A proposed framework of key activities and processes in the preparedness and recovery phases of disaster management.

This paper proposes an empirically grounded framework for examining the preparedness and recovery phases of disaster management activities and processes pertaining to predictable disasters within a developed country. The two-stage framework provides a single model composed of important preparedness and recovery initiatives, as well as activities and processes derived from empirical data collected for case studies from Australia: the 'Black Saturday' bushfires in the state of Victoria in February 2009; and Cyclone Larry in March 2006. The framework enables a variety of analyses, including the generation of insights into disaster management preparedness and recovery in the context of events in wealthy developed countries.

Case conferences in palliative care - a substudy of a cluster randomised controlled trial.

Background: In palliative care, case conferences have demonstrated improved maintenance of function and a significant reduction in hospitalisations. This study aimed to define the content and themes of palliative care case conferences.

Methods: This was a substudy of a cluster randomised controlled trial.

Palliative care case conferencing involving general practice: an argument for a facilitated standard process.

Objective: To discuss the results of a qualitative analysis of the group dynamics of General Practitioner (GP)-led case conferences for palliative care patients, where the GP becomes the care coordinator. Two outcomes are sought: (1) raise the understanding of this type of case conferencing for palliative care patients; and (2) recommend improvements to this process that will positively affect its efficacy.

Methods: Original data is the qualitative component of quantitative and qualitative study of 17 GP-led case conferences for palliative care patients.

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.

Relating configuration and learning in Brazil and Australia.

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate whether an organisation's configuration, with regard to its operating environment, could have a bearing on the learning that occurs within the organisation because the configuration can be considered an artefact capable of enabling learning and capable of facilitating the storage and utilisation of the results of learning. This raises an interesting question about the ability of organisations to shape the configuration that enables and facilitates them, which in turn would shape the learning itself.

Design/methodology/approach: Reported in this paper is research in healthcare organisations in Brazil and Australia that use a multidisciplinary model of care delivery which test these relationships.

Making explicit the implicit knowledge assets in healthcare: the case of multidisciplinary teams in care and cure environments.

Research in Australia and the United States offers evidence of sophisticated, implicit, knowledge assets in two diverse healthcare environments, care and cure. Two case studies representing these two distinct archetypal environments are presented (a palliative care organization in Australia and a spinal care unit in the United States); both are based around multidisciplinary service delivery and demonstrate the existence of implicit knowledge assets. Yet the full potential of these knowledge assets is not being realized.

Linking team competences to organisational capacities in health care.

Palliative care is a complex environment in which teams of healthcare professionals are constantly challenged to match the configuration of care delivery to suit the dynamics of the patient's bio-medical, social and spiritual situations as they change during the end-of-life process. In such an environment these teams need to engage in ongoing interaction between different professional disciplines, incremental improvement in care delivery, learning and radical innovation. This is aimed at combining operational effectiveness, strategic flexibility, exploitation and exploration, in a way that ensures the best possible care for the patient.