement on care plan that ensures that there is safety for the residents. Persons working in each healthcare facility at one pint will have to either lift or hold something manually. To fulfil part vii of the occupational safety and health regulations, the employers must perform a risk assessment before any operation being performed manually is undertaken. The planning to minimize risks includes laying strategies that ensures that staff follows the laid down practices such as using mechanical aids when lifting, holding or carrying out activities. The staff must be trained in order to ensure that they recognize the potential risks attributable to manual handling. Training should include ways to employ good postures when lifting heavy items, use of mechanical aids when transporting heavy things. If a task exceeds personal abilities, one must seek assistance (Francis, 2013).
Environment safety is also planned effectively using information collected for risk assessment. This includes eliminating poor conditions such as slippery floors, passageway obstruction and poor lighting. The work area must be maintained tidy and clean. Signs must be indicated clearly on hazards such as slippery floors, spillage of water among others. Other risk assessments information informing care planning includes health issues, maintenance of security, emergencies, accident prevention, fire safety and dealing with infection.
Task 2.2
The employers and directors of a workplace are mandated by the Health and Safety at work Act 1974 to design and keep a revised copy of written statement of health and safety policy. These policy statements should summarize the organization of the healthcare facility in terms of manpower and systems for policy implementation. The statement must include the names of the managers and directors that are statutory holders. The policy statement and any revision of the statement must be communicated to the employees through notification, issue of hardcopy of the policy and reinforced further using posters. The policy document should be comprehensive indicating each person’s responsibility, training session required and way to properly induct the new employees (World Report, 2013).
The healthcare policy generally consists of three parts; a) A general statement of the policy intent) Organization (employees and their responsibilities including their chains of command), and c) Arrangement of the healthcare (its procedures and systems). These includes issues such as safe systems at work place, safety training, environmental control, Machine area guarding, noise control, safety of radiation, fire safety and prevention.
Manual handling policy is important and compulsory in order to improve care planning and to reduce the hazard risks to employees and the services users (World Report, 2013). When working in healthcare facility, people are expected to lift or handle patients with limited mobility with care. Part VII of the occupational Safety and health regulation states that employees must perform risk assessment before conducting any operation manually. The negative impacts of manual handling technique could result into staff injuries, increase number of near misses and accidents. In some cases, fines, litigation and penalties are can be issued to compensate for the service user harmed by manual handling. The employee’s resources are lost through paying to employee’s sickness related to work injuries. The increased absence of employees affects the productivity of the work place (Rasheed, Hetherington, & Irvine, 2014).
The policy states that these risks can be minimized if the work place practices are laid down and emphasized by the employers. Additionally, mechanical aid must be used as much as possible when lifting, carrying or holding incapacitated patients. The employees must be trained on ways to recognize the risk associated with manual handling. Employing good posture in holding and lifting the person must be applied. This aids in minimizing excessive forces when bending, or twisting of the arms, neck or wrists. When using mechanical aids to transport and to transfer people, the correct operation procedures must be used. The employee should seek assistance from supervisors when undertaking tasks that they feel it exceeds their personal ability. In this regard, training sessions should be provided. The positive impact of manual handling policy includes reversing the aforementioned negative impacts. This improves business turnover, less work related accidents and low insurance covers (Department of Health, 2013a).
The environmental safety policy states that environmental conditions such as slippery floors, insufficient lighting, poor ventilation, obstruction of the passageway and stairways are some of the factors that contribute many accidents in the healthcare. Therefore, the environment must be sufficiently lit using natural and artificial lighting. There should be no worn-out carpets, rugs or trailing of electrical wires. The floors must remain clear from obstruction. The negative impact of poor environmental safety is that it increases risks for falls, slips and trips to the healthcare providers and the service users. Poor environmental monitoring systems such as burglary proof, intruders alarm and other assistive technologies exposes service users and employees to hazards (RCN, 2013).
To reduce these risks the work place environment must be kept tidy. Warning signs such as wet floors, slippery floors must be put up. Healthcare facility must use non slippery materials as much as possible. The area should be adequately lit, ventilates and the passageway route must be left clear from any source of obstruction. Wet floors must be dried as much as possible and trailing flexes rolled up and stored safely. Additionally, it is everyone’s responsibilities to develop a safe environment to ensure persons safety. They must be aware of the potential hazards by assessing and addressing the sources of risks. These must also be reported to the relevant authority (Rasheed, Hetherington, & Irvine, 2014).
Silver Meadow home care facility deals with elderly and patients in their end of life. This implies that one of the activities in this healthcare facility that would put into question the health care facility is handling and lifting of the patients who are vulnerable and susceptible to injuries (Rasheed, Hetherington, & Irvine, 2014).There are handling and lifting policies that have been developed with the aim of ensuring that patients are lifted safely, without posing them to risks (Francis, 2013).These policies act as framework of guidelines that are aimed at instilling the best management activities in every activity that involves the lifting and handling of the patient. These policies instil confidence in an organization, consequently improving the cost of return. The core standards of these policies are to ensure that there is training as well as risk assessment (Department of Health, 2013a).
