Rhay-Hung Weng

Exploring the impact of mentoring functions on job satisfaction and organizational commitment of new staff nurses

BackgroundAlthough previous studies proved that the implementation of mentoring program is beneficial for enhancing the nursing skills and attitudes, few researchers devoted to exploring the impact of mentoring functions on job satisfaction and organizational commitment of new nurses. In this research we aimed at examining the effects of mentoring functions on the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of new nurses in Taiwans hospitals.MethodsWe employed self-administered questionnaires to collect research data and select new nurses from three regional hospitals as samples in Taiwan. In all, 306 nurse samples were obtained. We adopted a multiple regression analysis to test the impact of the mentoring functions.ResultsResults revealed that career development and role modeling functions have positive effects on the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of new nurses; however, the psychosocial support function was incapable of providing adequate explanation for these work outcomes.ConclusionIt is suggested in this study that nurse managers should improve the career development and role modeling functions of mentoring in order to enhance the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of new nurses.

Exploring the impact of transformational leadership on nurse innovation behaviour: a cross‐sectional study

AIM This study explored the influences of transformational leadership on nurse innovation behaviour and the mediating role of organisational climate. BACKGROUND Recently, global nursing experts have been aggressively encouraging nurses to pursue innovation in nursing in order to improve nursing outcomes. Nursing innovation, in turn, is affected by nursing leadership. METHOD We employed a questionnaire survey to collect data, and selected a sample of nurses from hospitals in Taiwan. A total of 439 valid surveys were obtained. Hierarchical multiple regression model analysis was conducted to test the study hypothesis. RESULT The mean values of agreement of nurse innovation behaviour and transformational leadership were 3.40 and 3.78, respectively. Patient safety climate and innovation climate were found to have full mediating effects on the relationship between transformational leadership and innovation behaviour. CONCLUSION Organisational climate has a significant impact on innovation behaviour. Transformational leadership has indirect effects on innovation behaviour via the mediation of patient safety climate and innovation climate. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT Hospitals should enhance transformational leadership by designing leadership training programmes and establishing transformational culture. In addition, nursing managers should foster nursing innovation through improvements in organisational climate.

Exploring Medical Utilization Patterns of Emergency Department Users

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE The intercategory relationship of various medical services is of importance to both health care management and policy-making. The purpose of this study was to explore the intercategory relationship of emergency medical services and other medical services and to examine the medical utilization patterns of emergency department (ED) users. METHODS The sample was selected from the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan for the year 2004. A total of 6775 patients who visited the ED were included. Multiple logistic regression analyses were performed to determine relationships between emergency medical services and other medical services, and cluster analysis characterized different medical utilization patterns of ED users. RESULTS Frequent ED users (>or= 4 ED visits during the year) were more likely to use other health care services: their odds ratios (ORs) were 10.30 (95% confidence interval [CI], 7.53-14.10) for 11 or more visits to hospital outpatient departments, 1.51 (95% CI, 1.14-1.99) for 13 or more visits to primary care physicians, and 4.90 (95% CI, 3.74-6.43) for in-hospital care. Moreover, ED users fell into four medical utilization patterns: low health care users (61.91%), hospital fans (11.93%), primary care favorers (21.21%) and high health care users (4.95%). CONCLUSION Frequent ED users also heavily used other health care services. ED users have different utilization patterns, which is a reflection of the unique needs for various health care services. Such knowledge is critically important for both health care providers and policy-makers who must meet the needs of different patient groups.

Analysis of Emergency Department Utilization by Elderly Patients Under National Health Insurance

Elderly persons are thought to use emergency departments (EDs) disproportionately. This phenomenon has implications for policy‐making as the population of the elderly continues to increase. This study aimed to characterize national ED utilization by elderly patients (≥ 65 years old), compared with that by younger patients (15‐64 years old). The sample was selected from the National Health Insurance Research Database for the year 2000. There were 519,003 visits to adult EDs in the 12 medical centers sampled. The study used a secondary data analysis and included 14 variables. The elderly accounted for 28.5% of all adult ED visits. Compared with younger patients, a greater proportion of elderly patients were male (61.6% vs. 47.7%, p < 0.001), had chronic diseases (11.9% vs. 8.0%, p < 0.001), were major cases (6.7% vs. 4.1%, p < 0.001), made no co‐payment (38.5% vs. 5.8%, p < 0.001), were frequent users of outpatient services (28.4% vs. 9.9%, p < 0.001), were higher‐level emergencies (60.0% vs. 43.7%, p < 0.001), had longer stays in the ED (14.0% vs. 4.7%, p < 0.001), and had higher costs per visit (NT

The Use of Fluoride Varnish and Its Determining Factors among Children with Disability in Taiwan.

4,814 ± 6,046 vs. 2,779 ± 5,533, p < 0.001). In addition, elderly patients used 40.8% of total adult ED costs. Older patients have distinct patterns of ED use, and use emergency services at a higher rate than younger patients. ED staff should be knowledgeable about the unique and complex presentations of older ED patients.

