Purpose – The purposes of this paper are to 1) give an overview of the prevalence of HR practices that are used to retain vital older workers in health organizations, 2) to examine the evaluations of those HR practices, and 3) to determine the wishes for HR practices in three different target groups:older workers, line managers and HR professionals.Design/methodoly/approach - An inventory case study was conducted based on 51 interviews with older workers, line managers and HR professionals working in 15 hospitals and nursing and care organizations.Findings - Our results showed that maintenance HR practices focused on retaining older workers in their current jobs, in comparison with development HR practices, are by far more prevalent. In addition, maintenance and development HR practices, in general, are assessed being successful.Although wishes appeared to be strongly related to development HR practices, maintenance HR practices are mentioned as well.Originality/value - This paper aims to give an overview of the prevalence of HR practices used to retain older workers in health care organizations vital at work, which practices are evaluated as successful from not only line managers’ and HRM perspective, but from the older workers themselves as well.
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Background: The transformation in global demography and the shortage of health care workers require innovation and efficiency in the field of health care. Digital technology can help improve the efficiency of health care. The Mercury Advance SMARTcare solution is an example of digital technology. The system is connected to a hybrid mattress and is able to detect patient movement, based on which the air pump either starts automatically or sends a notification to the app. Barriers to the adoption of the system are unknown, and it is unclear if the solution will be able to support health care workers in their work. Objective: This study aims to gain insight into health care workers’ expectations of factors that could either hamper or support the adoption of the Mercury Advance SMARTcare unit connected to a Mercury Advance mattress to help prevent patients from developing pressure injuries in hospitals and long-term care facilities. Methods: We conducted a generic qualitative study from February to December 2022. Interviews were conducted, and a focus group was established using an interview guide of health care workers from both the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Thematic analysis was performed by 2 independent researchers. Results: A total of 14 participants took part in the study: 6 (43%) participants joined the focus group, and 8 (57%) participants took part in the individual interviews. We identified 13 factors based on four themes: (1) factors specifically related to SMARTresponse, (2) vision on innovation, (3) match with health care activities, and (4) materials and resources involved. Signaling function, SMARTresponse as prevention, patient category, representatives, and implementation strategy were identified as facilitators. Perception of patient repositioning, accessibility to pressure injury aids, and connectivity were identified as barriers. Conclusions: Several conditions must be met to enhance the adoption of the Mercury Advance SMARTcare solution, including the engagement of representatives during training and a reliable wireless network. The identified factors can be used to facilitate the implementation process. JMIR Nursing 2024;7:e47992
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The realization of human rights standards depends in part on the commitment of local actors. It can be argued that local public service professionals such as social workers can also be regarded as key players. The possible role of social workers becomes imperative if these professionals are working in a policy context that is not congruent with human rights. If existing laws or policies cause or maintain disrespect for human rights, social workers are in a position to observe that this is having an adverse impact on clients. When social workers are regarded as human rights actors, the question arises how they can or should respond to law and policy that impedes them in carrying out their work with respect for human rights. This article adds to existing theories on social workers as human rights actors by examining the practices of social professionals working in such a challenging policy context. The research took place among professionals in social district teams in the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands. Following a series of decentralizations and austerity measures the social care landscape in the Netherlands has changed drastically over the last few years. As a result, social workers may find themselves on the one hand trying to realize the best possible care for their clients while on the other hand dealing with new laws and policy expectations focused on self-reliance and diminished access to specialist care. The article explores how social professionals’ responses to barriers in access to care affect human rights requirements. In doing so, this socio-legal study provides insight into the ways in which everyday social work relates to the realization of human rights at the local level.
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To face the challenges of an ageing population, many Western countries nowadays stimulate an ageing in place policy to empower older adults to grow old in their own homes with the highest degree of self‐reliance. However, many community‐living older adults experience limitations in (instrumental) activities of daily living ((I)ADLs), which may result in a need for home‐care services. Unfortunately, home‐care workers often provide support by taking over tasks, as they are used to doing things for older adults rather than with them, which undermines their possibilities to maintain their self‐care capabilities. In contrast, reablement focuses on capabilities and opportunities of older adults, rather than on disease and dependency. Consequently, older adults are stimulated to be as active as possible during daily and physical activities. The 'Stay Active at Home' programme was designed to train home‐care workers to apply reablement in practice. To explore the experiences of home‐care workers with this programme an exploratory study was conducting in the Netherlands, between April and July, 2017. In total, 20 participants were interviewed: nine nurses (including a district nurse), 10 domestic support workers and the manager of the domestic support workers. The semi‐structured interviews focused on the experienced improvements with regard to knowledge, skills, self‐efficacy and social support. Furthermore, the most and least appreciated programme components were identified. The study has shown that home‐care workers perceived the programme as useful to apply reablement. However, they also need more support with mastering particular skills and dealing with challenging situations. Future implementation of the 'Stay Active at Home' programme can potentially benefit from small adaptions. Furthermore, future research is needed to examine whether the programme leads to more (cost‐) effective home care.