Laxity in following these policies of handling and lifting of the patients could lead to fatal injuries. Overlooking even the tiniest aspect of care could lead to more patient injuries and even death. Other barrier that causes non adherence to the lifting and handling is inadequate information and miscommunication (RCN, 2013). These two factors results in in competencies especially when delivering care. The healthcare facility must establish the appropriate standards which are useful in guiding the healthcare personnel on the expected standards of care, thus reducing the incidences of injuries as well as accidents (Francis, 2013).
There is need to train the Silver Meadows staff on ways to manage the various comorbidities of care as outlined by the patient lifting strategies such as manual handling policies as well as standards of 1992. These strategies ensure that the equipment is maintained in their right standards (Social Care, n.d.). The machines and equipment are meant to lower the workload of staff, but if they are not appropriately maintained, it leads to loss of life. Maintained handling and lifting machinery results to reduced cost of care and improves the quality of care, and improves the reputation of Silver Meadow (World Report, 2013).
Task 2.3
The healthcare facilities face many healthcare dilemmas. For instance, the issue of ethical dilemma, which describes the tricky and complex decisions that must be made by the healthcare staff, where there have to choose the solution between two conflicting issues (World Report, 2013). A dilemma is a situation where a choice must be established between two or more alternative course of action. The main ethical dilemmas in the work place includes assessing if it is acceptable to lie, and how autonomy can be balanced with the need of protecting patient from harm. The victims of ethical dilemmas in the workplace include professionals and care workers providing care to people in the hospitals, residential facilities or in care settings (Rasheed, Hetherington, & Irvine, 2014). The main reasons for the ethical dilemmas include decreased level of capacity, personality traits, and vulnerability associated to memory, physical frailty and disorientation.
Solving ethical dilemmas requires critical judgment. For instance, freedom of choice and freedom of walking can be challenged by ethical considerations of the patient’s wellbeing and safety for others. There are specific guidelines and laws that set a framework by pointing to ways in which these ethical issues can be resolved. They rarely provide definitive answers to these specific dilemmas. For example, despite the health improvements associated with the use of technology, there are concerns raised by services users about caring for people living with dementia which are associated to stigma, privacy, and concerns that the use of these devices will replace rather add value to the patient. Use of technology has an effect on persons autonomy as they may feel controlled, devalued and under surveillances. The healthcare must guide the patient by emphasising that it is not a substitute to good care, enhancing care that the healthcare provider has to offer (World Report, 2013).
Other dilemmas occur when a person lacks the capacity to make appropriate decision. The patient autonomy, wellbeing along with the carer’s interests should be considered when deciding the use or disuse of technology or a system. The factors that must be considered include patient autonomy i.e. the patient concerns, opinions and views. The benefits of using the technology and the ways the carer’s interests are affected if the technology is not used.
Taking risks part of our daily lives (World Report, 2013). It is important for the healthcare to do as much as they can to improve the patients quality of life. The intervention chosen must have an absolute minimum risks. In some cases, the minimum risks will involves forgoing the benefits of freedom, which could potentially have detrimental effects on the patient autonomy and overall wellbeing. However, it is important to perform risk assessment to weigh the balance between the potential risks and benefits of the proposed intervention (World Report, 2013).
The healthcare providers should select the intervention with least risks involved to gain particular benefits. The other issue is that of disclosure and non-disclosure. Telling truth highlights the challenges attained when deciding the course of action. This is because the healthcare providers are required to avoid distress and simultaneously maintain patient’s autonomy. Non-disclosure of patient’s safety issues erodes patient trust and undermines professional integrity. The ethical dilemma arises in situations where the patient can suffer from anger and distress caused by the truth. Due to person’s cognitive deficits, it would be more humane for the healthcare providers to evade or give partial answers to some questions (World Report, 2013).
The issue of restraint also arises as it affects the person’s freedom. In some cases, restraint arises because of safety measures such as preventing them from falling, or for safety of others especially if a person is perceived as a threat. The most common form of restraint used in healthcare is physical restraint where straps and lap belts are used to control the patient is behaving aggressively. This is an ethical dilemma as it significantly affects the emotional risks and vicious cycle. This could lead to more serious impacts such as accidents and pressure sores. The mental capacity Act governs that restraint should be done only to prevent harm (Social Care, n.d.).
The most common dilemma in Silver Meadow is more aligned with the patient autonomy. This is because the patient choices could be putting the patient at high risk, which lives the staff with no other obligation other than violating the patients wish. However, in such scenarios, it is important to explore with the patient the most effective care, merits and demerits, to convince them on quality care that is most effective (Kennedy, 2013).
Task 2.4
Noncompliance of the quality standards in healthcare are associated with numerous demerits such as permanent disabilities or even loss of life. Noncompliance implies that the working environment is not safe and the workforces are prone to accidents and injuries. This lowers the workforce morale and id associated with low productivity (World Report, 2013). Research indicates that the work related injuries in the healthcare facilities have continued to reduce. This is associated with better reporting of the incidences, thus new strategies are achieved. However, it cannot be denied that there are some laxities in the healthcare system. This is due to poor monitoring of the healthcare facility, reduced staff training and low emphasis on quality care (Social Care, n.d).
