In the dynamic environment of increasing regulations, increasing patient demand, decentralization of budgets and enforcement of efficiency, small sized healthcare institutions in the Netherlands are having a difficult time. Although these service providers are usually capable of flexibly delivering healthcare, the investment and overhead for implementing and executing on required quality management standards like ISO 9001 is difficult. In this paper we construct a method for the implementation of an IT-enabled quality management system for small sized healthcare institutions, which is applied through case study. The case organisation provides intra- and extramural care for mentally handicapped persons and young adults with a psychiatric disorder. The quality management system implementation is based on 1) a lightweight IT infrastructure (based at a secure data centre and accessible through remote login) implying secure storage of patients' medical and personal information. Furthermore, the Deming (Deming, 1982) cycle enabled processes and protocols are 2) described in an e-handbook and prototyped via an open source process management system which supports the quality regulation demanded for providing care to patients. The case study supports the validity of our method and the fact that small sized healthcare institutions are able to execute their care while adhering to ISO 9001-like standards, with limited initial costs and relatively low cost of ownership
This paper discusses two studies - the one in a business context, the other in a university context - carried out with expert educational designers. The studies aimed to determine the priorities experts claim to employ when designing competence-based learning environments. Designers in both contexts agree almost completely on principles they feel are important. Both groups emphasized that one should start a design enterprise from the needs of the learners, instead of the content structure of the learning domain. However, unlike business designers, university designers find it extremely important to consider alternative solutions during the whole design process. University designers also say that they focus more on project plan and desired characteristics of the instructional blueprint whereas business designers report being more client-oriented, stressing the importance of "buying in" the client early in the process.
High-quality interactions between young children and teachers in early childhood education and care (ECEC) are the cornerstone of educational quality. International findings suggest that the quality of interactions that support emotions and classroom organization is at a medium to high level, but the quality of instructional support is at a lower level. Within the “Teaching Through Interactions” framework developed by Hamre and colleagues (2013), several efforts were made to evaluate and improve key teacher-child interactions through in-service training. Our review includes experimental studies that evaluate professional development using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System measures. The systematic literature search and coding of studies was carried out by two independent reviewers. Our review includes 15 recent studies with 18 treatments. The meta-analysis (random effect model) showed an overall statistically significant professional development effect of g = 0.39 (SE = .08), i.e. close to a medium-size effect. In addition, effect sizes were almost equal for interactions related to emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support (g= 0.35, 0.30, and 0.43, respectively). The quality of experimental studies and professional development was at a high level (e.g., individual component, feedback, or modeling) and experimental findings were generally positive. Our meta-analysis indicates that high-quality in-service programs have the strength to improve teacher-child interactions and pedagogical quality across all three domains.
