Displaying publications 1 - 20 of 100 in total

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  1. Abbas AA, Mohamad JA, Lydia AL, Selvaratnam L, Razif A, Ab-Rahim S, et al.
    JUMMEC, 2014;17(1):8-13.
    MyJurnal
    Autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) is a widely accepted procedure for the treatment of large, fullthickness chondral defects involving various joints, but its use in developing countries is limited because of high cost and failure rates due to limited resources and support systems. Five patients (age
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources
  2. Ahmad Zulfahmi Mohd Kamaruzaman, Mohd Ismail Ibrahim, Anees Abdul Hamid
    MyJurnal
    Introduction: Proper distribution of human resources is an important factor ensuring high-quality performance and sustained service quality. The aim of this study was determining the workload pressure among medical officers in health clinics (HCs) in Kelantan. Method: A record review survey was conducted between January and April 2019 using human resources data for 2018 involving HCs in Kelantan. It included all the HCs in Kelantan and excluded community clinics. Workload pressure was determined using a tool known as Workload Indicator of Staffing Needs, developed by World Health Organization. A high workload pressure was defined as a ratio between required and acquired medical officers of less than 1. The data were presented descriptively using as frequencies and percentages. Results: All 85 HCs in Kelantan were involved in the study; 90% (9/10) of the Kelantan districts recorded high work- load pressure. Moreover, 68.2% (58/85) HCs had high workload pressure. Tanah Merah, Tumpat, Pasir Mas, and Kota Bharu had the most HCs with high workload pressure, and most such HCs were found in areas with a high-den- sity population, requiring huge coverage. Conclusion: The Kelantan State Health Department should develop better human resource distribution strategies to ensure the sustainability of quality care in HCs.
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources
  3. Al-Joudi FS, Wahab NA, Nordin H
    Malays J Med Sci, 2003 Jan;10(1):46-51.
    PMID: 23365500 MyJurnal
    The utilization of the chemical laboratory resources at the Hospital Sains Malaysia was evaluated. More than 100,000 test requests received and performed over a 12-month period, were analyzed retrospectively. The analysis conducted included the abnormal results obtained, the degree of duplication of tests, and the extent of test-panel ordering. It was found that a relatively moderate degree of over-ordering was evident. The findings suggested that the main reasons for over-ordering were the use of panel tests of ordering, in addition to a small, yet significant degree of duplication. Strategies for cutting down the test ordering have been reviewed and discussed.
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources
  4. Ali Jadoo SA, Aljunid SM, Sulku SN, Nur AM
    BMC Health Serv Res, 2014;14:30.
    PMID: 24447374 DOI: 10.1186/1472-6963-14-30
    Since 2003, Turkey has implemented major health care reforms to develop easily accessible, high-quality, efficient, and effective healthcare services for the population. The purpose of this study was to bring out opinions of the Turkish people on health system reform process, focusing on several aspects of health system and assessing whether the public prefer the current health system or that provided a decade ago.
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources/supply & distribution
  5. Alkhawari M, Ali K, Al-Abdul Razzaq F, Saleheen HN, Almuneef M, Al-Eissa MA
    Public Health, 2020 Apr;181:182-188.
    PMID: 32088599 DOI: 10.1016/j.puhe.2020.01.005
    OBJECTIVE: To assess the readiness to implement child maltreatment (CM) prevention programs at a national level.

    STUDY DESIGN: This is a cross-sectional study.

    METHODS: This study was completed alongside similar studies undertaken by the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and led by Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The study will allow further understanding of possible obstacles that may be encountered while implementing a nationwide prevention program. The 10-dimensional model of readiness had been developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with five countries (Brazil, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa) through a five-stage process. Stakeholders and decision makers were invited to participate. Scores for each dimension were compared with those for the rest of the GCC countries.

    RESULTS: The overall score of Kuwait was 39.17 out of 100. This was below the mean average score for the GCC countries (47.83). Out of the 10 dimensions, key informants scored the highest on legislation, mandates and policies (6.61). The lowest score was reported on attitudes towards CM prevention (1.94). Informal social resources (5.72) ranked the highest as compared to the rest of the GCC countries.