At the organizational level, the noncompliance to the study of quality as well as safety regulations could result in loss of operating contracts which is associated with reduced trust in the organization. It can also lead to ruined business reputation of the healthcare facility, where the employees feel lost and not proud to be associated with the healthcare facility (World Report, 2013). This results into high turnover rates. Thus, the healthcare facility must impose more strict measures to ensure that safety standards are followed to the later, and where a staff fails to follow these regulations, they face stringent fines or even terminated from their place of work (RCN, 2014).
Task 3.1
Health and safety practises are monitored and reviewed by federal enforcement agencies. The United States government has put in place significant measures to guarantee that there is indeed proper actualization of medical professionalism and the reduction of risk in procedure, health care environments as well as the employees in these environments. It is crucial that there be regular inspection of health facilities to ascertain and assess cleanliness standards in health care centres in the United States. It is also vital that there be regular check up on all medical professionals to ascertain that they are within the right frame of thinking and can go about their work professionally. This is done through compulsory association exams and psychic evaluations.
The monitoring activities at Silver Meadows should also include auditing of the safety measures program is important as it enables identify the gap, and in identifying methods that incorporates the obligations as well as the legal standards of the healthcare facility (World Report, 2013). Examples of the monitoring strategies include the Safety Monitoring System (SMS). The Safety Monitoring System is a protocol that assesses aspects of safety based on risk factors associated with hospital assets such as the state of the beds, the floor and the number of persons working and admitted at the hospital. This gives a picture of the state of the hospital at the time.
By conducting effective internal evaluations, hospitals and other institutions such as Silver Meadows are able to know the state of their staff and assets at all time. Human resources departments need to be especially on the lookout for certain changes in procedure or behaviour among the employees. This makes it a concern for all to try and achieve such milestones.
Task 3.2
Health policies promote a favourable environment at the work place due to significant investment in the welfare of the people in the hospital facilities, research centres and facilities where medical testing and drug equipment are abound. Research is important even in the enactment of the very policies applied to an institution for they need to be institution-specific. However, the major impacts of these policies often result in more revenues for the health canters, better working conditions for the nurses, doctors and other assistants as well as minimizing the risk of contamination. Contamination is a serious concern at hospitals because there are always risks associated with airborne and vector-borne diseases. The hospital is a very potential threat areas for infections and re-infections thus health and safety policies do minimize these risks a great deal.
The Silver Meadow facility is responsible in exerting safety culture within the organization. The leaders are the role models and must remain knowledgeable and confident about the safety issues. This way, they lead the healthcare facility by example, and solve these conflicts amicably. One of the strategies is through the establishment of teamwork in the society (World Report, 2013). This boosts the staff Morales and increases the productivity of a facility. This improves staff retention, which increases productivity and low cost. For instance, the Silver Meadow must ensure that risk assessments are conducted in all lifting materials, to evaluate the risks that can be associated with these lifting materials. Integrating the safety culture with staff will ensure that they assess safety issues, thus the service users and the service providers remain safe as the organization will seek for the most effective strategy to address potential risks identified (Rasheed, Hetherington, & Irvine, 2014).
Task 3.3
As a health care professional, one has to be very cognisant with the environment they are in. This helps them assist in developing the needs of the organization and guaranteeing that all measures in safety and health are observed. It is practically impossible for a healthcare professional to be involved with fellow nurses or doctors without impacting on their health and safety concerns. A possible area where a lot of investment in human resource needs to be done is the area of counselling. Counselling is a very important aspect of the medical profession. Doctors are human as well and their health should be taken to be as a major concern as well. This is why counselling should establish social, emotional and economic challenges these people face.
From the study, I have noted few areas that I thought were the wisest steps, yet were the most risky activity. From this study, the importance of evidence based research is emphasised, which must be followed always (World Report, 2013). Healthcare employees have a legal responsibility to take care of the health and safety of the others that may have been affected by their activities. For instance, a healthcare professional with a certain disorder that may put the rest of the personnel at the hospital in risky situations is obliged to report this case and have it assessed. The healthcare staff should use systems and follow procedures correctly. It is also the staff responsibility to report flaws and presence of gaps in the system that could compromise health and safety of an individual and others. The staffs share their responsibility with their employers to ensure safety of all people using the services.
It is crucial that when one healthcare professional notices a concern in a colleague that they report this concern promptly. Reporting issues as they are noticed is not a way to victimize but to help those who may need some sort of help. There should thus be a strong welfare community within a healthcare centre to ensure that at the end of the day, it is only the things that one cannot notice that are left out. Taking safety in healthcare to be a serious concern does help mitigate a lot of risks associated with medical and healthcare environments. This is why not only should it be considered a necessity but as an obligation.
