Global health: Care logistics in-deed

Although the previous post -

Care Logistics: have model will travel ...

- differentiated between what we might term mechanistic and humanistic logistics, there is a great deal of overlap:

communications, time, priorities, purposes, service, quality, processes ....

Global health has featured on W2tQ and it is here that the true dimensions of logistics can be defined. I may be confusing logistics and scale, but if I am then the challenge of logistics presents itself by virtue of scale and in global health the focus upon populations, nations, medical conditions and physical environments, climates and topography.

While the Wikipedia page on global health does not explicitly refer to logistics it is there in the shadows: it contributes to inequality, illiteracy, poverty, public ill-health (and mental too), pandemics ...

Logistics is there in the light too; the torch of disaster relief, the many development organisations, the ethos and values of the Millennium Development Goals. ...

'Well-being' and the dilution of 'caring'

This blog post was originally drafted on 15 October 2008. Back then I'd noticed how in the media - newspaper, internet, radio and journals - there was increasing references to 'well-being'. It was everywhere. Even now it graces lips, airwaves, video, digital and conference platforms.

I was prompted to write because I actually felt that perhaps the public were being somehow sold a pup. I mean 'well-being' - it sounds wholesome, reassuring and cuddly so go on - take hold, give it a hug and look after it. Maybe it literally is a case of - get up and take it for a walk. You know you need to!

What well-being does do is it forces acknowledgment of physical AND mental well-being. In the summer I bought a copy of the British Journal of Wellbeing [BJW]. BJW features physical and mental health with some really interesting features, reviews and interviews. So, I raised my hands, sighed, stretched (felt much better) and accepted "OK well-being (or wellbeing*) it looks like you will go far."

I just have a worry though. Because the concept of well-being is fuzzy, there is a risk that the care agenda could be diluted at a time when specific health and social care populations and issues arising need to be kept in clear and unequivocal focus. Looking at the content I am reassured - there is depth here too. I say this recognising that the concept of well-being can also serve the health career model very well.

More to follow on BJW and well-being ...

http://www.dictionary.net/well-being

*I like hyphens as in socio-technical

Drupal musings 16: 1% digital and analogue memories

At Drupalcon in his keynotes Dries Buytaert has highlighted that Drupal now powers approximately 1% of the web. While 1% is not much especially given the total size of the internet with its day on day, hour by hour growth this is nonetheless a significant milestone. Especially when Dries speculates on the growth of Drupal projected ahead to 2020.

Like all digital media Drupal is a tool that extends our personal and cultural memories. As all the keynotes showed Drupal, PHP, HTML[5] all have histories of their own and a role to play in providing a surrogate memory. The media and technology [IBM] regularly predict how technology will change our lives, including how we remember.

Amid such speculation memory still makes us who we are. You and I have a yesterday, today - and we pray - a tomorrow.

This is the bootstrap that counts

Bootstrapping or booting refers to a group of metaphors that share a common meaning:

a self-sustaining process that proceeds without external help. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrap

Striking then the news this week that - dementia costs 'equal to 1% of global GDP'.

Care Logistics: have model will travel ...

From: NHS Logistics - supplies, v4m, corporate, orders, consultancy, catalogue, process, delivery, stock, just in time, service, quality, priority, efficiency, customers, finance, contracts ...
	To: Care Logistics - access, choice, attitude, empathy, communication, values, outcomes, human rights, dignity and respect, quality care, professionalism, purpose, roles, holistic competency, standards, personal, measures, equity ...

Drupal musings 15: modules and Drupalcon videos

Since picking up the health career model and publishing the model online in 1986 the term holistic bandwidth has emerged. The blog in 2006 and to date has seen other loosely defined terms:

care architecture
4-fold care
cogneography
holistic competency

Using Drupal 6 I've got to a position were I am getting to know core plus some contributed modules. One of the latter is webforms. It's bound to be help seeing what webforms can do in terms of one-way data submission, compared to using CCK - the content construction kit. In webforms the grid component holds great promise, but in creating a grid for music genres I notice there is no validation (which would be quite a trick!). Users should only be able to select one type of music they want to hear most of the time. The validation question is going to help force the issue of getting under the hood. All that reading revealed in previous posts is also needed to sort the theme too.

I remember first coming across the word instantiate. As I write, think about a h2cm glossary and experiment for real with Drupal 6 - I wonder whether the content types I create (in Drupal 7 especially) may help define some of the above and other terms?

Launch of methods@manchester - research methods in the social sciences

methods@manchester is a web resource which brings together The University of Manchester’s internationally acclaimed expertise on social research methods. Visit www.methods.manchester.ac.uk to watch video clips of experts talking about specific methods: examples include Martin Everett’s leading work on Social Network Analysis, Wes Sharrock on Ethnomethodology, Nick Shryane on Structural Equation Modelling and Ian Plewis on Multilevel modelling.


You can also listen to a wide range of introductory methodological talks, whilst viewing associated PowerPoint presentations – for example Penny Harvey explains why and how anthropologists conduct ethnography and Vanessa May explains the rationale behind narrative analysis.

September 13 marked the start of the programme of events for the autumn semester, with seminars and short courses taking place.

On September 29 the Methods Fair includes methods-related presentations throughout the day (speakers include Martin Everett on social networks; Carol Smart on in-depth interviews; Nick Shryane on structural equation modelling); a display of posters by researchers and PhD students; stalls giving information on training opportunities, online resources, short courses and much more.

Go to the web-site www.methods.manchester.ac.uk and join the mailing list to receive a regular update on methodological events.


My source: ESA-ALL@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Image source: http://www.methods.manchester.ac.uk/methods/sna/index.shtml

England: The future of the National Programme for IT

Department of Health - 09 Sep 2010 12:32
The future of the National Programme for IT
-----------------------------------------------------

A Department of Health review of the National Programme for IT has concluded that a centralised, national approach is no longer required, and that a more locally-led plural system of procurement should operate, whilst continuing with national applications already procured.

http://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/lfi/415392

My source: Wired-GOV

Gardner's 5 Minds for the Future (and the Question)

In order to pursue post graduate study you need a project, which demands a question. Formulating a research question is central. I wonder however whether there remains a bias - hard sciences vs humanities (and triangulation) - towards a class of questions that are closed and so can be answered in X-words : Y-time : with Z-funding? Thereby passing through the necessary academic hoops. Of course I realise that if there are no constraints then chaos would ensue. I just wonder if the journey (creativity, discovery ...) might be lost for the sake of assuring the end product?

My questions (apart from 'beware reflex moves') tend to be framed in broad terms. You could say that as yet I am not disciplined (specific) enough to come up with a question that passes "GO!"

In Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future the issue of educational programmes is raised and I read the following:

The second antidote entails the creation of educational programs directed specifically at certain individuals of promise - for example, leaders of tomorrow. Chief executives and general managers are expected to be able to see the big picture - to look beyond their own background and specialization; to understand the various components in their organization or constituency; to think systematically about what is working, what is not working, and how goals can be more effectively achieved. ...

Other individuals - for example, those exhibiting a "searchlight" or "bricoleur" intelligence - might be attracted to such programs as well. They would make use of their enhanced skills even if they do not occupy explicit leadership roles. Perhaps, as educator Vartan Gregorian has suggested, we need a specialization in becoming a generalist. p.75.

Gardner, H. (2008) Five Minds for the Future, Harvard University Press.