    CONCLUSIONS: The readiness of Kuwait is weak on several dimensions and needs to be strengthened. Despite that, the country is moderately ready to implement large-scale evidence-based CM prevention programs because it is strong in the infrastructure of knowledge, legislation, mandates, and policies and informal social resources.

    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources
  6. Aniza I., Putri, N., Azimatun Noor, A., Amrizal, M.N., Saperi, S., Aljunid, S.M.
    MyJurnal
    Top-down costing and activity based costing are the most frequent costing methodologies used for analyzing cost. Top-down costing is accomplished by assigning total expenditure of hospital to patient by apportioning the expenditure of cost centers (unit of service) in hospital to give the cost per patient per visit, per day or per admission. Conversely, activity based costing is accomplished by tracking every resource used by patient individually. Since this study started in 2009, Top-down costing calculation was based on financial year in 2009 with adjusted up to 12.6% from 2008 data. This percentage was taken based on the trend of hospital expenditure during 2005 till 2008. An assumption was made that non-financial data (performance and administrative data) for 2009 was similar to 2008. Top-down costing was calculated using Clinical Cost Modeling Software developed by Unit Case-mix of UKMMC to obtain cost of elective lower segment caesarean section (LSCS) per day at ward which was RM922. Whereas activity based costing was calculated using clinical pathway of elective LSCS. Given the average length of stay in 2009 was 4 days, the cost of elective LSCS according to top-down costing was RM3, 688 and activity based costing was RM1774. As a result, cost of elective LSCS is 108% higher using top-down costing.
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources
  7. Aniza, I., Hossein, M., Otgonbayar, R., Munkhtuul, Y.
    MyJurnal
    Introduction : Economic evaluations can provide “value-for money” information to those making decisions about the allocation of limited health care resources. In particular, economic evaluations can be used to identify interventions that are worth providing and those that are not. Furthermore, evaluations can be used with other approaches to help set priorities, such as program-budgeting marginal-analysis.
    Methodology : Compile and systematically describe from the publications, articles and reports on economic evaluation in healthcare decision making.
    Result : A high quality economic evaluation should provide decision makers with information that is useful, relevant, and timely. In addition, evaluations should be based on rigorous analytical methods, be balanced and impartial (credible), and be transparent and accessible to the reader. There are many situations where economic evaluations can assist decision makers: decisions by various levels of government or administrative bodies (e.g., regional health authorities, hospitals, drug plans) to fund a program, service or technology, pricing decisions by government regulators and technology manufacturers, clinical practice guidelines, priorities for research funding by governments and researchbased firms, post-marketing surveillance and updates of economic information based on the use of the technology in the “real world” (which can then be used to inform one of the other types of decisions).
    Conclusion: This requires that decision makers take a broad view of the impact of a technology, and decision that are more explicit and transparent. The ultimate test of an evaluation is whether it leads to better decision in the presence of uncertainty, and results in the more efficient and effective use of resources.
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources
  8. Anizal, I., Saperi, S., Aljundi, M.
    Medicine & Health, 2008;3(2):239-246.
    MyJurnal