Conclusion
Most of the challenges faced in healthcare are associated with communication processes. It is beneficial to explore the process of communication to understand on how it affects the healthcare stakeholders in delivery of their services. Most of the healthcare staffs do not even understand the legal frameworks that govern the process of transferring information within the healthcare and the social care settings. It is important to understand that communication within the organization should lie within the context of the healthcare job role, and the principle of confidentiality of information must be supported. The Silver Meadow facility is responsible in exerting safety culture within the organization. The leaders are the role models and must remain knowledgeable about the safety issues. This way, they lead the healthcare facility by example, and solve these conflicts amicably. One of the strategies is through the establishment of teamwork in the society. This boosts the staff esteem and increases the productivity of a facility.
Develop a (Mock Disaster Plan) response plan for a mock disaster involving a facility you work at or one in your community. Please include diagrams or pictures of the facility and location within the community. Develop the five ICS functional areas and specific responsibilities for each area pertaining to your specific disaster. A completely developed and detailed Incident Action Plan should be included as part of your paper. https://edge.apus.edu/access/content/group/public-safety-and-health-common/Kearns/Rubrics/Essay%20Rubric%20100-200%20courses.pdf
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The writer will complete the following component of the paper using APA 6th edition. It is important that the writer follow the instructions below to complete this paper. Remember that the topic of the study we are working with is The EFFECTS OF HRM PRACTICES ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE.
The paper must be properly formatted in APA 6th edition and must also include a reference page with references not been more than 5 years old.
Problem Statement
Text begins here. Text begins here. The problem statement describes the overall research problem being addressed and indicates why it is important to the practice of management (e.g., who would care if the problem were studied? It is helpful to state the general problem first and then state the specific problem considered. One approach is state a problem as a gap between the current state of a situation and the desired state of the situation. Either the current state or desired state may be implied and thus not explicitly included in the
problem statement.
The problem statement concisely states what will be studied by describing at least two variables and a conjectured relationship between them in quantitative studies. The problem statement describes the need for increased understanding about the issue to be explored in qualitative studies.
Problem statements should be concise: 150 to 250 words.
• General business problem that exists in business.
Two citations are required from the literature to establish a problem exists.
Example:
Jones (2010) stated that employee turnover in the health care industry averages 46% across the nation. According to Smith (2010), employee turnover contributes to loss of both revenue and customers. The numbers and citations anchor the existence of the problem.
• Your specific issue/problem that you will address.
Example:
Employee turnover in Denver, Colorado is 66%, or employee turnover in Houston, Texas is 12%.
The focus of this study is to explore or examine
Purpose Statement
Text begins here. The Purpose Statement of the study clearly describes the intent/focus of the investigation. Smith (2009) provided an excellent discussion on the purpose statement as well as some scripts that may be useful in constructing this statement.
The statement should be crafted into a mini story (250 words) that includes the following six pieces of information:
• Research method is identified as qualitative, quantitative, or mixed.
• Research design is clearly stated.
• Research variables (if a quantitative or mixed method) are briefly identified: independent, dependent (experimental study), or a correlation (relationships, comparison).
• Specific population group of study is identified and justified.
• Geographic location of study is identified.
• Contribution to social change is described.
Research Question
Text begins here. Identify the research question that will guide the study. For example, this study explores, examines, or xxx. Note: There may be one or more overall central questions.
SAMPLE ANSWER
Effects of HRM Practices on Employee Performance
Problem Statement
Human resource management is the art of managing employees in a firm or any other institution. The efficiency and success of employees depend on the practices put by the HR department. These practices include recruitment and selection, compensation and remuneration, promotions and disciplining (Armstrong et al., 2014). These practices directly affect the conduct and behavior of the employees. If these practices are favorable, then their delivery is positive. However, if the practices are not favorable, then the work of the employees can be catastrophic. All institutions primarily depend on employees to achieve their goals and objectives. Therefore, it goes without saying that a happy workforce will deliver as expected and thus the management must effect favorable practices. The shareholders too are interested in the performance because they are directly affected by the overall performance of the firm. We can take two practices for a thorough study. Taking remuneration practices as the research problem. Various firms remunerate employees based on various criteria. Some of these criteria may be the duration of an employee in the workplace, seniority of an employee, level of education and special skills of an employee (Armstrong et al., 2014). It simply shows that there are no specific standards for designing remuneration. These methods call for proper integration of all these criteria to get a satisfied workforce.
In our study, let us take a firm that pays its employees based on the duration an employee has taken in the firm. This criterion has the advantage of awarding loyalty. Employees will tend to stay longer in jobs since the longer they work, the higher the pay. However, it affects newer employees negatively. Both new and old employees should be satisfied with the salaries they earn to achieve best results for the firm. The study intends to harmonize pay independent of factors that may affect the employees negatively.
Purpose Statement of the Study
The best research method should be direct and personal. It should be a touch of both quantitative and qualitative (Van de Vooerde et al., 2012). It will get the best information and methods of tackling the problem. It will also indicate to the employees that they are an integral part of the firm
The research design should be logical to address the research problem. The collection and analysis of data should be handled by experts to come up with the most viable way out. In collecting data, the enumerators should ensure unbiasedness so as to come up with good data for analysis (Kooij et al., 2013). The analysis can even be presented to the employees for them to see that their input has been put into consideration.
