A 10-week intergenerational program bringing together community-living older adults and preschool children (INTERACTION): a pilot feasibility non-randomised clinical trial.

Background: Social isolation and low levels of physical activity are strong drivers for frailty, which is linked to poor health outcomes and transition to long-term care. Frailty is multifactorial, and thus an integrated approach is needed to maintain older adults' health and well-being. Intergenerational programs represent a novel multifactorial approach to target frailty, social isolation and physical decline but these have not yet been rigorously tested in Australia.

Intergenerational Programmes bringing together community dwelling non-familial older adults and children: A Systematic Review.

Background: Social isolation is associated with an increased risk of adverse health outcomes, including functional decline, cognitive decline, and dementia. Intergenerational engagement, i.e.

Developing an evaluation framework for clinical redesign programs: lessons learnt.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present lessons learnt through the development of an evaluation framework for a clinical redesign programme - the aim of which was to improve the patient journey through improved discharge practices within an Australian public hospital. Design/methodology/approach The development of the evaluation framework involved three stages - namely, the analysis of secondary data relating to the discharge planning pathway; the analysis of primary data including field-notes and interview transcripts on hospital processes; and the triangulation of these data sets to devise the framework. The evaluation framework ensured that resource use, process management, patient satisfaction, and staff well-being and productivity were each connected with measures, targets, and the aim of clinical redesign programme.

Beyond clinical priority: what matters when making operational decisions about emergency surgical queues?

Objective This paper describes the perceptions of operating theatre staff in Australia and The Netherlands regarding the influence of logistical or operational reasons that may affect the scheduling of unplanned surgical cases. It is proposed that logistical or operational issues can influence the priority determination of queue position of surgical cases on the emergency waiting list. Methods A questionnaire was developed and conducted in 15 hospitals across The Netherlands and Australia, targeting anaesthetists, managers, nurses and surgeons.

Finding brilliance using positive organizational scholarship in healthcare.

Purpose: Positive organizational scholarship in healthcare (POSH) suggests that, to promote widespread improvement within health services, focusing on the good, the excellent, and the brilliant is as important as conventional approaches that focus on the negative, the problems, and the failures. POSH offers different opportunities to learn from and build resilient cultures of safety, innovation, and change. It is not separate from tried and tested approaches to health service improvement--but rather, it approaches this improvement differently.

Hospital employees' perceptions of fairness and job satisfaction at a time of transformational change.

Objective This study examines the relationships between job satisfaction and organisational justice during a time of transformational change. Methods Data collection occurred immediately before a major regional hospital's move to a greenfield site. Existing measures of job satisfaction and organisational justice were used.

Combining patient journey modelling and visual multi-agent computer simulation: a framework to improving knowledge translation in a healthcare environment.

This article focuses on a framework that will investigate the integration of two disparate methodologies: patient journey modelling and visual multi-agent simulation, and its impact on the speed and quality of knowledge translation to healthcare stakeholders. Literature describes patient journey modelling and visual simulation as discrete activities. This paper suggests that their combination and their impact on translating knowledge to practitioners are greater than the sum of the two technologies.

Applying lean flows in pathology laboratory remodelling.

Purpose: This purpose of this paper is to examine the application and outcomes of applying all of the seven lean flows to pathology laboratory remodelling as part of a lean rapid improvement event (RIE).

Design/methodology/approach: Longitudinal case study of a lean RIE linking emergency and pathology departments focusing on the systematic application of lean's seven flows to the physical environment.

Findings: Following the lean RIE, changes improving patient specimen, technician, supplies and information flows avoided 187 km and eight days of unnecessary walking each year.

Organisational professional conflict and hybrid clinician managers: the effects of dual roles in Australian health care organizations.

Purpose: This article aims to examine tensions between hybrid clinician managers' professional values and health care organisations' management objectives.

Design/methodology/approach: Data are from interviews conducted with, and observation of, 14 managerial participants in a Cancer Therapy Unit set in a large teaching hospital in New South Wales, Australia, who participated in a Clinical Leadership Development Program.

Findings: The data indicate that there are tensions experienced by members of the health care organisation when a hybrid clinician manager appears to abandon the managerial role for the clinical role.

Innovative health care delivery teams: learning to be a team player is as important as learning other specialised skills.

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to show that free flowing teamwork depends on at least three aspects of team life: functional diversity, social cohesion and superordinate identity.

Design/methodology/approach: The paper takes the approach of a discussion, arguing for a strong need to understand multidisciplinary and cross-functional barriers for achieving team goals in the context of health care. These barriers include a strong medically dominated business model, historically anchored delineations between professional identities and a complex organisational environment where individuals may have conflicting goals.

Health reform, professional identity and occupational sub-cultures: the changing interprofessional relations between doctors and nurses.

Recent literature on health reform describes advantages of a collaborative approach to the management of health organizations. However, it is important for the managers of health organizations, including nurse managers, to understand that occupational groups adapt to organizational change and policy reform in different ways. These differences to change may have an effect on health reform initiatives, in particular, by potentially limiting the development of collaboration, team work and inter-professional practice.