The cross-level impact of patient safety climate on nursing innovation: a cross-sectional questionnaire survey

The oral health of children with disability is often not as good as that of other children. In view of improving their oral health, this study aims to explore the utilization of fluoride varnish services among children with disability in Taiwan and its relevant influencing factors. With children under the age of 5 as subjects, this study is conducted based on the database of Ministry of the Interior, Executive Yuan, ROC in 2008, coupled with information gathered between 2006 and 2008 on preventive health care and health insurance from the Bureau of Health Promotion and the National Health Research Institute, respectively. In addition to descriptive statistics and bivariate analysis, this study examined the factors determining the use of fluoride varnish with logistic regression analysis. Research revealed that fluoride varnish is used by up to 9.84% of children with disability; the use increases with age and decreases with increased level of disability, but is remarkably higher in those with catastrophic illness/injury. The probability of fluoride varnish use is lower among those living in areas of lower urbanization (levels 5-7) and higher among those whose parents have higher premium-based monthly salaries. Recommendations include (1) providing a differential pricing scheme for fluoride varnish based on the level of disability of the child, (2) promoting proactively among dentists to carry out regular fluoride varnish in rural areas and collaboration with pediatricians to provide convenient services and (3) targeting families in low socioeconomic brackets, improving knowledge of fluoride varnish.

The Impact of Customer Knowledge Capability and Relational Capability on New Service Development Performance: The Case of Health Service

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To explore the cross-level effects of the four dimensions of patient safety climate on nursing innovation. BACKGROUND Across the globe, nursing innovation is highly encouraged by nursing experts to improve nursing outcome. Nursing innovation, in turn, is affected by organisational climate, and a critical aspect of organisational climate is patient safety. DESIGN This is a cross-sectional study. METHODS We employed a questionnaire survey to collect data and selected nurses from Taiwan hospitals as samples. A total of 808 valid questionnaires in 172 teams of four hospitals were collected. Patient safety climate was aggregated by individual-level data; thus, we examined r(wg) , ICC 1 and ICC 2. Hierarchical linear modelling was used to analyse the data. RESULTS Of these three dimensions of nursing innovation, the level of knowledge creation was perceived by the nurses as the highest. In terms of patient safety climate, managerial practices regarding patient safety scored the highest, followed by patient safety procedures, patient safety information flow and patient safety priority. Only patient safety information flow yielded a significant positive influence on knowledge creation, innovation behaviour or innovation diffusion. CONCLUSION Hospital nurses do achieve better performance in knowledge creation. Patient safety information flow has positive and cross-level impact on nursing innovation; therefore, the method to increase safety information flow is the key focus of nursing innovation management. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE Through the improvements made in patient safety climate, hospital managers could promote the development of nursing innovation. Patient safety information flow is positively associated with nursing innovation. Patient safety information could be integrated in nursing training in all levels. Rules and procedures regarding patient safety should be drafted in simple and clear terms. A procedure to review and revise the rules and procedures will also be helpful in improving patient safety information flow.

Exploring the antecedents and consequences of mentoring relationship effectiveness in the healthcare environment

This study intends to explore the impact of the customer knowledge integration capability, customer knowledge absorptive capability, customer knowledge creation capability, and customer relationship capability on new service development (NSD) performance for Taiwans hospitals from customer knowledge and customer relationship perspectives. We employ the self-administered mail survey to collect research data and select self-pay medical service managers or top managers as key informants. After testing the fitness of sample representativeness, non-response error, common method variance, reliability, and validity, we adopt structure equation model to test the research model. Empirical results indicate the customer knowledge absorptive capability of a hospital is positively associated with NSD performance, and the customer knowledge integration capability of a hospital fully mediates the relationship between customer knowledge absorptive capability and NSD performance. However, customer relationship capability and customer knowledge absorptive capability both have positive influence on customer knowledge creation capability. Managerial and theoretical implications are discussed.

The utilization of fluoride varnish and its determining factors among Taiwanese preschool children

The study focused on mentoring relationship effectiveness (RE) from the perspective of protege in the healthcare environment. The purpose tried to examine the effects of interpersonal attraction, self-efficacy and transformational leadership (TL) on RE respectively, to test mentoring function as a mediator, and to verify the effect of RE on protege work outcomes. Self-administered questionnaires were employed and 306 questionnaires from hospital nurses were collected in total. Structural equation model was used to test the research model. The results indicated that interpersonal attraction and TL do have positive effects on RE while self-efficacy was not; RE also showed a significant effect on job satisfaction and organizational commitment, which verified that the formal mentoring among nurses was good for improving relationship quality and relationship learning between mentors and proteges. Accordingly, to strengthen the antecedent variables would be helpful for mentoring RE, and also the proteges work outcomes.

Investigating the relationship among transformational leadership, interpersonal interaction and mentoring functions.

Background The Taiwanese government considers fluoride varnish to be a major component of preventive dental cares for preschool children. This study aimed to explore the extent of utilization of fluoride varnish and its determining factors among Taiwanese preschool children. Methods Using preschool children under the age of 5 years as our participants, this study was conducted based on the 2008 Taiwan database of the Ministry of the Interior, linked with information gathered between 2006 and 2008 on preventive healthcare and health insurance from the Bureau of Health Promotion and the National Health Research Institute. A total of 949,023 preschool children (< 5 years old) were identified to meet the requirement for fluoride varnish services. Results The percentage of Taiwanese preschool children that used fluoride varnish was 34.85%.The probability that fluoride varnish would be utilized was higher among children with catastrophic illness/injury or relevant chronic illnesses than those without. In addition, the probability of children with disabilities using fluoride varnish was lower than that of nondisabled children. Finally, parent sex, parent age, urbanization level of residence, and parents’ premium‐based salary significantly affected the childrens utilization probability of fluoride varnish. Conclusion In order to increase the utilization of fluoride varnish among preschool children in Taiwan in the future, target groups consisting of females, children < 3 years of age, and disabled children should be prioritized. Parental factors are also important in affecting the utilization of fluoride varnish in children.