The researcher must ensure that both groups of interviews are available. The fact that the pay system is affecting job performance must be clearly shown. The employees are the independent variables and thus factor in the research (Mahadevan et al., 2014). The recommended pay system must employ a reconciliatory approach so as not to be seen as favoring either group of employees.
The population under study are the employees. However, the managerial staff should be excluded to eliminate chances of biases. All the other employees, both new and old, should be the respondents in the study. The area of study should not go beyond the firm. Geographically, only the firm premises should be taken as the area of study. However, any field employee should not be excluded on this basis. The study will invariably bring change. Higher or lower recommended pay will affect the social behavior of the problems. All this must be put into consideration during the study.
Research Question
The study addresses issues of the effects of HRM on employee performance. The main issue being how specific HRM practices affect the individual or overall employee performance of the employees of a given organization. This topic has been an interesting one with recent research based on this phenomena. However, this paper will look at successful researching the topic in relation to a given example of a firm facing a relative situation.
References
Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong’s Handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Kooij, D. T., Guest, D. E., Clinton, M., Knight, T., Jansen, P. G., & Dikkers, J. S. (2013). How the impact of HR practices on employee well‐being and performance changes with age. Human Resource Management Journal, 23(1), 18-35.
Mahadevan, A., & Mohamed, F. A. (2014). The impact of Human Resource Management (HRM) Practices on Employee Performance. International Journal of Accounting and Business Management, 2(2), 15-25.
Van De Voorde, K., Paauwe, J., & Van Veldhoven, M. (2012). Employee well‐being and the HRM–organizational performance relationship: a review of quantitative studies. International Journal of Management Reviews, 14(4), 391-407.
The writer will include very constructive feedback for both articles using constructive criticism why commenting on both papers.
The writer will have to read each of this post and react to them by commenting, analyzing and supporting with relevant articles. The writer will have to read carefully before giving constructive comments on the post. The writer should write a one paragraph of at least 150 words. APA and in text citation must be use as each respond to the two post must have in text citations. The writer will have to use an article to supports his comments in each of the article. Address the content of each post below in a one paragraph each, analysis and evaluation of the topic, as well as the integration of relevant resources.
I will send the details via email
SAMPLE ANSWER
Occupational Stress in Organizations
Article 1:
As determined by Ongori and Topper (2007), stress remains an element that has the capacity to affect the performances of employees within an organization, a factor that would negatively impact the productivity and employee turnover rates including organizational performance within a firm. Considering the outcomes of the study conducted by the authors, occupational stress remains one of the great distresses of management, employees including other stakeholders within an organization.
The study in this case aggress to the fact that the cost of occupational stress is higher in many entities, with this costing companies huge amounts of money since this stressor may lead to the morbidity and mortality of employees in a firm. Tabassum (2013) views, therefore, concurs with the findings of this study and determines that work overloads without taking into consideration the availability of human capital to carry out the duties may result in occupational stress. In this case, increases in workloads within organizations that fail to correspond to the available workforce are the causative factor of occupational stress.
Article 2;
In this article, Ongori & Agolla (2008) employs the use of SPSS software in analyzing the causes, symptoms and effects including the appropriate interventions for occupational stress through the use of the Likert’s scale of 1 to 5. Through the simple descriptive statistics study, it was depicted that uncertainty of promotions within a work environment could also be a source of occupational stress.
In as much as there were limitations in the study that arose due to the choice of a smaller sample and a couple of organizations that provided data, the responses offered by the participants prove that some occupational stresses result from uncertainties of promotions, a factor that Newton, & Teo (2014) concurs with since employees who work hard anticipate rewards from organizations. However when these rewards take are undetermined, the employees are more likely to get stressed, a factor that would diminish their productivity
References
Tabassum, S. (2013). Occupational Stress among Employees of Public and Private Insurance Sector: A Comparative Study. Amity Global Business Review, 880-91.
Newton, C., & Teo, S. (2014). Identification and Occupational Stress: A Stress-Buffering Perspective. Human Resource Management, 53(1), 89-113. https://www.doi:10.1002/hrm.21598
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The cost of building and maintaining an organizational computing ecosystem has become a bigger part of most organizations’ budgets. Organizations have been looking for ways to reduce this cost. One of the solutions has been to look to the delivery of computing as a service by outside vendors. The delivery and provisioning of computing as a service by vendors such as Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Google, and many others is known as Cloud Computing. There are public, private, and hybrid cloud computing environments. In this assignment, consider only the public cloud computing environments.
Cloud computing provides scalable computing resources, software applications, data storage, and networking infrastructure at cost below what would cost an organization to provide an equivalent infrastructure internally.
Write a two to three (2-3) page paper in which you:
Describe the hardware, software, and network architectural design of the infrastructure used to build cloud computing infrastructures. Use Microsoft Visio to generate the architectural diagrams. Note: The graphically depicted solution is not included in the required page length.
