Journal of

Background and Aim: Creating personal information collections will bring the management needs. The purpose of this study was to determine the use level of personal information management and each of its four activities by Faculty members of Allied Medical Sciences Schools in Tehran, Shahid Beheshti and Iran Medical Sciences Universities in 2014 year.
Materials and Method: This applied study was an analytical survey. The participants of the study were Faculty members of Allied Medical Sciences Schools in Tehran, Shahid Beheshti and Iran Medical Sciences Universities. All participants (120) were studied. PIM was surveyed by using a questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. In order to determine the significant differences, analytical statistics were applied. The validity was confirmed by the number of professors feedback and reliability calculated by the Cronbach's alpha 0.91.
Results: Storage with average of 73.59% and organization with average of 62.11% were at "good" level. Maintenance with an average of 54.4% and refind with an average of 59.93% were at "medial" level. "Personal information management" with an average of 62.51% was at "good" level. According to the research hypotheses test, the use of personal information management and each of its elements by members of the community in terms of university, academic rank and gender were not statistically significant.
Conclusion: Usage level of personal information management by faculty members is far from ideal situation. The main reasons can be included not having enough time, working pressure and lack of sufficient acquaintance with the activities required to personal information management.

Background and Aim: In recent years, the growing importance of health care has led to a focus on improving the quality of services, and healthcare centers have paid attention to it as a strategic competitive advantage. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of improving the quality of services in the promotion of brand performance in healthcare industry. 
Materials and Methods: In this study, 392 patients of Tehran hospitals were selected through cluster sampling. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were used for data analysis. Also, to compare public and private hospitals, independent samples t-test was used.
Results: Research findings indicate that the desirable quality of services has a significant positive effect on brand equity; and brand equity has a meaningful effect on brand preference, repurchasing and brand performance. Moreover, brand preference has a significant effect on brand performance and the decision to repeat purchasing. In the end, the meaningful effect of repurchasing decision on brand performance in healthcare industry was confirmed. 
Conclusion: According to the results, it can be stated that considering healthcare improvement plans, hospitals can enhance their brand among many healthcare centers. This entails both the promotion of community’s health and the increase of profitability.

Background and Aim: It is necessary that various aspects of health information and statistics are identified and measured since health problems are getting more complex day by day. This study is aimed to investigate the distribution of Hospitalization Services in Hospitals in East Azerbaijan province.
Materials and Methods: This research was a descriptive, cross-sectional study, which aimed to determine the share of hospitalization services in different sectors providing healthcare services in East Azerbaijan Province. The study population consisted of all health service providers, including the public sector, private, charity, military, Social Security and NGOs in the province of Eastern Azerbaijan. The data from all functional health sectors, including health centers and hospitals were studied during 2014. The data relevant to performance were collected according to a pre-determined format (researcher-built checklist). Content validity of checklist was approved by five Health Services Management professionals and experts. 
Results: The study findings showed that the maximum and minimum number of surgeries has been done in the public sector (63.1%) and the non-governmental sectors (3%), respectively. The public sector (71.9%) and non-governmental sectors (Red Crescent and Azad University) (1.2%) provided the maximum and minimum hospitalization services, respectively. 
Conclusion: According to the study findings, Policies should be aimed to create balance and harmony in the provision of services among all service providers.   

Background and Aim: There has been a long-lasting debate among medical laboratory-associated specialists about required competencies and educational background to qualify for directing medical laboratories in Iran. The aim of this study was to provide a comprehensive review regarding required training and competencies for becoming a medical laboratory director in Iran and all around the world.
Materials and Methods: A thorough search of the literature was carried out in scientific databases including Web of Science, Science Direct, Springer Link, Wiley Online, PubMed, Scopus, SID and web-based search engines such as Google and Google Scholar.
Results: The results revealed detailed required competencies for directing medical laboratories in the United States of America, Canada, European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) and its many affiliated European countries.
Conclusion: Our results indicate that in all assessed countries, specialists of basic medical sciences and also physicians, after passing certifying examinations, are equally qualified to direct medical laboratories. Indeed, Iran is the only country within the evaluated ones, in which basic medical sciences specialists (which have their own specific curriculum and are educated as clinical majors) have been eliminated from directing medical laboratory and the position has almost exclusively been available for graduates of pathology and it is important to revise this approach.

