Today many companies show a highly interest in adopting the e-business. However,companies need different information system strategy in the adoption of e-business in order tosupport information sharing. Information system strategy is concerned with aligning ofinformation system with business needs. Beside this, companies need to search after strategicadvantage from information technology, since information system strategy explains what todo with IT. The earlier experiences point to the fact that companies failed to develop theirbusinesses through Internet mainly because they did not developed an appropriate strategy.This study investigates how to implement information system strategy to support informationsharing in the context of e-business. Thus, the purpose of this study is to highlight differentperspectives in adaptation of information system strategy within e-business companies. Theempirical study is based on a qualitative method of data collection by using three interrelatedcase studies. The study conducted a number of interviews with three e-business companiesnamed Hööks, NetOnNet and Kwintet.The theoretical framework provided knowledge about e-business, information sharing, andinformation system strategies. The findings - by means of interview questions - were analyzedby theoretical ideas. The authors came to a number of conclusions:1. Perspectives in information system strategy are divided into different parts consist ofERP system, supporting system, and manual approach, depending on how the ebusinesscompanies uses the information system strategies.2. Information system strategies are embedded with ERP system and are interconnectivelyused companies that use the e-business as their core business system.3. The e-business provides information workflow to support information sharing.4. The final conclusion is that there are remaining perspectives, which are not connectedto ERP system, but they are vital for the implementation of information systemstrategies for information sharing. / Program: Masterutbildning i Informatik

Não consta resumo na publicação. / Abstract not available.

The subject of this diploma paper is the development of simple information system. This system is intended for elementary schools and high schools and it covers functionality of attendance evidence, study assessment evidence and assigning, submitting and evaluating of tasks. Design of the application is focused mainly on efficiency of application using and simplicity of control. Thesis contains the chapter about Groovy programming language and framework Grails, which is used as base for development of this application. This chapter may help as a userguide for developers, which are beginning in using of these technologies.

Belém sofreu processo semelhante a diversas cidades brasileiras, com a expulsão de parte da população para áreas de expansão com carência de infra-estrutura viária e, em geral, prejudicadas em termos de acessibilidade. Considerando que este processo atingiu de forma desigual aos diferentes segmentos da população, o objetivo deste trabalho é avaliar como se dá a distribuição de acessibilidade ao transporte para indivíduos de diferentes classes de renda e, a partir daí, analisar estratégias para assegurar a eqüidade na sua distribuição na Região Metropolitana de Belém (RMB). Com este fim, dois índices de acessibilidade foram calculados neste estudo a partir da aplicação de um sistema de informações geográficas para transportes: um do tipo separação espacial média e outro do tipo gravitacional. Os valores de atratividade do índice do tipo gravitacional foram posteriormente alterados de forma a compor dois cenários de localização de pólos de comércio e serviços diferentes do atual. O estudo mostra que os cenários alternativos promoveram uma melhor distribuição da acessibilidade na RMB e que a seleção do melhor deles pode ser feita através de critérios de eqüidade. Além disto, demonstrou-se ainda que, após a seleção do melhor cenário, outros recursos do SIG podem ser utilizados para priorizar, também segundo a ótica da eqüidade, as zonas que ainda carecem de melhorias na acessibilidade aos transportes. / The growth process of Belém, similarly to what happened to other Brazilian cities, was characterized by the location of part of its population in areas with insufficient road infrastructure. As a consequence, these were in general low accessibility areas. Considering that the impacts of the growth process were not evenly distributed to all population groups, the aim of this work is to evaluate the distribution patterns of transportation accessibility to different income groups in the Metropolitan Region of Belém. This is an important step towards the formulation of strategies to reestablish equity in the accessibility distribution. Two indexes have been used to estimate accessibility values in a geographic information system environment: a Mean Separation Index and a Gravity-type Index. The attractiveness values of the Gravity-type Index were subsequently changed to create alternative scenarios in which the location of the retail and service areas was different from the current conditions. The results found in this study showed that: a) the alternative scenarios had a better transportation accessibility distribution than the present one; and b) the selection of the best alternative scenario could be based on equity criteria. Next, once again oriented by an equity criterion, other GIS tools were applied to select the areas in the chosen scenario in which transportation accessibility could be further improved.

Diploma thesis focuses on the system for Customer Relationship Management and its full modernization. Its task is to build the project and resolve needed to upgrade the system in a particular company, including any impact on its operations and processes of the business and technology solutions.