    The increasing health care cost and public awareness on the delivery of high quality services has forced healthcare service providers to look into the healthcare delivery system. Clinical Pathway (CP) has been introduced in many hospitals and has been accepted as a beneficial tool in assisting healthcare organizations worldwide. Further, the CP also provides consistently high quality and coordinates services with minimum resources. It is proven to be a beneficial tool in other countries. CP is recently being introduced into the Malaysian healthcare system. The aim of this article was to high-light the benefits of CP in improving healthcare quality and controlling the medical cost. The relevant articles have been reviewed.  The majority of literature reviewed con-cluded that there were positive effects in  implementing CP. The CP was found to be significant in reducing length of stay and medical cost. The introduction of evidence based medicine, clinical outcomes, clinical audit, multidisciplinary communication, teamwork and care planning were also improved by CP. The challenges for healthcare providers and healthcare managers are to participate and be fully committed in path-way development and implementation in order to improve healthcare quality and cost control. 
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources
  9. Anwar M, Abdullah AH, Altameem A, Qureshi KN, Masud F, Faheem M, et al.
    Sensors (Basel), 2018 Sep 26;18(10).
    PMID: 30261628 DOI: 10.3390/s18103237
    Recent technological advancement in wireless communication has led to the invention of wireless body area networks (WBANs), a cutting-edge technology in healthcare applications. WBANs interconnect with intelligent and miniaturized biomedical sensor nodes placed on human body to an unattended monitoring of physiological parameters of the patient. These sensors are equipped with limited resources in terms of computation, storage, and battery power. The data communication in WBANs is a resource hungry process, especially in terms of energy. One of the most significant challenges in this network is to design energy efficient next-hop node selection framework. Therefore, this paper presents a green communication framework focusing on an energy aware link efficient routing approach for WBANs (ELR-W). Firstly, a link efficiency-oriented network model is presented considering beaconing information and network initialization process. Secondly, a path cost calculation model is derived focusing on energy aware link efficiency. A complete operational framework ELR-W is developed considering energy aware next-hop link selection by utilizing the network and path cost model. The comparative performance evaluation attests the energy-oriented benefit of the proposed framework as compared to the state-of-the-art techniques. It reveals a significant enhancement in body area networking in terms of various energy-oriented metrics under medical environments.
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources
  10. Arasteh-Rad, H., Khairulmizam Samsudin, Abdul Rahman Ramli, Mohammad Ali Tavallaie
    MyJurnal
    The rapid development of roads and the increasing number of vehicles have complicated road traffic enforcement in many countries due to limited resources of the traffic police, specifically when traffic infraction registration is done manually. The efficiency of the traffic police can be improved by a computer-based method. This study focused on mobile traffic infraction registration system benchmarking which is used to evaluate the server performance under load. The study attempts to provide a clear guideline for the performance evaluation of mobile road traffic infraction registration system, whereby the traffic police can make decision based on them to migrate from the manual-method toward computer-based method. A closed form of benchmark tool was used for the evaluation of the system performance. The tool was configured to imitate ramp scenarios, and statistics were gathered. The server was monitored at different times and works. Contributing factors include bottleneck, traffic, and response time, which are related with criteria and measurements. The system resource was also monitored for the tests.
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources
  11. Arrivé E, Ayaya S, Davies MA, Chimbetete C, Edmonds A, Lelo P, et al.
    J Int AIDS Soc, 2018 Jul;21(7):e25157.
    PMID: 29972632 DOI: 10.1002/jia2.25157
    INTRODUCTION: Disclosure of HIV status to HIV-infected children and adolescents is a major care challenge. We describe current site characteristics related to disclosure of HIV status in resource-limited paediatric HIV care settings within the International Epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA) consortium.