Background and Aim: Nowadays, organizations significantly emphasize on different aspects and dimensions of knowledge and intellectual capitals. Knowledge and information are power and each individual equipped with them is powerful. Thus attention to knowledge and intellectual capitals for reaching to Psychological Empowerments in each organization is necessary and inevitable. The aim of this research was to study the impact of Intellectual Capital on Psychological Empowerments in experts of Iran’s Ministry of Youth and Sports. 
Materials and Methods: This cross- sectional study was performed among 230 experts in Iran’s Ministry of Youth and Sports through convenient sampling. Data collection was conducted by the use of standard questionnaires of intellectual capital Bontis (1998) and psychological empowerment Spreitzer (1995) with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of 0.71 and 0.86. Descriptive statistics and regression tests were used for data analysis by spss.
Results: Results of study showed that mean intellectual capital and psychological empowerments was 3.49 and 3.81 respectively. Additionally, results showed that intellectual capital had the ability to predict the examinees’ psychological empowerments (R square= 0.12).
Conclusion: According to the results, it is necessary to use intellectual capitals in organizations for more psychological empowerment and also training sessions should be conduct

Background and Aim: Organizational agility is regarded an important factor for hospital effectiveness. Considering the necessity of hospital effectiveness, focus on organizational health can ensure the future success of an organization. This study mainly aims to determine the relationship between organizational agility and organizational health in hospitals affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (SBMU).
Materials and Methods: This is an applied, descriptive-correlational research. The population of the study included all SBMU hospital employees. The 375 members of the sample were selected based on Morgan and Krejcie table. The sampling method was multistage. Data collection tool was the questionnaires of organizational agility and organizational health. The questionnaires were valid based on the expert’s judgment, and Cronbach's alpha reliability value of the questionnaires was 0.88. The data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics (Pearson correlation, regression, and t-test), using SPSS software.
Results: The correlation between organizational agility and organizational health was positive and significant (r=0.66, P<0.05). A significant difference was observed between mean organizational agility and mean reference (-0.43, P<0.05) and also between mean organizational health and mean reference (-0.55, P<0.05).
Conclusion: Hospital managers need to work hard to promote organizational agility so that in addition to obtaining competitive advantage, they can improve organizational health by giving an appropriate and timely response to changes and taking advantage of the obtained opportunities.

Background and Aim: Nowadays heart disease is very common and is a major cause of mortality. Proper and early diagnosis of this disease is very important. Diagnostic methods and treatments of the disease are so expensive and have many side effects. Therefore, researchers are looking for cheaper ways to diagnose it with high precision. This study aimed to identify a model for the treatment of heart disease.
Materials and Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, the sampling method was census. The sample consisted of data from Khatam and Ali Ibn Abi Talib Hospitals in Zahedan. The data were developed as an Excel file, and Clementine12.0 software was used for data analysis. In the present study, C5.0, C & R Tree, CHAID, and QUEST algorithms and artificial neural network were carried out on the collected data. 
Results: The accuracy of 76.04 by C & R algorithm indicates the better performance of Decision Tree Algorithms than that of the Neural Network. 
Conclusion: This study aimed to provide a model for the prediction of a suitable heart disease treatment to reduce treatment costs and provide better quality of services for physicians. Due to considerable implementation risks of invasive diagnostic procedures such as angiography and also obtaining successful experiences of data analysis in medicine, this study has presented a model based on data analysis techniques. The improvable point of this model is the provision of a decision support system to help physicians to increase the accuracy of diagnosis in the treatment of diseases. 

Background & Aim: Spiritual quotient is an essential factor of managers’ competencies for development of organizations. The managers need high spiritual quotient to impress the staffs’ organizational commitment. This research is aimed to determine the correlation between the managers’ spiritual quotient with the employees organizational commitment in Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS).
Materials and Methods: This research was a descriptive-analytical, and cross-section study that induced in TUMS headquarters among 80 of the managers and 225 of the staffs at 2014-2015. The research tools were two questionnaires, including spiritual quotient and organizational commitment that used after the validity and reliability of these questionnaires was confirmed. The data was analyzed by SPSS software, average and standard deviation, for descriptive results, and used T-Test, One-Way Variance Analysis, and Pearson technique for analytical statistics. 
Results: Average of the managers’ spiritual quotient was desired. Although, the average of the staffs organizational commitment was moderate. There was a significant correlation between spiritual quotient of managers with organizational commitment of the staffs (p=0.034). 
Conclusion: The managers should emphasize to develop their spiritual quotient in order to promote the organizational commitment of the staffs. Using organizational psychologist to develop this relationship is our suggestion.

