JOURNAL OF HEALTH ADMINISTRATION
Year:2016 | Volume:19 | Issue:63|Papers Count:13

Introduction: Life insurance is important to the extent that it is introduced as a valid index in the international survey of evaluating countries’ development level. However, this industry has remained unknown in most of the developing countries and its role is really low in these countries’ economy. The aim of this study is to maintain the impact of macro-economic variables with life insurance demand in MENA and some selected countries.Methods: Using panel data model estimation, the effect of macro-economic variables on purchase of life insurance during 2003-2011 was analyzed. Macro-economic and premium data were extracted from World Bank website and Sigma journal, respectively. STATA software was used for data analysis.Results: The highest the lowest demands for life insurance belong to Singapore and Al jazeera, respectively. Also, life insurance demand in the mentioned countries showed significantly positive relationship with per-capita gross national product, human development index, life expectancy and population; while the relationship was negative with inflation and interest rates.Conclusion: Countries can increase the demand for life insurance by providing insurance services – with no significant difference with bank services as well as the dynamics of relative interest rate insurance with respect to annual inflation rate. They can also increase the demand sensitivity to income using advertisement and diversification of sales methods.

Introduction: Locating hospitals and health care centers, thereby assigning clients to these centers is one of the major challenges encountered by managers and urban planners. The right decision in this area is so important that otherwise would increase costs of providing health services and cause irreparable damages to the individual and social health. The efficiency of such models is critical to decision-makers and has always been the source of making effective use of available resources.Methods: In this paper, a multi objective linear programming model was developed based on simultaneous consideration of locating and allocating services in hospitals. Further, using data envelopment analysis in this model helped locate and assign services at maximum efficiency. The model was used for locating and allocating available services in Amol hospitals. The proposed model the weighting method and the augmented epsilon constraint approach were applied. The results showed that the augmented epsilon constraint has a better capability than the other method to solve this problem Results: The model enables decision makers to consider quality in addition to the cost in locating and allocating procedure. Increasing efficiency along with considering costs are achievements of proposed model for health decision makers.Conclusion: The Pareto results achieved from solving proposed model can be a suitable base for making decisions. Managers can compare obtained solutions and their optimality and make proper decisions. The present case study showed that the model has a proper performance in locating and allocating available services in Amol hospitals.

Introduction: Spirituality is considered as an important issue not only in organizations but also in everyday life. This study aimed to analyze the role of spiritual intelligence in the productivity of employees at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences.Methods: This applied, descriptive- correlation study was conducted in 2014. The population consisted of 900 people including all finance staff and managers of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. King questionnaire (version 2008) was used to collect data on spiritual intelligence and a researcher developed questionnaire was used to measure productivity. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling techniques, descriptive statistics, SPSS software (version 19) and LISREL.Results: The ratio of LISREL output, 0.48, indicated a good model fit and a t-value of 5.04 confirmed the effectiveness factor. The results showed that t- values of variables were greater than 1.96 which indicates a positive and significant impact of spiritual intelligence on the productivity of employees.Conclusion: The enhancement of productivity can be achieved through reinforcing spiritual intelligence of employees.

Introduction: Identifying and reporting nosocomial infections are at the center of attention of healthcare. The present study was carried out to study the problems of the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance System (NNIS).Methods: This mixed (Qualitative- Quantitative) descriptive study was performed in 2011. In the qualitative section, after a semi- structured interview, a questionnaire was designed and its validity was approved using experts’ opinion technique. The study population of the quantitative section included all hospitals in Tabriz and the samples consisted on 77 members of the hospitals’ Infection Control Committees, selected by means of 2-stage cluster sampling method. Qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis technique and Quantitative data were analyzed by descriptive statistical methods using SPSS 17 Software.Results: The incidence of nosocomial infections reported according to the NNIS system was 0.56% showing low report of nosocomial infections which have resulted from lack of commitment of some physicians to documentation and reporting of nosocomial infection symptoms, lack of their active participation in Infection Control Committees, lack of appropriate validation system to identify problems, and lack of post-discharge follow up system for operated patients.Conclusion: To solve the problems of National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance System and help produce accurate reporting of nosocomial infections, hospital infection control committee should play an active role by supporting senior management and greater participation of infection control practitioners. To solve the problems above, re-evaluation of the reporting process is recommended.

