Thirty-eight clinicians were surveyed regarding their current clinical practices in assessing, tracking treatment and determining discharge criteria for clients with resonance disorders. When these results were compared with recommendations from the literature for best practices, it was found that: (a) most clinicians were using low-tech assessment tools (such as perceptual assessment) at least some of the time, (b) many clinicians were not using high-tech assessment tools (such as videofluoroscopy) simply because they lacked access to such tools, and (c) clinicians are remarkably similar in their clinical practices across a wide variety of circumstances (such as age, and employment setting). The primary recommendation accruing from these findings was that more high-tech assessment tools should be routinely available to clinicians practicing in this area. More consistent use of sophisticated assessment devices would exemplify contemporary thinking about transfer of knowledge to practice in the area of resonance disorders assessment and improve patient outcomes.

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No description available.

This research developed a process to improve the systematic deployment of best practices in unfamiliar countries in response to rapid globalization in the engineering and construction industry. The engineering and construction industry needs processes, metrics and tools to improve the deployment of best practices in unfamiliar countries to help facilitate project success, as new challenges are encountered. The research identified issues that are commonly encountered when deploying best practices in unfamiliar countries. The issues were identified using content analysis and verified by experts using the Delphi Method. The Analytic Hierarchy Process was used to establish weightings for the importance of each issue. The weightings were then used to create a scoring metric for companies to measure their readiness for projects. In order to overcome the issues identified in the research, a series of processes and mitigation strategies to overcome the issues were developed, through a series of interviews and focus groups. The International Readiness Passport (IRP) is a tool created to support the use of the metric and the mitigation strategies. This tool utilizes a self-scoring section which is applied to the metric. The tool then generates a report with the relevant mitigation strategies related to each issue, based on the score. To ensure that the IRP provides a meaningful benefit to the systematic deployment of best practices in unfamiliar countries, it was validated through a series of retrospective tests. These tests have confirmed the accuracy and relevance of the process, metric, and tool, as well as the tool\'s capabilities. / Master of Science

This qualitative study focuses on the faculty engaged in the preparation of secondary teachers at North East University (NEU). It seeks to discover how they see themselves as professionals and assess their work preparing future teachers in "Best Practices" of teaching so that they can effectively teach all students, particularly low achievers. To achieve the goal of this study, I conducted semi-structured individual interviews with those faculty who are engaged in preparing teachers at the secondary program. Eight participants were interviewed for this study, among them six participants were fully engaged in the teacher preparation. Once I collected the data from the interviews, then I transcribed, coded, analyzed the data, and identified similarities, differences, patterns, and themes from the interviews. The findings of this study indicate that these faculty have a strong commitment to preparing outstanding teachers that is rooted in their belief in social justice and equality. They expressed they have dreams about their teaching, about their student-teachers and about their program. The faculty are highly confident of their ability to educate secondary teachers and believe that they make a difference in the academic performance of those children their graduates serve in the schools. This study also concluded that the teacher educators at NEU's secondary program think they are successful in introducing "Best Practices" of teaching, especially helping their student-teachers in differentiating instructions, dealing with disabilities, teaching ELL students, employing technology in teaching, understanding diversity, culture and traditions, and preparing their student-teachers in examining issues relating to prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, race, poverty, gender, social class and ethnicity.

Magister Curationis - MCur / Background: Postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) is one of the most preventable causes of maternal death, yet it still ranks as one of the main conditions responsible for maternal mortality. PPH occurs at a stage when a mother is the least likely to receive care, and mothers often do not survive to be referred to a more specialised level of care. This is compounded by the patient not being able to warn healthcare providers timeously about their condition and healthcare providers lacking training resulting in a lack of accuracy in diagnosis, lack of resources, and differing methods of treatment. Due to the lack of consensus in available treatment options, and the paucity of research aimed at clinical interventions for midwives at the primary care level, this research report aimed to investigate the evidence in order to establish the best practices and evidence for clinical interventions to manage postpartum haemorrhage for midwives at the primary care level. This is to ensure that the continuing education for midwives in practice is based on evidence to keep their skill set current and expose practitioners to the latest evidence based care. Aim: To systematically review all available published evidence for the acute non-pharmaceutical, non-surgical, management of PPH for use by midwives at a primary maternity care setting.

