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Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

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At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1991

Social determinants of cataract surgery utilization in south India. The Operations Research Group.

A field trial was conducted to compare the effects of eight health education and economic incentive interventions on the awareness and acceptance of cataract surgery. Cataract screening and follow-up surgery were offered to more than 19,000 residents age 40 years and older in a probability sample of 90 villages in south India. Eight months after intervention, an evaluation was conducted to identify those in need of surgery who had been operated on. Two principal measures of program effectiveness are examined: awareness of cataract surgery and acceptance of the surgery. The type of intervention had a negligible effect on awareness of cataract surgery. A multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that individuals who were aware of surgery tended to be male, literate, and more affluent than those who were unaware of that option. Interventions that covered the complete costs of surgery had higher surgery acceptance rates. One health education strategy, house-to-house visits by a subject with aphakia, increased acceptance of the procedure more than others. In a multiple logistic regression analysis of acceptance rates, persons accepting surgery tended to be male; other factors were not important in explaining variation in acceptance rates.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

The cost effectiveness of strategies to reduce barriers to cataract surgery. The Operations Research Group.

The cost and effectiveness of eight approaches to reducing barriers to cataract surgery were evaluated in a rural area of South India during 1987-1989. The approaches were based on four intervention alternatives--aphakic motivator (AM), basic eye health worker (BW), screening van (SV), and mass media (MM). Each intervention was offered at two levels of economic incentive: partial, which provides free surgery and hospital stay, and full, which also provides transport from the recipient's village to the hospital and free food during the hospital stay. Evaluations took place in a probability selection of 90 villages, including ten control villages not subjected to either of the interventions. Only costs unique to patients from the intervention villages were considered: Health education and screening costs were included, surgery costs were not. Percentage reductions in the cataract blind backlog and increases in surgical coverage were used as effectiveness measures. Analyses suggest that the SV and AM interventions, both with full economic incentive, offer the greatest advantage. The AM intervention is the more effective of the two, but also the more costly.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Short stature and cephalopelvic disproportion in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Operations Research Team.

In order to reduce maternal mortality due to cephalopelvic disproportion (CPD), it is important to screen women for short stature, especially in rural areas of developing countries. We measured the height of 1733 women as they left the maternity services in Ouagadougou and recorded the type of delivery. Women less than 155 cm tall were 4.9 times more likely to have a cesarean section delivery. We propose simplified screening criteria for use by traditional birth attendants.

Body Height↗
PubMed1976

Journal selection decisions: a biomedical library operations research model. I. The framework.

The problem of deciding which journal titles to select for acquisition in a biomedical library is modeled. The approach taken is based on cost/benefit ratios. Measures of journal worth, methods of data collection, and journal cost data are considered. The emphasis is on the development of a practical process for selecting journal titles, based on the objectivity and rationality of the model; and on the collection of the approprate data and library statistics in a reasonable manner. The implications of this process towards an overall management information system (MIS) for biomedical serials handling are discussed.

Book Selection↗
PubMed1991

An emerging global programme against tuberculosis: agenda for research, including the impact of HIV infection.

During the last 5 years, a worldwide resurgence of tuberculosis has been convincingly documented. Increased numbers of cases have been reported from several industrialized countries and there has been a veritable explosion of tuberculosis in the developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The fact that most of this increase is attributable to coexisting infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) should come as no surprise, because of the role played by cell-mediated immunity in protecting against tuberculosis and the depletion of this immunity by HIV infection. The World Health Organization estimates that there are more than 3 million persons in the world dually infected with HIV and tubercle bacilli. To combat this problem, there needs to be an expansion of programmes designed to identify and treat all patients with tuberculosis, whether HIV infected or not. In addition, the prospects for further advances in basic research, clinical research, epidemiological research and operations research, which have broad application to clinical medicine, are great, and these results will help combat the dual scourges of HIV infection and tuberculosis.

Global Health↗
PubMed1978

Systematic serials selection analysis in a small academic health sciences library.

This paper describes the implementation of a straightforward quantitative technique to analyze the serials collection of the Medical Library at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). Our simplified operations research approach resulted in a savings of nearly $1400 per year in subscriptions costs without reducing the net number of seven hundred titles or causing an imbalance in the subject distribution of our collection. By detailing both the rationale behind the process and the actual steps followed at UMKC, we hope to demonstrate that operations research techniques can be used practically and successfully even in small health sciences libraries. In the Appendix a more general and more rigorous operations research approach to the analysis of serials collections is also presented in a fashion that is, as far as possible, not mathematically forbidding.

Book Selection↗
PubMed1992

[Efficiency in the delivery of health care].

In this paper the role of efficiency in health care delivery is discussed. In the first part several definitions of efficiency are presented and the most common efficiency analysis are described. In the second part of the paper some experiences aimed at improving the efficiency of health care delivery in England, Latin America and Mexico are discussed. Finally, the author presents four proposals for the improvement of efficiency of health care delivery in Mexico: monetary reward associated to performance, alternative organization of health services, investment in management training for health manpower, and operational research in the health systems.

Delivery of Health Care↗
PubMed1992

Overview: epidemiology of malaria and its control in countries of the WHO South-East Asia region.

The malaria situation in the WHO South-East Asia Region is reviewed in terms of its epidemiological diversity, problems encountered and implications for control. Varying host-parasite-vector interrelationships are shown to be influenced significantly by prevailing environmental conditions (eg topographic, climatic) as well as behavioral and socio-economic determinants. Drug-resistant falciparum malaria and vector resistance to insecticides are the main biological deterrents to the success of control programs. Thus, the potential for malaria transmission remains high in many places. The malaria control strategy includes Primary Health Care and integration with basic health services. However, operational research is needed in many of the countries in the Region.

Asia, Southeastern↗
PubMed1991

Automated nurse scheduling.

This article attempts (1) to define the several aspects of scheduling nursing personnel within the general context of nursing management, (2) to briefly review the history of the application of operations research and computers to scheduling nurses, (3) to describe what nursing administration is looking for in an automated scheduling system, (4) to review a typical system, and then (5) to discuss issues of implementation from the viewpoint of nursing administration, including realizable benefits.

Computers↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Application of a computer-based zero-one methodology to the assignment of nurses to a clinical rotation schedule.

This article discusses the application of a zero-one approach to the development of a total program schedule that assigns students to all required clinical courses in an academic nursing program. The approach is based on an operations research technique, zero-one programming. Unlike zero-one programming, the objective function in this formulation is arbitrary; any solution that meets the constraints of the system is acceptable. Also described in this article are the constraints that limit flexibility of student assignments (i.e., available clinical sites and units, instructors, day or evening, maximum class sizes, order of courses), a solution to the scheduling problem at Saint Joseph's (which involves 1,067 equations), and suggestions for the general utility of a zero-one approach for similar administrative problems.

Computers↗