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Background: Fifty to eighty percent of patients suffering from chronic kidney disease (CKD) experience a form of sexual dysfunction (SD), even after renal transplantation. Despite this, inquiring about SD is often not included in the daily practice of renal care providers. Objectives: This paper explores the perspectives of renal social workers regarding sexual care for patients and evaluates their practice,attitude towards responsibility and knowledge of SD. Design: A cross-sectional study was conducted using a 41-item online survey. Participants: Seventy-nine members of the Dutch Federation of Social Workers Nephrology. Results: It was revealed that 60% of respondents discussed SD with a fifth of their patients. Frequency of discussion was associated with experience (p¼0.049), knowledge (p¼0.001), supplementary education (p¼0.006), and the availability of protocols on sexual care (p¼0.007).Main barriers towards discussing SD consisted of ‘culture and religion’ (51.9%), ‘language and ethnicity’ (49.4%), and ‘presence of a third person’ (45.6%). Sufficient knowledge of SD was present in 28% of respondents. The responsibility for discussion was 96% nephrologists and 81% social workers. Conclusion: This study provides evidence that a part of Dutch nephrology social workers do not provide sexual care regularly, due to insufficient experience and sexual knowledge, absence of privacy and protocols and barriers based on cultural diversity. According to the respondents the responsibility for this aspect of care should be multidisciplinary. Recommendations include a need for further education on the topic, private opportunities to discuss SD and multidisciplinary guidelines on sexual care
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The importance of specific professions for human rights realization is increasingly recognized. Journalists, teachers, and civil servants are all considered to play a role because their work affects individual rights. This is also the case for social workers. The connection between social work and human rights is evident in the large amount of literature explaining how human rights relate to social work. At the same time there is more attention for human rights localization. These fields of knowledge are related: social workers are local professionals and if they start applying human rights in their work this may influence human rights localization. This article contributes to existing debates on human rights localization by reflecting on the potential role of social workers in local human rights efforts in the Netherlands. Since human rights localization in general and human rights application in social work are recent phenomena in the Netherlands this provides a useful case study for a qualitative analysis on whether and how social workers can be regarded as actors in human rights localization. By connecting different actors that are said to play a role in human rights localization to proposed forms of human rights application by social workers this article identifies three possible roles for social workers in human rights localization: as human rights translators, as human rights advocates, and as human rights practitioners.
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Background: Functional Capacity (FC) is a multidimensional construct within the activity domain of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health framework (ICF). Functional capacity evaluations (FCEs) are assessments of work-related FC. The extent to which these work-related FC tests are associated to bio-, psycho-, or social factors is unknown. The aims of this study were to test relationships between FC tests and other ICF factors in a sample of healthy workers, and to determine the amount of statistical variance in FC tests that can be explained by these factors. Methods: A cross sectional study. The sample was comprised of 403 healthy workers who completed material handling FC tests (lifting low, overhead lifting, and carrying) and static work FC tests (overhead working and standing forward bend). The explainable variables were; six muscle strength tests; aerobic capacity test; and questionnaires regarding personal factors (age, gender, body height, body weight, and education), psychological factors (mental health, vitality, and general health perceptions), and social factors (perception of work, physical workloads, sport-, leisure time-, and work-index). A priori construct validity hypotheses were formulated and analyzed by means of correlation coefficients and regression analyses. Results: Moderate correlations were detected between material handling FC tests and muscle strength, gender, body weight, and body height. As for static work FC tests; overhead working correlated fair with aerobic capacity and handgrip strength, and low with the sport-index and perception of work. For standing forward bend FC test, all hypotheses were rejected. The regression model revealed that 61% to 62% of material handling FC tests were explained by physical factors. Five to 15% of static work FC tests were explained by physical and social factors. Conclusions: The current study revealed that, in a sample of healthy workers, material handling FC tests were related to physical factors but not to the psychosocial factors measured in this study. The construct of static work FC tests remained largely unexplained.
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The „Ageing of Europe‟ phenomenon is related to a higher life expectancy of European inhabitants as well as to decreasing fertility and mortality rates. Those developments affect small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) because the number of older workers in SMEs is increasing too. Our research investigates whether older workers support corporation‟s internationalization. The research was conducted in SMEs in Germany, the Netherlands and United Kingdom by using a mixed method approach (questionnaires and interviews). Respondents provided us with 62 filled questionnaires and results of six semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed by simply searching for answer patterns. Findings revealed that older workers remain professional to keep international relationships running although older workers show less developed language skills, cultural awareness and flexibility. In the future, SMEs in Europe should offer trainings for older workers in foreign languages, how to work in an international environment and how to increase cultural difference awareness.
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This literature review explores ways older workers might continue to make waves and impact their work organization. The topic of the paper is grounded in the problem of an ageing organizational population looming in the near future. The work presented here is a start to helping management in knowledge-intensive organizations to understand how to effectively utilize the capacities of older knowledge workers by stimulating intergenerational learning as a means to retain critical organizational knowledge, encourage innovation and promote organizational learning through knowledge building. First, the concept of intergenerational learning is developed followed by a discussion of the organizational factors important for it to take place. The last section presents ideas on how to design and implement intergenerational learning as an organizational development program.
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The transformation in the global demography and the shortages of healthcare workers requires innovation and efficiency in healthcare. The Dyna-Form SMARTresponse application is an example of Digital Technology, the application can be linked to a Mercury Advance Hybrid Mattress (Direct Healthcare Group, 2019). The goal of this application is to reduce the risk of pressure injuries by notifying healthcare workers about patient, often older people, non-movement. Digital Technology has been studied comprehensively and according to previous research there is a mismatch between the available Digital Technology and the adoption of Digital Technology (Mathijssen et al., 2020). Currently it is unclear whether the Dyna-Form SMARTresponse application can adequately support healthcare workers in their daily practice. Consequently, a generic qualitative study investigating the expectations of healthcare workers of the Dyna-Form SMARTresponse application linked to the Mercury Advance mattress is needed.
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