Compare and contrast scalability, disaster recovery, benefits, and opportunities for businesses when using cloud-based computing environments compared to a non-cloud-based environments.
Analyze hardware virtualization (virtual machines, virtual desktops, and virtual networks) used by most Cloud Computing environments.
Determine if you would prefer a virtualized environment to a non-virtualized environment for a mid sized business or organization. Explain why or why not.
Compare the cloud computing cost models used by Amazon EC2 and Microsoft Azure.
Choose the cloud computing cost model that you would use for a public cloud solution and support your selection.
Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.
Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.
Include charts or diagrams created in Excel, Visio, MS Project, or one of their equivalents such as Open Project, Dia, and OpenOffice. The completed diagrams / charts must be imported into the Word document before the paper is submitted.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
Demonstrate the importance of application maintenance for an organization.
Demonstrate how processing and storage components communicate in a computing environment.
Explain the types and role of distributed software architecture.
Use technology and information resources to research issues in computer architecture.
Write clearly and concisely about computer architecture using proper writing mechanics and technical style conventions.
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Financial statements analysis is the process of identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a business entity. The relationship between the various items in the financial statements is established through ratio analysis (Chew and Parkinson 2013). Ratios are into valuation ratios, liquidity ratios, gearing ratios, profitability ratios, and efficiency ratios.
The following financial ratios were derived from Dynasty Ltd to help come up with a decision on whether to invest in the company or not.
2014 2015
Current ratio = current assets/current liabilities = 4618/1974 2911/2076
=2.33 =1.4
Debt-equity ratio = long term debt/equity * 100 = 11000/14344 4000/ 13035
=76% =30%
Net profit margin = net profit/sales * 100 = 1309/24600 1963/19800
=5% 9%
Return on assets = net profit/total assets * 100 = 1309/27318 1963/19111
5% 10%
Return on equity = net profit/equity * 100 = 1309/14344 1963/13035
9% 15%
Quick ratio = current asset – stock/current liabilities = 4618-2059/1974 2911-1525/2076
=0.12 0.66
Total asset turnover = sales / total assets = 24600/27318 19800/19111
=0.9 1.03
Debt ratio = total liabilities/total asset *100 12974/27318 6076/19111
=47% 31%
Before investing in a company, an investor’s main interest is whether the investment will give good returns. The ratios can help identify if a decision to invest is wise (O’bryan 2010). A risky investment is volatile and has no guarantee of profits. An investment worth of investing has good returns and is consistent in profit making over the years. Looking at the 2014-2015 ratios for the company, the net profit margin, return on assets and return on equity have improved. These ratios are profitability ratios that indicate the ability of a company to make profits. The current ratio has declined while quick test ratio has improved. Capital structure ratios; debt ratio and debt to equity ratios have improved regarding fewer liabilities compared to assets.
The improvement in the liquidity ratios shows that the company is making improvements profit-wise, and it is not risky to invest in its stock. The gearing ratios have improved since total debt has reduced in the one year period hence it is wise to invest in the company.
Other than the ratios, the level of involvement of shareholders by the company in making decisions should also be considered. Shareholders to be represented on the company board of directors. The period of payment and how dividends are paid out is crucial in making the decision on whether to invest or not. The company that is worth investing in should value its shareholders and promptly pay out dividends as and when they fall due.
Alexis should invest in the company because profit has increased over the one year period. Long-term debt structure has reduced meaning that the company can finance its operations from the available assets and has improved in the management of the accounts (Ray, 2012). Although the current ratio has reduced, most of the financial ratios have improved which is good sign that investing in the company is not risky since the possibility of high returns is high.
Financial ratios are a representation of a company’s financial strength. The ratios can be benchmarked against the industrial averages and the historical ratios. If the ratios are improving over the years, then the decision to invest is advisable. If the ratios show a decline, an investor should not invest in the firm as the stock is risky. A company’s ratios should be at par with the industrial averages or above the industrial average.
References
Chew Lynsie, Parkinson Alan, 2013. Making Sense of Accounting for Business. Published by Harlow: Pearson.
Ray Proctor, 2012, Managerial Accounting: Decision making and performance improvement
David W, O’bryan, 2010, Financial Accounting: A course for all majors.
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This paper will be a continues paper and the writer must have a very good understanding of using the software mentioned in this paper. It is critical that the writer stay consistent with all of this paper most importantly reading all instructions and properly following directions to complete each section of the paper. This particular paper consist of 3 main parts to complete and the writer must clearly respond to this 3 main points listed in APA 6th edition. I will email the main dataset mentioned in the questions which will enable the writer to complete this paper. The writer must thoroughly analyze the data as require using the proper means.
For this assignment you use SPSS (PASW) software and learn to properly manipulate data according the APA requirements. This is an important skill and will be a major factor in future assignments in this course, your doctoral studies and dissertation. It is strongly encouraged that you review Chapter 5 of the APA Publication Manual to understand table and figure requirements before starting.
