Medical referrals are requests, typically from generalist to specialist physician, to see a patient in order to offer an opinion or further care and increasingly are conducted through information technology as electronic referrals (e-referrals). This study set out to determine an appropriate e-referral to psychiatry. A field study was conducted. The criteria and supporting information requirements for an appropriate e-referral to psychiatry were determined. These results were used in turn to conduct a gap analysis on current e-referral standards. It was possible to conclude that current standards would not meet the needs for an e-referral to psychiatry. The results were also used as a case study to address gaps in the knowledge of e-referrals. There was a recurrent theme that the development of e-referrals must account for a number of contexts and as such e-referrals should be developed conceptually before technical deployment. Next steps in research were then discussed. / Graduate / 0723 / sbp@uvic.ca

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Public Health. Johannesburg, April 2012 / Introduction: A functioning and effective referral system is essential to improve maternal care services. There are guidelines that identify the types of maternity care that should be provided at the different levels of care, and define referral pathways and appropriate management of patients at each level of care. Compliance with referral and patient management guidelines is important to ensure appropriate utilization of different levels of maternal care services, and to prevent maternal and peri-natal mortality. This study assesses the referral of pregnant women to Dilokong district hospital maternity unit for delivery, to evaluate the proportion of referred women who delivered at the appropriate level of care. Methods: This was a descriptive cross sectional study involving retrospective review of hospital records for mothers who delivered in the maternity unit of Dilokong hospital during January to December 2008. Data were collected from 400 records using a data extraction sheet. Data were collected on demographic variables, clinical and obstetric history, distance to Dilokong hospital, and type of referral (self-referred or health professional referred). Analysis determined the appropriateness of referrals for delivery at the Dilokong hospital level of care. Results: Most women delivering at the hospital maternity unit were self-referred and inappropriate for the level of care. A total of 333 women (85%) were self-referred and 57% were inappropriate for delivery at the hospital level of care. Most women used Dilokong hospital as their first contact with the health care system even though many lived closer to a clinic or CHC. Among self-referrals, only 121 (37%) were appropriate for delivery at the hospital level of care. The majority (74%) of health-professional referred women were appropriately referred for hospital delivery. The results also show that the majority (67%) and (53%) of self-referrals and inappropriate referrals respectively were brought to the hospital by ambulance. Conclusion: This study shows that referral pathways are not functioning in line with referral guidelines for maternal care. The bypass of primary care facilities by most women in the study results in inappropriate utilization and potentially overloading of the hospital maternity unit. Non-compliance with referral guidelines defies the efficient functioning of health services. This could be addressed by developing mechanisms to improve and continuously monitor compliance; and doing further studies to determine the contributory factors, particularly for self-referrals.

The studies of employee referral have shown that employee referral is one of the most cost-effective recruiting methods. However, few studies focused on the background and cause of its occurrence; and the guanxi between the introducer and referral could also provide as a good resource to referral and result in a great effect to both of the introducer and referral. Therefore, this research aimed at the cause of employee referral; the effects of employee referral on introducer, referral and organization; relationship development between introducer and referral after employee referral; and the effects of guanxi on referral¡¦s job performance, job satisfaction, organization commitment and resignation. The major conclusions of this research are as following: 1. If introducer voluntarily recommends referral and pedals his/her influence, the referral can have a good chance to get the job offer. 2. Positive influences which results from employee referral on introducer, referral and organization are more effective in comparison with negative influences. 3. Both of the introducer and referral take psychological pressures of employee referral, including guarantee of referral¡¦s performance and return introducer¡¦s favor. 4. To avoid being classed as the same type or group without an appropriate understanding, the introducer and referral would decrease the personal contact with each other in the office.