    METHODS: An online site assessment survey was conducted across the paediatric HIV care sites within six global regions of IeDEA. A standardized questionnaire was administered to the sites through the REDCap platform.

    RESULTS: From June 2014 to March 2015, all 180 sites of the IeDEA consortium in 31 countries completed the online survey: 57% were urban, 43% were health centres and 86% were integrated clinics (serving both adults and children). Almost all the sites (98%) reported offering disclosure counselling services. Disclosure counselling was most often provided by counsellors (87% of sites), but also by nurses (77%), physicians (74%), social workers (68%), or other clinicians (65%). It was offered to both caregivers and children in 92% of 177 sites with disclosure counselling. Disclosure resources and procedures varied across geographical regions. Most sites in each region reported performing staff members' training on disclosure (72% to 96% of sites per region), routinely collecting HIV disclosure status (50% to 91%) and involving caregivers in the disclosure process (71% to 100%). A disclosure protocol was available in 14% to 71% of sites. Among the 143 sites (79%) routinely collecting disclosure status process, the main collection method was by asking the caregiver or child (85%) about the child's knowledge of his/her HIV status. Frequency of disclosure status assessment was every three months in 63% of the sites, and 71% stored disclosure status data electronically.

    CONCLUSION: The majority of the sites reported offering disclosure counselling services, but educational and social support resources and capacities for data collection varied across regions. Paediatric HIV care sites worldwide still need specific staff members' training on disclosure, development and implementation of guidelines for HIV disclosure, and standardized data collection on this key issue to ensure the long-term health and wellbeing of HIV-infected youth.

    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources
  12. Atif M, Sulaiman SA, Shafie AA, Asif M, Babar ZU
    BMC Health Serv Res, 2014 Aug 19;14:353.
    PMID: 25138659 DOI: 10.1186/1472-6963-14-353
    BACKGROUND: Studies from both developed and developing countries have demonstrated a considerable fluctuation in the average cost of TB treatment. The objective of this study was to analyze the medical resource utilization among new smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients. We also estimated the cost of tuberculosis treatment from the provider and patient perspectives, and identified the significant cost driving factors.
    METHODS: All new smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients who were registered at the chest clinic of the Penang General Hospital, between March 2010 and February 2011, were invited to participate in the study. Provider sector costs were estimated using bottom-up, micro-costing technique. For the calculation of costs from the patients' perspective, all eligible patients who agreed to participate in the study were interviewed after the intensive phase and subsequently at the end of the treatment by a trained nurse. PASW was used to analyze the data (Predictive Analysis SoftWare, version 19.0, Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.).
    RESULTS: During the study period, 226 patients completed the treatment. However, complete costing data were available for 212 patients. The most highly utilized resources were chest X-ray followed by sputum smear examination. Only a smaller proportion of the patients were hospitalized. The average provider sector cost was MYR 992.34 (i.e., USD 325.35 per patient) whereby the average patient sector cost was MYR 1225.80 (i.e., USD 401.90 per patient). The average patient sector cost of our study population accounted for 5.7% of their annual family income. In multiple linear regression analysis, prolonged treatment duration (i.e., > 6 months) was the only predictor of higher provider sector costs whereby higher patient sector costs were determined by greater household income and persistent cough at the end of the intensive phase of the treatment.
    CONCLUSION: In relation to average provider sector cost, our estimates are substantially higher than the budget allocated by the Ministry of Health for the treatment of a tuberculosis case in Malaysia. The expenses borne by the patients and their families on the treatment of the current episode of tuberculosis were not catastrophic for them.
    Study site: Chest clinic, Hospital Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources/economics; Health Resources/statistics & numerical data*
  13. Atif M, Sulaiman SA, Shafie AA, Saleem F, Ahmad N
    Pan Afr Med J, 2012;12:40.
    PMID: 22891098
    Activity based costing (ABC) is an approach to get insight of true costs and to solve accounting problems. It provides more accurate information on product cost than conventional accounting system. The purpose of this study was to identify detailed resource consumption for chest x-ray procedure.
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources/economics; Health Resources/utilization
  14. Ayob Y
    Biologicals, 2010 Jan;38(1):91-6.
    PMID: 20133151 DOI: 10.1016/j.biologicals.2009.10.002
    Hemovigilance like quality systems and audits has become an integral part of the Blood Transfusion Service (BTS) in the developed world and has contributed greatly to the development of the blood service. However developing countries are still grappling with donor recruitment and efforts towards sufficiency and safety of the blood supply. In these countries the BTS is generally fragmented and a national hemovigilance program would be difficult to implement. However a few developing countries have an effective and sustainable blood program that can deliver equitable, safe and sufficient blood supply to the nation. Different models of hemovigilance program have been introduced with variable success. There are deficiencies but the data collected provided important information that can be presented to the health authorities for effective interventions. Hemovigilance program modeled from developed countries require expertise and resources that are not available in many developing countries. Whatever resources that are available should be utilized to correct deficiencies that are already apparent and obvious. Besides there are other tools that can be used to monitor the blood program in the developing countries depending on the need and the resources available. More importantly the data collected should be accurate and are used and taken into consideration in formulating guidelines, standards and policies and to affect appropriate interventions. Any surveillance program should be introduced in a stepwise manner as the blood transfusion service develops.
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources/supply & distribution
  15. Azzani M, Dahlui M, Ishak WZW, Roslani AC, Su TT
    Malays J Med Sci, 2019 Jan;26(1):73-86.
    PMID: 30914895 MyJurnal DOI: 10.21315/mjms2019.26.1.7
    Background: The incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) is rapidly rising in several Asian countries, including Malaysia, but there is little data on health care provider costs in this region. The aim of this study was to estimate the cost of CRC management from the perspective of the health care provider, based on standard operating procedures.