Follow the directions for using SPSS (PASW) in this assignment:
You will then write a 3-4 page paper in which you present your table and an analysis of your findings. Keep in mind that you cannot draw conclusions without further testing. Instead identify notable trends, patterns, relationships, associations, etc. Your paper must meet the following requirements:
• Include an opening including thesis statement, body and conclusion.
• Include a properly stated research question
• Include a properly formatted null and alternative hypotheses
• Follow APA (American Psychological Association) style and include in-text citations and a separate references page
• Software
• IBM SPSS Statistics Standard GradPack (current version). Available in Windows and Macintosh versions.
Course Text(s)
• Green, S. B., & Salkind, N. J. (2014). Using SPSS for Windows and Macintosh: Analyzing and understanding data (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
o Units 1 and 2, pp. 1–50
? Lesson 1, “Starting SPSS”
? Lesson 2, “The SPSS Main Menus and Toolbar”
? Lesson 3, “Using SPSS Help”
? Lesson 4, “A Brief SPSS Tour”
? Lesson 5, “Defining Variables”
? Lesson 6, “Entering and Editing Data”
? Lesson 7, “Inserting and Deleting Cases and Variables”
? Lesson 8, “Selecting, Copying, Cutting, and Pasting Data”
? Lesson 9, “Printing and Exiting an SPSS Data File”
? Lesson 10, “Exporting and Importing SPSS Data”
? Lesson 11, “Validating SPSS Data”
This text includes a series of step-by-step tutorials for using SPSS statistical software to enter data; generate statistics, charts, and graphs; and format SPSS output in APA style. Tutorials include screenshots as well as real-world examples of the statistics in question.
Datasets
• Pearson Education. (2010). Datasets to accompany Using SPSS for Windows and Macintosh by Green and Salkind [Data file]. Retrieved from http://www.prenhall.com/greensalkind/GreenSalkind.zip copy and paste to retrieve.
Please Note: The SPSS maximum variable data length is 1,500 variables.
Note: You will need a file-compression program, such as WinZip, to unzip this file.
• Main Dataset
Articles
• Corner, P. D. (2002). An integrative model for teaching quantitative research design. Journal of Management Education, 26(6), 671–6 92.
Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Global database.
This article highlights the quantitative research reasoning and process that typifies the stages in a quantitative study. It likens each stage—f ormulating a problem statement, crafting a hypothesis, collecting data, analyzing data, and interpreting findings—to a corresponding step in its proposed integrative model.
Readings
• American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington: Author.
This text is the preferred style manual for business researchers and provides guidance on the formatting and presentation of research conducted with statistical software.
This text teaches the beginning statistician when and how to apply different statistical tests. Written as a resource for those without an extensive statistical background, it includes descriptions, illustrations, and solved examples.
Note: The link above takes you to a preview version of the chapter from the publisher and only includes samples of the pages rather than the full text. Click on the “Next” and “Previous” buttons in the upper right of the page to navigate the chapter.
Websites
• Trochim, W. (2006). Web center for social research methods: Selecting statistics. Retrieved from http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/
This site is an online textbook that addresses the topics of a typical graduate course in social research methods, including sampling, measurement, validity, types of designs, and analysis. Learners can navigate the textbook using a graphical research road map or simple table of contents. The textbook addresses the entire research process as well as the statistical aspects of research and is not software-specific. From the main page, click on the ” Selecting Statistics” link.
SAMPLE ANSWER
Introduction
The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the dataset aiming to establish trends, patterns relationship, and association and establishing whether there exists a relationship between different variables. Thus, the basis of this paper will be to understand the raw data after analysis (Kraemer, 2015). The output of the analysis will help in noticing different spread and distribution of data. To achieve this SPSS for Windows software will be used to analyze the data provided, notably all the tables and figures will be formatted in American Psychological Association (APA) formatting style. Through this, a masterpiece work will be achieved and some inference drawn about the sample population.
The research will be guided by the following research question: is there a significant difference in injury rate at different working sites when different genders are managing or at a different risk factor?
The stated research questions will act a blueprint and foundation for all analysis that will be carried out (Kraemer, 2015). The research will be based on the hypothesis:
H0: there is no significance difference in injury rate at different working sites when different genders are managing or at different risk factor.
H1: there is a significance difference in injury rate at different working sites when different genders are managing or at different risk factor.
Thus, the purpose of this paper is to make an inference reject or fail to reject the set claim. To achieve this, a number of analyses will be carried out at 95% level of significance.
Data analysis
The following tables show the frequency distribution of sites, the gender of the supervisors, and risk factor.
Table 1: Site frequency distribution
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Boston
15
29.4
29.4
29.4
Phoenix
19
37.3
37.3
66.7
Seattle
17
33.3
33.3
100.0
Total
51
100.0
100.0
Table 2: SupervisorGender frequency distribution
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Female
27
52.9
52.9
52.9
Male
24
47.1
47.1
100.0
Total
51
100.0
100.0
Table 1 shows that most of the supervisors involved in the research come from Phoenix with a 37.3%, followed by 33.3% from Seattle, and Boston had the least supervisors in the sample. Also, the sample consists 52.9% females and 47.1% males, which is illustrated in Table 2.
