Journal of Health Information Management
Year:2021 | Volume:18 | Issue:2 (78)|Papers Count:9

Thesis/dissertation is one of important resources in research. According to research field, thesis is written in different types. This study focuses on type of thesis format that called thesis by publication. Thesis by publication is type of thesis format that includes several academic works such as articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings. This type of thesis is common style in medical research. Among the studied thesis styles, thesis by publication approach can help to increase the scientific output of higher education institutions. However, this approach is not common in Iranian higher educati on institutions. In view of this, it is suggested that the thesis guidelines be revised, and that this style be considered in university guidelines, particularly at the PhD degree.

Introduction: Accreditation is one of the evaluation tools of health care systems, especially hospitals, which is one of the priorities of the Ministry of Health in Iran as well. The third generation of accreditation of Iranian hospitals was developed in the academic year 2016. This study endeavored to determine the challenges of the third generation of hospital accreditation from the perspective of accreditation officials in Isfahan City, Iran. Methods: The qualitative study was conducted through semi-structured interviews with accreditation officials in academic year of 2018 in Isfahan. Ten individuals (due to data saturation) were interviewed in a targeted manner. Data analysis was performed through guided content analysis. Results: Third-generation accreditation challenges were categorized into three areas: structural, process, and outcome challenges. The structural challenges were related to requirements, culture building, localization, training, metrics, and evaluators. Process challenges were related to how to evaluate, commit, and do teamwork and staff work processes during accreditation, and the resulting challenges were related to service quality and patient satisfaction after accreditation. Conclusion: In the third generation of accreditation, structural challenges were especially emphasized by the interviewees, especially in terms of program requirements. Removing these obstacles and challenges can make this plan more successful.

Introduction: Health literacy is defined as the capacity of individuals to obtain, process, and understand health information and services as the basis for appropriate health decisions, and low-health literacy has a variety of adverse outcomes. On the other hand, the importance of measuring the satisfaction of patients' companions is considered as one of the important and basic criteria determining the quality of care services. In view of this, the study was conducted to determine the relationship between health literacy of patients in psychiatric wards and their satisfaction with service providers in the hospitals affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran. Methods: To conduct this descriptive-applied study, 330 patients from psychiatric wards of hospitals affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in the second semester of academic year of 2019 were selected using available sampling method. To collect the data, two standard questionnaires, Health Literacy for Iranian Adults (HELIA) and a researcher-made satisfaction questionnaire (95% Cronbach's alpha), were used. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Pearson correlation test, and Shapiro Wilk test were used to analyze the data. Results: 33. 95% of the participants were at level of not-enough health literacy, 22. 72% had inadequate health literacy, 18. 28% sufficient health literacy, and 15. 15% had excellent health literacy. The highest score of satisfaction with hospital services was 3. 89 for the guard unit and the lowest score was 3. 55 for the writing unit. There was a direct and significant relationship between health literacy of peers and their satisfaction. Conclusion: The results revealed that the patients with higher health literacy were more satisfied with the services provided by the hospitals. Accordingly, planning to increase the level of health literacy of companions to increase their satisfaction seems necessary. Taking measures such as providing brochures and information pamphlets (during admission and discharge) can help to increase their level of health literacy of patients.

Introduction: 360-degree feedback seems to be a more comprehensive view of appraising capabilities, behavior, competence, and performance of individuals in the organization than other methods of performance appraisal. This study endeavored to appraise librarians’ performance in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Iran, through 360-degree feedback. Methods: This study conducted by a survey-analysis methodology. The population consisted of 43 librarians, 43 superiors, 43 colleagues, and 80 users; accordingly, census sampling method was employed. Each librarian was assessed by one supervisor, all colleagues, two users, and a self-assessment questionnaire was filled by each librarian. The data was collected by pre-prepared questionnaires by Farajpahlou et al. To analyze the data. This study employed the Student's t, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Duncan, analysis of variance tests. Results: Librarians’ performance in total (4. 37), and status of their performance in moral-value (4. 47), functional (4. 37), and process (4. 34) skills were higher than average level. There was no significant difference between the results of four groups in the moral-value index and functional skills, but there was a significant difference between the users and other assessors in the process skills. Conclusion: Given the low mean in the process index, it seems necessary to take effective steps by librarians to improve communication with users. These results could be used by managers and librarians to identify the strengths and weaknesses of librarians’ performance.

Introduction: Abortion refers to the intentional or unintentional termination of a pregnancy before the fetus can survive outside the mother's body. This study sought to do was to perform a thematic analysis on the field of abortion in Islamic countries. Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was performed with scientometric approach through the co-word and network analysis technique. Scientific products of Islamic countries in the abortion field were extracted from the Web of Science database from 1999 to 2018. Results: Most documents in the field of abortion were produced by three countries: Turkey, Iran, and Egypt. Countries with high production had better cooperation in the scientific network. Obstetrics and gynecology and the biology of reproduction were the most important topics for researchers. Out of 12 thematic clusters formed, the medical abortion was the main subject. Conclusion: The approach taken in the majority of the studies was on induced abortion, with an emphasis on medical abortion. Some issues such as the threat to abortion, the clinical diagnosis of abortion, and the psychological, social, and legal aspects of the abortion, have received less attention.

Introduction: Considering the important role of ontologies in information organization and increasing the efficiency of information retrieval systems, as well as the growing development of the nuclear medicine field and its concepts, and the need for integrated and coherent organization and precise definition of relationships between these concepts, the present study was aimed at representing terms and concepts and designing the structure of the nuclear medicine field by implementing an ontology in this field. Methods: The field analysis method was employed in this study. The required data were gathered from the information resources published in Iran in the field of nuclear medicine indexed in the International Nuclear Information System (INIS) repository from 1985 to 2019. The seven-step method of Noy and McGuinnes was used to construct the ontology, and the Na and Neo knowledge engineering approach was employed to extract the semantic relationships between the concepts. Results: The nuclear medicine ontology included 224 concepts, 1584 axioms, 463 conceptual pairs, 926 object properties, and 817 annotative properties derived from the related information resources indexed in the INIS repository. The existing relationships between the conceptual pairs were refined and enriched and described in terms of object and annotative properties. Conclusion: Nuclear medicine ontology is an effective tool for knowledge representation in the field of nuclear medicine. The method used to extract the concepts of the field and enrich the relationships between the concepts could be the basis for enriching the relations of the INIS thesaurus and creating a basic ontology in the nuclear field.

Chaos, information uncertainty, and instability are characteristics of the chaotic situation experienced in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The health system has been severely damaged under such circumstances. The basic way to deal with this situation is to understand the crisis correctly, and accept the chaotic situation. Chaos theory emphasizes solutions that take into account discontinuities in events, and provides appropriate solutions to deal with the problems. Using the features of chaos theory to assist health decision makers and policymakers in managing COVID-19 pandemic, the following recommendations can be proposed: focus on short-term (vs. long-term) decision-making, contingent and flexible planning, proper application of innovative approaches in policymaking, creating structures and systems, discovering order within chaos and disorder. In the health policy system, the managers who change their mental models according to the circumstances instead of following the old principles, develop and implement their activities based on models far from stable and dynamic equilibrium, is an undeniable necessity.