    Methods: A combination of top-down approach and activity-based costing was applied. The standard operating procedure (SOP) for CRC was developed for each stage according to national data and guidelines at the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC). The unit cost was calculated and incorporated into the treatment pathway in order to obtain the total cost of managing a single CRC patient according to the stage of illness. The cost data were represented by means and standard deviation and the results were demonstrated by tabulation. All cost data are presented in Malaysian Ringgit (RM). The cost difference between early stage (Stage I) and late stage (Stage II-IV) was analysed using independent t-test.

    Results: The cost per patient increased with stage of CRC, from RM13,672 (USD4,410.30) for stage I, to RM27,972 (USD9,023.20) for Stage IV. The early stage had statistically significant lower cost compared to late stage t(2) = -4.729, P = 0.042. The highest fraction of the cost was related to surgery for Stage I, but was superseded by oncology day care treatment for Stages II-IV. CRC is a costly illness. From a provider perspective, the highest cost was found in Stages III and IV. The early stages conserved more resources than did the advanced stages of cancer.

    Conclusion: Early diagnosis and management of CRC, therefore, not only affects oncologic prognosis, but has implications for health care costs. This adds further justification to develop and implement CRC screening programmes in Malaysia.

    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources
  16. Berry C, Othman E, Tan JC, Gee B, Byrne RE, Hodgekins J, et al.
    BMC Psychiatry, 2019 06 20;19(1):188.
    PMID: 31221136 DOI: 10.1186/s12888-019-2164-x
    BACKGROUND: A social recovery approach to youth mental health focuses on increasing the time spent in valuable and meaningful structured activities, with a view to preventing enduring mental health problems and social disability. In Malaysia, access to mental health care is particularly limited and little research has focused on identifying young people at risk of serious socially disabling mental health problems such as psychosis. We provide preliminary evidence for the feasibility and acceptability of core social recovery assessment tools in a Malaysian context, comparing the experiential process of engaging young Malaysian participants in social recovery assessments with prior accounts from a UK sample.

    METHODS: Nine vulnerable young people from low-income backgrounds were recruited from a non-government social enterprise and partner organisations in Peninsular Malaysia. Participants completed a battery of social recovery assessment tools (including time use, unusual experiences, self-schematic beliefs and values). Time for completion and completion rates were used as indices of feasibility. Acceptability was examined using qualitative interviews in which participants were asked to reflect on the experience of completing the assessment tools. Following a deductive approach, the themes were examined for fit with previous UK qualitative accounts of social recovery assessments.

    RESULTS: Feasibility was indicated by relatively efficient completion time and high completion rates. Qualitative interviews highlighted the perceived benefits of social recovery assessments, such as providing psychoeducation, aiding in self-reflection and stimulating goal setting, in line with findings from UK youth samples.

    CONCLUSIONS: We provide preliminary evidence for the feasibility and acceptability of social recovery assessment tools in a low-resource context, comparing the experiential process of engaging young Malaysian participants in social recovery assessments with prior accounts from a UK sample. We also suggest that respondents may derive some personal and psychoeducational benefits from participating in assessments (e.g. of their time use and mental health) within a social recovery framework.