A gestão por processos de negócio aumenta a qualidade de produtos e serviços e diminui o custo operacional nas organizações. Para realizar gestão por processos é necessário mapear estes processos em modelos de processo de negócio que precisam ter qualidade sintática, semântica e pragmática. A qualidade pragmática, em particular, garante que um modelo é compreensível. Os modelos são criados por analistas de processo, os quais reúnem informações que estão distribuídas pela organização e, a partir do conhecimento dos stakeholders do processo. Esta é uma tarefa complexa, que nem sempre resulta em modelos de processo com boa qualidade pragmática. Processos com baixa qualidade pragmática podem ser de difícil entendimento pelos stakeholders do processo. Para certificar a qualidade pragmática é necessário testar o entendimento do processo com novos usuários. Na maioria das vezes é difícil obter novos usuários para realizar testes. Este trabalho propõe uma abordagem que tem como base uma ontologia para representar modelos de processo e boas práticas de modelagem para auxiliar na identificação de modelos com baixa qualidade pragmática. A abordagem desenvolvida inclui o desenvolvimento de um plug-in para o editor de ontologia Protégé, que a partir de indicadores propostos na literatura automatiza a identificação de problemas na qualidade pragmática da modelagem de processos de negócio. Esta ferramenta pode ser utilizada no contexto acadêmico em cursos de modelagem de processos de negócio, auxiliando alunos no entendimento de boas práticas de modelagem, e no contexto empresarial, para revisar grandes repositórios de processos e selecionar os modelos que possam ter problemas na qualidade pragmática. / Business Process Management (BPM) increases the products and services quality and decreases operational costs in organizations. BPM requires the mapping of such process models that must present synthetic quality, semantic quality and pragmatic quality. Pragmatic quality, in particular, ensures understandability of the model. Models are designed by process analysts, gathering information spread at the organization and the knowledge of stakeholders. The design task is complex and some times does not result in process models with high pragmatic quality. Process model with low pragmatic quality may be difficult to understand by process stakeholders. Pragmatics quality certication tests the understanding of the process with new users. Most of the time it is hard to get new users to run tests. This work proposes an approach based on an ontology to represent process models and modeling practices to identify models with low pragmatic quality. The proposed approach is based on the development of a plug-in for Protégé ontology editor, and uses metrics from the literature to identify pragmatic quality problems in process models. This tool can be aplied in academic context so that students can better understant best practices in business process modeling, and also at business context, to review large process repositories selecting models which may have pragmatic quality problems.

This thesis examines the retention of best practices by clinicians after the implementation of an integrated care pathway for patients with congestive heart failure. While the literature suggests there are many reasons why the implementation of best practices is difficult, there is little information on the sustainability of best practices once implemented.<p>Using a qualitative research design guided by Rogers theory of Diffusion of Innovations the researcher interviewed seven clinicians who participated in the implementation of the pathway. A thematic analysis revealed several themes that ran throughout participants responses. <p>While the participants indicated they see value in best practices, they also identified barriers to getting that knowledge into practice and keeping it there. A spectrum of factors, including individual autonomy, time, resources, organizational support and the organization of the system all played a role.<p>In the end, participants revealed that although small pieces of the pathway remain in practice, the pathway itself is no longer used by clinicians to manage patients with congestive heart failure.

This thesis examines the retention of best practices by clinicians after the implementation of an integrated care pathway for patients with congestive heart failure. While the literature suggests there are many reasons why the implementation of best practices is difficult, there is little information on the sustainability of best practices once implemented.<p>Using a qualitative research design guided by Rogers theory of Diffusion of Innovations the researcher interviewed seven clinicians who participated in the implementation of the pathway. A thematic analysis revealed several themes that ran throughout participants responses. <p>While the participants indicated they see value in best practices, they also identified barriers to getting that knowledge into practice and keeping it there. A spectrum of factors, including individual autonomy, time, resources, organizational support and the organization of the system all played a role.<p>In the end, participants revealed that although small pieces of the pathway remain in practice, the pathway itself is no longer used by clinicians to manage patients with congestive heart failure.

In this compendium, we hope to continue the efforts of Bates (2000) and others who have convincingly argued the need for institutional strategic planning and adoption of best practices in learning technology management as institutions transform themselves in the new millennium. We offer here a snapshot of contemporary best practices in learning technology planning and management, based on case studies from leading higher educational institutions in Canada, the United States, Australia and Spain. While we make no claim to completeness, it is our hope that this collection and the associated resources we note will be of interest to key decision makers in the academic communities of universities and colleges, including heads of departments, deans, vice presidents, and presidents. It is also aimed at faculty members concerned with teaching and learning policies and practices.