To answer the research question whether there exists a relationship between genders of the supervisor, the number of employees, the number of working hours, a risk factor with injury rate, a one-way ANOVA was performed (Gelman, 2014). The results are shown in Table 4.
Table 4: ANOVA table summary.
Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
NumEmps
Between Groups
2263.147
33
68.580
2.136
.050
Within Groups
545.833
17
32.108
Total
2808.980
50
Hours_Worked
Between Groups
9791279435.294
33
296705437.433
2.136
.050
Within Groups
2361493333.333
17
138911372.549
Total
12152772768.627
50
SupervisorGender
Between Groups
7.973
33
.242
.868
.648
Within Groups
4.733
17
.278
Total
12.706
50
Risk
Between Groups
168.286
33
5.100
2.545
.022
Within Groups
34.067
17
2.004
Total
202.353
50
The decision here is to reject the null hypothesis when sig. < The critical value (α = 0.05). Since the sig. Value of number of employees, hours worked, supervisors gender are greater or equal to 0.05 we fail to reject the null hypothesis that they have no significance difference (Andraszewicz, 2014). In that matter, we conclude that they show no significant difference at the 95% level of significance. Nevertheless, risk factor shows significance difference since its p-value is less than the critical level.
To measure the nature of the association between these factors with injury rate, a correlation analysis was done on the data set. The results obtained were as follows.
Table 5: Correlations
number of employees
number of hours at work
injury rate
supervisors gender
risk factor
site
number of employees
Pearson Correlation
1
1.000**
-.636**
.236
.351*
.130
Sig. (2-tailed)
.000
.000
.096
.012
.363
N
51
51
51
51
51
51
number of hours at work
Pearson Correlation
1.000**
1
-.636**
.236
.351*
.130
Sig. (2-tailed)
.000
.000
.096
.012
.363
N
51
51
51
51
51
51
injury rate
Pearson Correlation
-.636**
-.636**
1
-.090
-.433**
-.074
Sig. (2-tailed)
.000
.000
.532
.001
.606
N
51
51
51
51
51
51
supervisors gender
Pearson Correlation
.236
.236
-.090
1
.096
-.047
Sig. (2-tailed)
.096
.096
.532
.501
.745
N
51
51
51
51
51
51
risk factor
Pearson Correlation
.351*
.351*
-.433**
.096
1
.272
Sig. (2-tailed)
.012
.012
.001
.501
.054
N
51
51
51
51
51
51
Site
Pearson Correlation
.130
.130
-.074
-.047
.272
1
Sig. (2-tailed)
.363
.363
.606
.745
.054
N
51
51
51
51
51
51
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
As illustrated, there exists a moderate negative correlation between injury rate and risk, number of employees, and number of working hours (Murphy, 2014). However, a weak negative correlation of -0.090) between injury rate and gender of supervisor exists and -0.073986 between injury rate and site (Andraszewicz, 2014).
A model that can predict injury rate using risk, supervisor gender, hours worked, and site as the predictors in the model was as follows;
Injury rate = 53.053735 + 2.559949*(supervisor gender) – 0.000642 * (hours worked) – 2.256611 * (risk) + 1.628766*(site). Nevertheless, the F-table that was obtained after the regression analysis is as tabulated below.
Table 6: ANOVAa
Model
Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
1
Regression
7093.819
4
1773.455
9.980
.000b
Residual
8174.037
46
177.696
Total
15267.856
50
a. Dependent Variable: InjuryRate
b. Predictors: (Constant), Site, SupervisorGender, Hours_Worked, Risk
The decision rule is to reject the null hypothesis when |F calculated|> F tabulated. In this case, F calculated = 9.980 > F 0.05 (3, 47) = 2.61, thus we reject the null hypothesis (Kass, 2014). This means in agreement with (Kraemer, 2015) that there exists a significant difference between these variables.
Conclusion
To sum up all, the primary objective of the research has been achieved, since an inference has been made about the sample population. The analysis has led to the rejection of the null hypothesis, thus concluding that there is a significance difference in injury rate at different working sites, when different genders are managing or at different risk factor. Hence, in a comprehensive way the questions that were posed at the beginning have been fully answered.
References
Kass, R. E., Eden, U. T., & Brown, E. N. (2014). Analysis of Variance. In Analysis of Neural Data (pp. 361-389). Springer New York.
Kraemer, H. C., & Blasey, C. (2015). How many subjects?: Statistical power analysis in research. Sage Publications.
Andraszewicz, S., Scheibehenne, B., Rieskamp, J., Grasman, R., Verhagen, J., & Wagenmakers, E. J. (2014). An introduction to Bayesian hypothesis testing for management research. Journal of Management, 0149206314560412.
Murphy, K. R., Myors, B., & Wolach, A. (2014). Statistical power analysis: A simple and general model for traditional and modern hypothesis tests. Routledge.
Gelman, A., Carlin, J. B., Stern, H. S., & Rubin, D. B. (2014). Bayesian data analysis (Vol. 2). London: Chapman & Hall/CRC.
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