The managerial role of healthcare professionals in public hospitals: a time-driven analysis of their activities.

Background: New Public Management theory affected reforms of public sectors worldwide. In Italy, an important reform of the healthcare sector changed the profile of public hospitals, creating new management related positions in 1992. The reform defined the role of the clinician-manager: a hybrid figure, in charge of managing an entire unit.

Managing healthcare services: Are professionals ready to play the role of manager?

Health professionals are now required to develop skills that help them to achieve better organizational performance, in addition to the skills necessary to carry out their professional activities. The role of clinician-manager has thus grown rapidly in all the main industrialized countries. The purpose of this study is to investigate how healthcare professionals perceive their level of preparation in managerial skills.

Managerial features and outcome in neonatal intensive care units: results from a cluster analysis.

Background: Healthcare organisations differ in performance even if they are located in the same country or region. Suitable managerial practices and organisational processes can lead to better health outcomes. As a result, hospitals are constantly looking for managerial arrangements that can improve outcomes and keep costs down.

Insights for the future of health system partnerships in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic literature review.

Background: Despite growing support for the private sector involvement in the provision of public health services in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), a lack of clear information on the future of the provision of such services restricts the ability of managers and policy-makers to assess how feasible integration between public and private actors may be in these countries. This paper presents a systematic literature review which traces the dynamics and boundaries of public-private partnerships for the healthcare sector in LMICs.

Methods: A total of 723 articles indexed in Scopus were initially submitted to bibliometric analysis.

Patient-Related Complexity of Care in Healthcare Organizations: A Management and Evaluation Model.

In times of economic stringency, the prerequisite for the provision of healthcare services differentiated by complexity is identified in the right patients' allocation. Since access to high-intensity care units is restricted, it is necessary both to promptly diagnose patients who are at risk of rapid clinical deterioration or death and to define criteria to identify the correct allocation of patients based on clinical-care needs. Although the so-called "early warning scores" were used by healthcare professionals to alert medical staff, nowadays, they can also be used as decision rules for managing patient admissions, increasing their effective usefulness.

Managerial competences in public organisations: the healthcare professionals' perspective.

Background: Human resources play a critical role in encouraging efficient performance within organisations, especially for public healthcare organisations, where competences of staff are key aspects of the quality of services provided. In this context, the enhancement of competences are strategic objectives for Human Resources Management (HRM) in order to achieve excellent and lasting results. However, competences of healthcare professionals are both clinical and managerial.

Competences management for improving performance in health organizations.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the design and construction of a privilege mapping system (clinical and organizational competences) of the medical staff of the Niguarda Hospital in Milan, Italy. The second aim is to measure and assess the impact of implementing an evaluation process of clinical competences at the same hospital. Design/methodology/approach The paper retraces the development and implementation of the evaluation of the privilege system, highlighting the subjects involved, the phases and outputs.

Assessment for improving the performance of NICUs: The Italian experience.

This paper describes neonatal intensive care units (NICU) in Italy using a set of organizational variables identifying management profile. The correlations between variables, and how these are impacted by structural aspects of the department or hospital, are investigated. The research was conducted within the 5-year far-reaching and complex SONAR study run by the Italian Neonatal Network, which maps NICU, monitors outcomes of member centres, defines organizational models, and identifies best practices to improve care quality.

Work environment, volume of activity and staffing in neonatal intensive care units in Italy: results of the SONAR-nurse study.

Background: Neonatal units' volume of activity, and other quantitative and qualitative variables, such as staffing, workload, work environment, care organization and geographical location, may influence the outcome of high risk newborns. Data about the distribution of these variables and their relationships among Italian neonatal units are lacking.

Methods: Between March 2010-April 2011, 63 neonatal intensive care units adhering to the Italian Neonatal Network participated in the SONAR Nurse study.

The impact of regional policies on emergency department management and performance: the case of the regional government of Sicily.

Background: Improvement in healthcare, seeking the correct balance between quality and costs, is an ongoing concern in many countries. Many countries have developed and implemented improvement programmes in health care, particularly in emergency departments (ED), which play a key role in terms of hospital resources and planning. The regional government of Sicily implemented a project 2010-2012 to improve ED care quality and patient safety.