Introduction: Measurement of financial support for health services is determined by household out of pocket expenditure for health which is associated with two approaches: catastrophic and impoverishing health expenditures. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the catastrophic and impoverishing health expenditure in Tehran urban population.Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Tehran in 2013. The data were collected through interview and observation using a household expenditure questionnaire. In order to estimate the effects of factors affecting catastrophic health expenditure and impoverishing health expenditure, data analysis was done using Pearson test, one variable and multivariate logistic models, Excel and STATA Software.Results: According to the finding 2.4% of households fell below the poverty line, 6.7% of families households had to pay out of pocket, and 3.8% were identified as facing catastrophic health expenditures as a result of out-of-pocket payment for health.Conclusion: There are some key factors influencing health expenditure, such as head of household education level, the presence of people over 60 years in household, the use of inpatient services and the volume of use. Therefore, it is recommended that health policy makers and insurance organizations implement health insurance plans and reduce the health services tariff and out of pocket expenditure on health.

Introduction: With an increasing number of Iranian scientific journals indexed by international databases, assessment of their performance and status is also needed. The present study aims to investigate the international performance of Iranian medical journals.Methods: To conduct the current study, bibliometric research method has been applied. International statuses of 21 Iranian medical journals indexed by Journal Citation Report (JCR) 2013 were studied using 20 different indicators. Web of Science (WoS), JCR and journals’ websites were used for data gathering.Results: Results of the study revealed that most of the papers published in the journals under study were written by Iranian researchers. Moreover, only 23.35% of citations to Iranian medical journals have been received from foreign papers or Iranian internationally collaborative papers. Based on the findings, no Iranian journal has impact factor above the median of the journals in the disciplinary category areas in which it is classified in JCR. Statistically significant relationships were found between foreign authorship and foreign citations as well as internationally collaborative authorship and internationally-collaborative citations. This suggests that Iranian journals should attract more high quality international papers to increase their quality.Conclusion: The findings indicated that the share of international authorship, citations and editorial board membership in Iranian medical journals is low.

Introduction: Considering rapid growth in healthcare expenditures, identifying the factors affecting them is an important health policy issue. This study aimed to identify major factors affecting household healthcare expenditures across provinces of Iran using panel data model.Methods: This was a descriptive- analytical and retrospective study conducted from 2006 to 2011. Data on household health expenditure per capita as a dependent variable and the number of physicians per 10,000 populations, urbanization, proportion of the population over 65 years old, per capita income and literacy rate as an independent variables were obtained from the yearbook data of provinces. The data were analyzed using STATA V.12.Results: The findings indicated a positive significant relationship between per capita income, number of physicians per 10000 populations and urbanization degree and household healthcare expenditures, the quantity elasticity of which were 0.22, 9.09 and 0.47, respectively. There was no significant relationship between literacy rate and the proportion of population over 65 years with healthcare expenditures.Conclusion: Income elasticity of health care expenditure was less than 1; indicating the health care as a necessary good across provinces of Iran. Therefore, it is suggested that the healthcare services be the object of public funding and government intervention.

Introduction: Technological developments, globalization, the need for immediate reaction to environmental changes , reduction in costs in the presence of of intense competition, and a decrease in loyalty among the staff are all to emphasis the need for Succession Planning in organizations. This study aimed to assess the current and desired situations of Succession Planning by gap analysis in Iran Ministry of Health and Medical Education in 2013.Methods: This study is cross-sectional. A questionnaire benefiting from the existing literature was developed by a research team about current and the desired situations of Succession Planning. After ensuring validity and reliability, the questionnaire was distributed among 268 people from general managers, Heads of offices, deputies of general managers, Heads of expert groups, responsible Experts and Experts by the census. The data were analyzed by SPSS18, using Paired T-test.Results: The current situation of organizations for Succession Planning based on the six axes including planning, organizational culture, systems approach, model of competence, professional upgrade path and the role of senior managers in the research, was acceptable rating over 50 percent. At the same time the gap between the current and desired situation in all aspects, was significant. Average rating of the status quo was 1.06 with a standard deviation of 2.90 while it was 3.82 with a standard deviation of 0.89 for the desired situation.Conclusion: Given the acceptable points in the current situation and a significant gap between current and desired situation for Succession Planning, it seems that the critical issue of Succession Planning should be taken into close consideration due to the nature and specific features of the organization under the study.