Background and Aim: Gastric cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the world. Due to the prevalence of the disease and the high mortality rate of gastric cancer in Iran, the factors affecting the development of this disease should be taken into account. In this research, two data mining techniques such as Apriori and ID3 algorithm were used in order to investigate the effective factors in gastric cancer.
Materials and Methods: Data sets in this study were collected among 490 patients including 220 patients with gastric cancer and 270 healthy samples referred to Imam Reza hospital in Tabriz. The best rules related to this data set were extracted through Apriori algorithm and implementing it in MATLAB. ID3 algorithm was also used to investigate these factors.
Results: The results showed that having a history of gastro esophageal reflux has the greatest impact on the incidence of this disease. Some rules extracted through Apriori algorithm can be a model to predict patient status and the incidence of the disease and investigate factors affecting the disease. The prediction accuracy achieved through ID3 algorithm is 85.56 which was a very good result in the prediction of gastric cancer.
Conclusion: Using data mining, especially in medical data, is very useful due to the large volume of data and unknown relationships between systemic, personal, and Behavioral Features of patients. The results of this study could help physicians to identify the contributing factors in incidence of the disease and predict the incidence of the disease.

Background and Aim: Medical facilities management can have a significant impact on reducing costs and increase the quality of services. Therefore, it is essential that the selection of equipment in an objective manner that they will be classified according to their importance, so the aim of this article is to choose the most appropriate of supplier based on multi-criteria decision-making methods.
Materials and Methods: This study was a mixed method. To collect the data, we used documents and interview. The participants consist of top managers, users and experts in medical devices that are in hospital. We used the snowball sampling.
Results: It can be seen that as the method (ELECTERE1), the priority order is D>C>A=B And the method( TOPSIS) is the same, the priority order is D>B>A>C And at in the last way (VIKOR) is A>B>D>C And as we see in the first and second methods most cases are the same except B and C. in the third technique A changed place and become the first rank and, B and C has the same rank. 
Conclusion: we were observed that prioritize the options in all of the similarities to each other and yet in some cases differ, in short, no option is in all of the same place, and it seems to make a final decision should use several other methods as a way to help and emphasis our results.

Background and Aim: Functions and services of academic libraries have been affected very much by the entrance and the development of information technology (IT) in university libraries. Since the main mission of academic libraries is advance of educational and research programs of university, the authorities should deploy expertise with technical skills to be able to fulfill their most important job. The aim of this study was to identify factors influencing the adoption of information technology by librarians of governmental academic libraries based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).
Materials and Methods: This was a survey research and the tool was a questionnaire based on TAM. The study population consisted of 151 librarians and census method was used. The validity was confirmed by experts in library and information sciences and also IT. Reliability obtained 0.89 using Cronbach's alpha. Statistical method was descriptive, inferential and data analysis was done via software SPSS20.
Results: Determination coefficient 0.282 shows that TAM is applicable in research population. This means that the applicability of the TAM was relatively appropriate for study about librarians of university libraries. Priorities effects of TAMs variables on the actual use of IT shows the most effective variable are intent to use (0.39), perceived ease of use (0.21), perceived usefulness (0.15) and attitude to use of IT (0.12).
Conclusion: Provision of required IT infrastructure and training for effective use should be considered for librarians.  In addition to that, courses of introduction to library information technology should be included in the library and information science curriculum.

Background and Aim: Considering the scope of tasks and the role of teaching hospitals in the promotion of population health, it is important to consider their responsiveness as one of the three goals of health system. The aim of this study was to evaluate the level and relative importance of responsiveness domains in teaching hospitals from the viewpoint of households living in selected areas of Mashhad.
Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a valid questionnaire designed by World Health Organization (WHO) was used. From among the households of two selected areas of Mashhad, 561 families that had the background of referring to teaching hospitals were selected via multi-stage sampling. Based on WHO pattern, descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis.
Results: About 50 percent of the respondents expressed the level of responsiveness as good and very good. Information confidentiality domain and the quality of amenities got the highest and lowest ranks from the respondents’ viewpoint, respectively. The highest and lowest importance belonged to the domains of quality care facilities and family and social support, respectively. 
Conclusion: Considering the relatively low responsiveness of different domains and also the existing gap between families’ priorities and performance of teaching hospitals, it seems necessary that policymakers pay more attention to patients’ priorities such as the quality of care facilities and the creation of appropriate educational content related to medical students. Also, periodic evaluation of responsiveness can be useful in promoting the responsiveness of teaching hospitals.

