British Institute of Technology and E-commerce

About: British Institute of Technology and E-commerce is a education organization based out in London, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Analogy & Class (set theory). The organization has 30 authors who have published 51 publications receiving 698 citations. The organization is also known as: BITE.

A study of relationship between job stress, quality of working life and turnover intention among hospital employees

Abstract: Job stress is a serious threat to the quality of working life (QWL) of health-care employees and can cause hostility, aggression, absenteeism and turnover, as well as reduced productivity. In addition, job stress among employees affects the quality of health-care services. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the relationships between job stress and QWL of employees, and their impact on turnover intention at Isfahan hospitals, Iran. The study employed a cross-sectional research design. A validated questionnaire was used to collect data from hospital employees. Overall, 26% of employees graded their job stress high. The major sources of stress were inadequate pay, inequality at work, too much work, staff shortage, lack of recognition and promotion prospects, time pressure, lack of job security and lack of management support. An inverse relationship was found between job stress and QWL among hospital employees. The most important predictor of QWL was disturbance handling, followed...

A conceptual framework for quality of care.

Abstract: Despite extensive research on defining and measuring health care quality, little attention has been given to different stakeholders’ perspectives of high-quality health care services. The main purpose of this study was to explore the attributes of quality healthcare in the Iranian context. Exploratory in-depth individual and focus group interviews were conducted with key healthcare stakeholders including clients, providers, managers, policy makers, payers, suppliers and accreditation panel members to identify the healthcare service quality attributes and dimensions. Data analysis was carried out by content analysis, with the constant comparative method. Over 100 attributes of quality healthcare service were elicited and grouped into five categories. The dimensions were: efficacy, effectiveness, efficiency, empathy, and environment. Consequently, a comprehensive model of service quality was developed for health care context. The findings of the current study led to a conceptual framework of healthcare quality. This model leads to a better understanding of the different aspects of quality in health care and provides a better basis for defining, measuring and controlling quality of health care services.

Patient choice of a hospital: implications for health policy and management.

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this study was to identify the most important influencing factors in choosing a hospital by a patient. Design/methodology/approach – This study involved a mixed research design. Focus groups and in-depth individual interviews were conducted with patients to explore reasons for choosing a hospital. In addition, this study involved survey-based research on the patient choice. Findings – Type of the hospital, type of the service, word of mouth, cost of services, the health insurance programme, location, physical environment, facilities, providers' expertise and interpersonal behaviour, and reputation of the hospital influenced patients' choice of a hospital. Doctor recommendations and health insurance programme were the main reasons for choosing a hospital for inpatients and outpatients respectively. Practical implications – Identifying and understanding key factors that influence a patient choice of a healthcare setting helps managers and policy makers invest their resources in thos...

Reasoning with logical proportions

Abstract: By logical proportion, we mean a statement that expresses a semantical equivalence between two pairs of propositions. In these pairs, each element is compared to the other in terms of similarities and/or dissimilarities. An example of such a proportion is the well known analogical proportion: a is to b as c is to d. Analogical proportions have been recently characterized in logical terms, but there are many other proportions that are worth of interest. Some of them can be related to the analogical pattern, others are related to semantical equivalence between conditional objects and express statements such as a ressembles to b and differs from b in the same way as c with respect to d. We show that there are 5 direct proportions, including the analogical one and 4 others having a conditional object flavor, where the change (if any) from a to b goes in the same direction as the change from c to d (if any), together with 5 reverse proportions obtained by switching c and d. Moreover, there exists only one auto-reverse proportion called paralogy and stating that what a and b have in common, c and d have it as well. It is then established that there is none other proportion than these ones (with the exception of 4 degenerated ones) that satisfies a natural "full identity" requirement. The paper proposes a structured and unified view of these logical proportions and discusses their characteristic properties. It extends previous works where only proportions related to analogy were considered. It also explores the use of these logical proportions in transduction-like inference, where new items are classified on the basis of already classified items without trying to induce a generic model, considering similarities and differences between items only. Taking advantage of different proportions, a transduction procedure is proposed.