Electronic nursing documentation systems can facilitate complete, accurate, timely documentation practices, but without effective policies and procedures in place, a gap in practice exists and quality of care may be impacted. This systematic review of literature examined current evidence regarding electronic nursing documentation quality. General systems theory and the Donabedian model of health care quality provided the framework for the project. Electronic databases PubMed and the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health were searched for articles addressing electronic nursing documentation practices. The Cochrane systematic review methodology was used to analyze the articles. Articles were excluded if published before 2001 or not in the English language. The search revealed 860 articles of which 35 were included in the final review. Most studies were quasi-experimental involving multiple interventions such as clinical decision support (CDSS), education, and audit and feedback specific documentation foci. The most reported outcomes were an improvement in documentation completeness and correctness. A multifaceted intervention strategy consisting of CDSS, education, and audit and feedback can be used to improve electronic documentation completeness and correctness. Policies and procedures regarding documentation practice should support the intended outcomes. Electronic documentation systems can improve completeness, but care should be taken not to depend on the quantity of documentation alone. Further research may shed light on the importance of concordance or plausibility, and the truth of documentation and ultimately how that can impact social determinates of health and social change.

This study of the spatiotemporal patterns of colorectal cancer (CRC) in Iowa introduced the importance of examining the geographic patterns of four epidemiological measures (incidence, late-stage incidence, mortality, and survival) as inter-related phases in the natural history of the disease rather than as independent measures. To conduct such an analysis required the development of a framework for conducting spatiotemporal correlation analysis involving two or more measures across two or more periods. This framework is based on geographic units called spatially adaptive filter areas.which effectively address the small number problem. This common spatial epidemiology problem occurs when the population in a unit of geography is too small to calculate a reliable disease rate. The spatially adaptive filter areas are created by aggregating smaller geographic units which, by themselves, do not have sufficiently large populations to calculate statistically reliable disease rates. Conducting spatiotemporal analysis magnifies the small number problem because stratifying disease data by time further reduces the sample sizes in each period, thus increasing the potential for unreliable disease rates. This spatiotemporal framework satisfies two conditions: 1) the rates of each measure in all small areas in the study region meet a minimum level of statistical reliability in all periods, and 2) the disease outcomes measured for one period relies on the same geographic units as the rates calculated for all other periods and measures. We applied the spatiotemporal framework to colorectal cancer data collected in the state of Iowa between 1999 and 2010. Using rates calculated in spatial filter areas, we found that the proportion of cases diagnosed at a late-stage among the population at risk for CRC is more correlated with CRC mortality than when late-stage is measured as the proportion of late-stage cases among the CRC cases diagnosed at any stage. We also found that, when measured in the context of the statewide change, an observed decline in the rate of CRC mortality in a small area does not necessarily mean that its level of mortality is improving. We also found that the correlation between rates of CRC mortality and the survival time among patients diagnosed with CRC varied across Iowa. The results described in this dissertation could potentially reduce the burden of colorectal cancer and improve the health of communities by providing public health professionals and cancer control specialists with evidence to enhance their decision-making processes.

Research suggests that living in communities with high densities of persons from their own ethnic group improves the overall health of older Mexican Americans. One hypothesis is that residing in high ethnic density areas allows characteristics of Mexican culture such as strong social ties and social cohesion, to have a beneficial effect. The majority of investigations focused on ethnic density effects, however, have utilized relatively loose interpretations of what constitutes the appropriate social-geographic area to be studied. Moreover it is not clear how certain dimensions of residential segregation are protective or harmful toward health, particularly when measuring ethnic residential segregation from a geographic information systems (GIS) perspective. The effects of ethnic density and segregation have not been directly or quantitatively tested using the kind of multi-level methodology that can effectively capture data from both personal and environmental characteristics. The present study assessed how multiple geographic/neighborhood factors including ethnic density, neighborhood social cohesion, and social ties may serve as resources for health and health service use of older Mexican Americans. The study had three objectives: 1. To examine whether protective/deleterious effects of ethnic density exist when we use the more commonly used approach to measuring ethnic density (proportion of ethnic group within a specific census unit), and whether the ethnic density effect is increased when an alternative measurement approach (proximity weighted density) is used that relies on more than a single, specific census unit . 2. To examine how different dimensions of ethnic segregation are related to perceived social support, number of social ties, and perception of social cohesion in their neighborhood. 3. To examine whether or not social cohesion mediate the relationship between ethnic density or segregation and health status/health service use. The study represents a secondary analysis of data from the fifth interview wave of the Hispanic Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study (H-EPESE; PI: Markides). Using geographic information systems (GIS), proximity weighted ethnic density and residential segregation indices were calculated, as well as more standard measures of density based on composition of the census tract in which participant lived. Since the H-EPESE dataset has a clustered structure where individuals are nested within neighborhoods, multilevel modeling techniques were employed. Results suggest that the several approaches here employed to measure ethnic composition of the local environment are complementary. First, the proportion of Hispanics in the neighborhood as defined by the use of census tracts, is both simple and the data easily accessible to researchers. This proportion, or what is often called density, was found to associate with several outcome measures in much the same way, and with similar proportions of variance as the more complex ways of method. The latter, however, made significant contributions that often were relatively independent of the census tract based proportions and thus add significantly to our understanding of the role of the ethnic neighborhood. These more complex measures, moreover, may potentially contribute even more: analyses using these newer approaches were limited by the lack of street address or census block data. Access to such data was not possible due to confidentiality issues surrounding the use of highly specific geographic information that could potentially identify the participant. Results did strongly suggest the value of a residential segregation index as a means of demonstrating that the ethnic environment and urban-rural composition of the residential environment contributes to our understanding of the importance of social coherence and social ties. It was found for example that older Mexican Americans who lived in neighborhoods with higher exposure segregation (i.e., neighborhoods where an individual from one particular racial/ethnic group has a higher probability of encountering members of another group, rather than from their own group) have higher depressive symptoms, as measured by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale. This relationship was mediated by individual level data on perception of social cohesion. While in all cases causal interpretations were limited by the lack of a true experimental design the results generally do demonstrate the value of the newer, complementary, approaches to assessment of racial/ethnic density.