Long wait times for elective services are seen as one of the major challenges for Canadian healthcare. Canadians report that they wait longer for specialists than citizens in other countries. An average of 25% of patients are waiting longer than evidence-based benchmarks in priority areas. One reason for this is that the referral process is poorly coordinated and leads to delays in care. Electronic referral is seen as a potential means of improving the referral process and enabling faster access to care. There is a major national initiative and multiple provincial initiatives that are looking to implement or expand electronic referral. However, existing projects have encountered challenges with user adoption. Therefore, it is critical that information about user perspectives on electronic referral inform future implementation. Before examination of the literature, frameworks for the evaluation of health information systems that could be relevant to electronic referral were examined. Then a literature review was conducted and aligned to the most suitable evaluation framework. This literature review found that the evidence from the Canadian perspective on electronic referral is sparse and that further study is needed. In addition, validated instruments have not been used to determine user perspectives and a formal qualitative methodology was only used in one study. Therefore, a mixed methods approach was undertaken to address these deficiencies. The System and Use Survey developed by Canada Health Infoway is a validated tool that was used to survey both users of faxed based referral as well as users of electronic referral. These two groups of users were then compared. As well, thematic analysis was used for the qualitative study to analyze interviews of users of electronic referral. This approach yielded a rich source of information that added significantly to the findings in the literature and addressed most components of the evaluation framework. The quantitative findings showed that most family physicians using fax were satisfied overall with the process. This highlighted how challenging any changes to this process would be to implement. Correspondingly, the overall user satisfaction was not significantly different between family physicians using fax and those using eReferral. There were, however, some significant results between family physicians using fax and those using eReferral, which were response time, the overall quality of referral information, completeness of the information, the timeliness of the information, and the format and layout of the referral information. It seemed that family physicians using eReferral were more satisfied by performance in these domains than family physicians using fax, although further research needs to be completed to verify this. The qualitative analysis highlighted user perspectives on the impact of electronic referral on the referral process, the usability of electronic referral, the experience with deployment, the effect on process outcomes, the improvement of patient outcomes as well as patient experience, the interaction with information technology, the importance of the content of the system, and the impact on society. The contribution from this mixed methods study to the currently available evidence can help to inform future deployment of electronic referral. / Graduate

Thesis (M.H.A.)--University of Michigan, 1959.

Thesis (M.H.A.)--University of Michigan, 1959.

Aim: The aim of this study is to analyze how a non-reward referral program can be operated without offering a real incentive to one referring someone else to a company. A case of Oneplus smart phone Manufacturer Company is used to illustrate the topic under study in the introduction chapter to give the reader a clear picture of the study. Method: A quantitative data collection of the students in University of Gävle was conducted with Google forms. The data were then transcript to SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) for analyzing, the results were in mean value, standard deviation and cluster analysis.  Result & Conclusions: The research concludes that product quality factor is most essential for a functional non-reward referral system. But also what consumer behavior does a company have to create in their customer, in order for such a system should work. Suggestions for future research: A qualitative research from both a company and its customer in an open-ended interview, to have a deeper understanding and insight of a non-reward referral system. Contribution of the thesis: Having limited theoretical literature on referral marketing without rewards, this thesis contributes to fill that gap by making an addition to existing literature on referral marketing. It also shows what a new firm can do to acquire new customers through cheap marketing.

No description available.

No description available.

In school, all children at some time have been disruptive; however, there are a select few who are continually disruptive and identified by school personnel as those who may have a disruptive behavior disorder such as ADHD. Many times these children are boys and of a minority group (Root & Resnick, 2003). Information collected from school teachers and parents most often provides the basis for diagnosing ADHD, whether reliable or objective. The purpose of the study was to investigate any differences in the way in which teachers respond to behavioral difficulties associated with ADHD for African American girls and boys as compared to White girls and boys, with control for SES and perceived school climate as potential confounds. These results are promising in that teachers’ responses suggest similarity in perceptions of children’s behavior regardless of children’s socioeconomic status, gender and ethnicity. The results indicated that a significant difference exists in that teachers would talk to the counselor about the child’s behavior based on the child’s ethnicity, gender, and SES. When controlling for school climate, there was a significant difference in teacher responses to unusualness of inattention, which indicated that the better the school climate, the more unusual the inattention was perceived. Also, results indicated that the teacher’s ethnicity and/or ethnicity and gender affected how they perceived the child’s behavior.