Brian O'Flaherty

An international survey of EEG use in the neonatal intensive care unit

Objective:  To examine the extent of EEG monitoring in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), and to survey the level of experience and training of those using it.

Implementing workflow automation systems: implications for management control

Automation has revolutionised industry and initiated profound economic change. In the past two decades, manufacturing productivity has seen substantial improvements, yet office productivity has remained practically unaffected. Workflow automation systems, a new class of system which focus on automating document flows, promises to redress this imbalance. The study looks at the implication of adoption of a workflow automation system and in particular the impact on the managerial control system. The financial service sector is a main adopter of this technology and many such companies are planning future implementation of workflow automation systems. The study sets out to explore the extent of the control features that will be included in the systems and attempts to ascertain the attitude of three groups i.e. users, managers and IT personnel. Their opinions on the consequences which this would have for the operation of the control process in their organisations were then documented and analysed. The control process model developed by J. Child (1984) proved useful in the classification of process control activities. Following analysis of the research data, an amendment to Childs framework is proposed.

Innovation Intermediation and Emerging Medical Devices - The Lead-User Method in Practice

This case study explores the application of the Lead-user method in the development of medical applications based on Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology by three independent research teams. The study also reflects on the role of student teams as Innovation Intermediaries (Howells, 2006; O’Flaherty, et al. 2013) and as a resource for discovering new medical devices. This exercise produced surprising results, with the emergence of diverse WSN technology product concepts applied to Geriatric Falls Detection & Analysis, Sport Cardiac Screening and Critical Care Vital signs within accident and emergency environments. This case highlights the segmented nature of medical areas and the difficulty in applying a generic WSN technology to meet the functional requirements of the broader individual medical domains. It questions the appropriateness of applying ‘total’ highly functional technologies broadly across highly specialised niche medical areas.