Swedish municipalities invest enormous amounts of resources in health information systems (HIS) in order to have a competitive edge, reduce cost in operations, faster storage and retrieval of patient information, foster transparency, efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery. This study examines the major challenges faced by the system end-users after the implementation of the new health information systems in the elderly and care homes in a municipality in a southern region of Sweden.  The rationale for the examination is derived from the discovery that the municipality is yet to fully utilize the new-HIS, despite huge investments in procurement, supervision and training of users.  The major reason why this topic was chosen was due to the challenges encountered while working as a care giver staff in one municipality in a southern region of Sweden. In this study, The technology acceptance model (TAM ) is used to better understand the current working of the new-HIS.   Mixed methods are utilized to conduct the case study; semi structured interviews and questionnaire survey. The findings of this study are presented in the findings chapter and have shown many shortcomings in the use of the new-HIS such as limited supervision from top management, inadequate skills, inadequate computers, long procedures thus time wasting, insufficient resources like financing and policies among others as further discussed in the research findings chapter in this report.  Finally, this study proposes the findings as contributions to the study of challenges faced by end-users after the introduction and reception of the new-HIS by the given case study; and it propagates share of experiences and lessons to be learned.

China is moving towards a market economy. The greater use of market forces has made China richer, accelerated modernisation and increased productive efficiency but has created new problems, including, in the health sector, problems of inequity and allocative inefficiency. From 1997, the Chinese government committed to a national policy of regional health planning (RHP), as part of a broader commitment to harmonising social and economic development. However, RHP has been slow to impact on the equity and efficiency problems in health care. Planning requires information; better health decision-making requires better health information. Information systems constitute a resource that is vital for the health planning and the management of the health system. Properly developed, managed and used, health information systems are a highly cost-effective resource for the nation and its regions. Bureaucratic resistance, one of critical reasons is that regional health planners gained insufficient support from information system. Health information needs to adopt into the new way of government health management. The objective of the study is to contribute to the development of China�s health information system (HIS) over the next 5-10 years, in particular to suggest how provincial health information systems could be made more useful as a basis for RHP. The existing HIS is examined in relation to its support for and relevance to RHP, including policy framework, institutional structures and resources, networks and relationships, data collection, analysis, quality and accessibility of information as well as the use of information in support of health planning. Data sources include key informant interviews, a questionnaire survey and various policy documents. Qualitative (questionnaire survey on provincial HIS) and quantitative (key informant interviews) approaches are used in this study. Document analysis is also conducted. The research examines information for planning within the macro and historical context of health planning in China, in particular having regard to the impacts and implications of the transition to a market economy. It is evident that the implementation of RHP has been retarded by poor performance of information system, particularly at the provincial level. However, the implementation of RHP has also been complicated by fragmented administrative hierarchies, weak implementation mechanisms and contradictions between different policies, for example, between improved planning and the encouragement of market forces in health care. To support RHP which is needs based, has a focus on improving allocative efficiency and is adapted to the new market development will require new information products and supports including infrastructure reform and capacity development. Provincial HIS needs to move from being data generators and transmitters to becoming information producers and providers. Health planning has moved to greater use of population-based benchmark and demand-side control. Therefore, information products should be widened from supply side data collection (in particular assets and resources) to include demand-side collection and analysis (including utilisation patterns and community surveys of opinion and experience). The interaction between users (the planners) and producers (the HIS) should be strengthened and regional networks of information producers and planners should be established.