    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources/economics*
  17. Biswas R, Lugo A, Gallus S, Akeroyd MA, Hall DA
    Hear Res, 2019 06;377:330-338.
    PMID: 30853349 DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2019.02.008
    INTRODUCTION: Prevalence estimates depend largely on the nature of the question asked to define the presence of the health condition, and the literature on the population burden of tinnitus and hearing difficulties is no different in this respect. The lack of standardized questions for data collection limits comparison across studies and across countries. The purpose of this short Technical Note is to report the first attempt to establish a set of standard questions developed for use in population-based surveys, and their adaptation and translation from English into 11 European languages.

    METHODS: Four questions and their corresponding response options were adapted from existing population-based surveys to assess tinnitus prevalence, tinnitus symptom severity, use of healthcare resources for tinnitus and hearing difficulty. The translated versions (Bulgarian, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latvian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, and Spanish) were generated using recognized methods to achieve a "world-for-world" translation.

    RESULTS: Translated versions were produced with acceptable functional equivalence to the original English-language version, as judged by a small panel of bilingual speakers who participated in the online field testing.

    CONCLUSION: This work is the first of its kind to promote multi-national standardization by creating a set of tools that can readily be used across countries. These are currently being used in a European-wide study of tinnitus prevalence, and have wider application across English- and Spanish speaking countries including the Americas and Oceania.

    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources*
  18. Boon YW, Han KAO, Gideon Khoo
    Sains Malaysiana, 2015;44:379-386.
    The present study describes the length-weight relationships (LWRs) of four Acetes species (Acetes indicus, A. serrulatus,
    A. japonicus and A. sibogae) which were sampled from offshore trawling and inshore catches along the west coast of
    Peninsular Malaysia. Morphometric measurements (total length, TL and wet weight, WW) were obtained from the samples
    and LWRs were estimated. All LWRs were significant (p<0.05) for the four species, with the coefficient of determination, R2
    >
    0.659. The estimated b values for LWR were 2.432-3.403. The R2
    value was >0.84 when the data was analysed according
    to inshore and offshore samples. Male and female A. indicus and A. serrulatus demonstrated negative allometric growth
    whilst male A. japonicus and A. sibogae showed isometric growth type. Positive allometric growth was depicted by a
    combined group of male and female A. sibogae. This study has contributed to the knowledge of the offshore and inshore
    distribution patterns of different populations of Acetes spp. in the Straits of Malacca. It also presents a comparison of
    the LWRs between offshore and inshore catches of A. indicus and A. serrulatus, with the inshore catches of A. japonicus
    and A. sibogae, which have not been previously reported. The findings of this study would contribute to the conservation
    and management of this commercially important fisheries resource.
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources
  19. Capuano C, Ozaki M
    J Trop Med, 2011;2011:642832.
    PMID: 22235208 DOI: 10.1155/2011/642832
    Until the middle of the 20th century, yaws was highly endemic and considered a serious public health problem in the Western Pacific Region (WPR), leading to intensive control efforts in the 1950s-1960s. Since then, little attention has been paid to its reemergence. Its current burden is unknown. This paper presents the results of an extensive literature review, focusing on yaws in the South Pacific. Available records suggest that the region remains largely free of yaws except for Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. Many clinical cases reported recently were described as "attenuated"; advanced stages are rare. A single intramuscular injection of benzathine penicillin is still effective in curing yaws. In the Pacific, yaws may be amenable to elimination if adequate resources are provided and political commitment revived. A mapping of yaws prevalence in PNG, Solomon, and Vanuatu is needed before comprehensive country-tailored strategies towards yaws elimination can be developed.
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources
  20. Chan WK, Roslani AC, Law CW, Goh KL, Mahadeva S
    J Dig Dis, 2013 Dec;14(12):670-5.
    PMID: 23981291 DOI: 10.1111/1751-2980.12097
    To compare the outcomes and costs of endoluminal clipping and surgery in the management of iatrogenic colonic perforation.
    Matched MeSH terms: Health Resources/utilization
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