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Service Perspective (service + perspective)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	50%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	50%

Selected Abstracts

PUBLIC SERVICE PERSPECTIVES ON REFORMS OF ELECTRICITY DISTRIBUTION AND SUPPLY: A MODULAR ANALYSIS

ANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2010
Ute Dubois
ABSTRACT,:,This article analyzes organizational change in electricity distribution and retail businesses and its impact on public service issues. Organizational change has resulted from the European electricity directives, especially the EU Electricity directive 2003/54/EC, which has imposed major transformations on these activities, requiring legal unbundling of electricity distribution networks by 1 July 2007. Organizational change has also resulted from an adaptation of companies to the newly competitive environment. This has led to a diversity of organizational choices across Europe. We analyze this diversity by using a modular approach, which decomposes reforms in electricity distribution and retail into logical ,blocks'. We then examine how European countries have dealt with two policy and regulatory issues related to customer protection in that new environment: the regulation of quality of distribution, which is a task of regulators, and energy affordability policies for vulnerable customers, which are a central aspect of public service policies in the electricity sector. [source]

Direct Cost of Medical Management of Epilepsy among Adults in Italy: A Prospective Cost-of-Illness Study (EPICOS)

EPILEPSIA, Issue 2 2004
Ettore Beghi
Summary: Purpose: To investigate the costs of epilepsy from a nationwide survey comparing adult patients included in different prognostic categories. Methods: A 12-month prospective observational study was conducted in 15 epilepsy centers from Northern, Central, and Southern Italy. The study population included a random sample of individuals aged 18 years and older with newly diagnosed (ND) epilepsy, seizure remission (R), occasional seizures (OS), active non,drug-resistant (NDR) seizures, drug-resistant (DR) seizures, or surgical candidates (SC). Estimates of the direct costs of care of epilepsy were based on the use of diagnostic examinations, laboratory tests, specialist consultations, hospital admissions, day-hospital days, and drugs, taking the Italian National Health Service perspective. Results: The sample included 631 patients (ND 62, R 158, OS 155, NDR 114, DR 128, and SC 14). The SC group had the highest total cost per patient (,3,619) followed by DR (,2,190), ND (,976), NDR (,894), OS (,830), and R (,561). For each epilepsy group, the main components of the total cost were drugs and hospital admissions. Drug costs increased from the R group to the DR group. The new antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) were the largest part of the cost of treatment. Conclusions: The costs of epilepsy in referral patients vary significantly according to the time course of the disease and the response to treatment. Hospital admissions and drugs are the major sources of expenditure. [source]

Social control and coercion in addiction treatment: towards evidence-based policy and practice

ADDICTION, Issue 1 2006
T. Cameron Wild
ABSTRACT Background Social pressures are often an integral part of the process of seeking addiction treatment. However, scientists have not developed conclusive evidence on the processes, benefits and limitations of using legal, formal and informal social control tactics to inform policy makers, service providers and the public. This paper characterizes barriers to a robust interdisciplinary analysis of social control and coercion in addiction treatment and provides directions for future research. Approach Conceptual analysis and review of key studies and trends in the area are used to describe eight implicit assumptions underlying policy, practice and scholarship on this topic. Findings Many policies, programmes and researchers are guided by a simplistic behaviourist and health-service perspective on social controls that (a) overemphasizes the use of criminal justice systems to compel individuals into treatment and (b) fails to take into account provider, patient and public views. Conclusions Policies and programmes that expand addiction treatment options deserve support. However, drawing a firm distinction between social controls (objective use of social pressure) and coercion (client perceptions and decision-making processes) supports a parallel position that rejects treatment policies, programmes, and associated practices that create client perceptions of coercion. [source]

E-learning: a service offering

KNOWLEDGE AND PROCESS MANAGEMENT: THE JOURNAL OF CORPORATE TRANSFORMATION, Issue 4 2004
Anu Moisio
In Finland, both public and private organizations are actively applying information and communication technology (ICT) in adult education. Providing ICT-supported education, e-learning, requires focus on the virtual setting, but also on physical and human factors. Studying the e-learning phenomenon from a service perspective gives new insights into how to provide better learner satisfaction. The article presents a qualitative two-case study. The cases come from Finnish organizations: one case from a polytechnic and one case from a large company. The choice of cases gives an excellent opportunity to compare practices between public and private sector. The cases have been studied using participative case simulation, an action research method. This method enables gathering of rich data, since all key players from the real-life case gather together to share knowledge on a case that was realized in the near past. The researchers get to know how the case was executed in its reality, and not an ideal version about how it should have been realized. After analyzing these cases from a service process point of view, a framework of e-learning as service provisioning is presented in this article. This framework emphasizes the fact that e-learning is a mixture of physical and virtual servicing. The most important service element is the interaction between the learner and the tutor. The technology has not removed the importance of the human face; the role of a tutor is reshaping itself. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]