PURPOSE The paper compares several bedside information tools using user-centered, task-oriented measures to assist those making or supporting purchasing decisions. METHODS Eighteen potential users were asked to attempt to answer clinical questions using five commercial products (ACP's PIER, DISEASEDEX, FIRSTConsult, InfoRetriever, and UpToDate). Users evaluated each tool for ease-of-use and u...

This document is intended to be read by the Colombian Ministry of Social Protection (former MoH) and includes some recommendations that could be implemented on the aim to increase allocative efficiency, thus improving macroeconomic performance of the Colombian Health System (CHS). It will be conducted as follows: first it will briefly review the background and actual context of the CHS, after t...

Mortality estimates of peripartum cardiomyopathy have been reported to be between 18 and 56% without reference to time frames. Although this is an unusual impairment, medical directors need accurate information to meet the gold standard of underwriting: decisions must be based on sound underwriting and actuarial principles reasonably related to actual or anticipated loss experience. In an insur...

This research presents the Enhanced Commodity Forward Buy (ECFB) heuristic, a new method for commodity purchasing, which allows strategic forward buying of commodities for products that include commodity components or materials. The Enhanced Commodity Forward Buy addresses limitations of existing methods by considering stochastic demand and stochastic commodity prices for products that contain ...

Using a customer service paradigm, the authors extended the justification-suppression model (JSM) of prejudice (C. S. Crandall & A. Eshleman, 2003) to include contemporary, covert forms of discrimination and to identify a discrimination remediation mechanism. Overall, the results of 3 studies revealed that actual and confederate obese shoppers in high-prejudice justification conditions faced mo...

Traits used for selecting replacement heifers and feed resources used to develop replacements can have a major influence on long-term profitability of a cattle operation. The direct expense of either purchasing or developing heifers is often obvious for producers, however, the impact the management system used for rearing heifers and selection criteria have on lifetime productivity is much less...

Manufacturing performances tend to produce defects due to various reasons which can be improved by identifying and eliminating them using six sigma. In the present work, DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) has been used to reduce the number of vehicle engine rejection. In define phase problem was defined by selecting the core issues concerned. In the measure phase data was col...