Background and Aim: Emotional intelligence Skills is highly crucial in career success and achivement critical responsibilities accompolishments. Psychologists believe that 20% and 80% of individuals’ success depends on IQ and emotional intelligence (EQ) respectively. This study is aimed to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and job performance among the staff of Shariati Hospital at Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 2016.
Materials and Methods: In a descriptive-analytical method, 1030 individuals from different units of shariati hospital`s staff were studied. 280 persons were randomly selected by using a Cochran formula. Two questionnaires regarding Schering Siberia emotional intelligence (1990) and Patterson job performance (1975) were used after being validated through experts and specialists` view and reliablity analysis (Cronbach's alpha values of questionare of emotional intelligence=0.734 and job performance=0.768). The data were analysed by use of descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation test and Friedman test.
Results: The total studied staff was included 73% women 62% married and 67% college education. The average emotional intelligence rating was 182 (with IE of 34) and average job performance was 109 (with IE of 22).The result showed a significant correlation between emotional intelligence and job performance (p=0.030). Using Friedman statistical test, ranking of emotional intelligence components were conducted; the self-awareness and social skills had the first and fourth rank respectively.
Conclusion: Training and the improvement of emotional intelligence skills and capabilities can be used to enhance the process of the hospital staff recrument andimprove their performance level. 

Background and Aim: Technical videos and images are of great importance in learning different topics of medical sciences. This study is conducted to determine the effect of videos and images in learning from students’ point of view and also their problems in accessing them.
Materials and Methods: This is a survey study. Data were collected by a self-made questionnaire and the population included postgraduate students of Qazvin University of Medical Sciences in the first semester of 94-95.
Results: More than half of the students stated that images and videos have an average or more-than-average effect on their learning achievements. There is no significant relationship between students’ fields of study and their feeling the need for specialized images and videos. To get advice, they refer more to their professors or classmates than to librarians. A large number of responding students had not heard even the names of specialized image-and-video databases or they had never used them before. Low-speed internet and filtering of sites are the most important factors in students’ failure to access their required images and videos while students themselves have ranked ‘unfamiliarity with specialized databases’ as the fourth important factor.
Conclusion: The students know the importance of images and videos in learning achievements, but since they don’t know the professional databases and don’t have an appropriate interaction with librarians, they resort to general search-engines and, as a result, they face with blocked sites and are deprived from what they really want.

Background and Aim: Nurses’ knowledge, attitude and performance towards the principles of Islamic ethics are remarkable in nursing care in Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). 
Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the knowledge, attitude and performance of 551 nurses were evaluated based on their age, sex, education, and type of employment in TUMS hospitals (by a valid questionnaire). All data were analyzed by SPSS. In this study, a questionnaire was designed through a Focus group discussion and then its validity was evaluated. Moreover, the reliability of the questionnaire was estimated by test-retest method.    
Results: Our study showed that female sex, work experience of 15-20 years, type of employment, and higher education were associated with a higher level of knowledge, attitude and performance towards principles of Islamic ethics. Also, according to our analysis, there was a significant relationship between age and level of knowledge, attitude and performance of the principles of Islamic ethics (p<0.05)  especially at the age of 40's.  

Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, there is a significant relationship between educational indices and work experience, and the age of nurses with the level of knowledge, attitude and practice regarding the principles of Islamic ethics. It is suggested that educational courses about Islamic ethics be presented based on nurses’ educational levels and age. 

Background and Aim: Over the recent years, patient discharge process time has been an important issue focused by so many officials. Therefore, the present study is aimed to identify the main factors with regard to the discharge process and selecting the best data-mining algorithm. 
Materials and Methods: The population in question is all the patients discharged from Modarres Hospital during the first three months in the year 2014. Sampling wasn’t carried out but the number of observations has reached over 1060. Data was gathered via the researcher’s checklist while the relation between dependent and independent variants was examined and identified through T-test, Pearson Correlation Test and one-way analysis of variance. Data Mining Algorithms, in this study, were as follows: Neural Network, Support Vector Machine, Decision Tree, Simple Linear Regression.
Results: The average discharging process in the present study was 246.96 ± 3.25, which shows that among main factors concerned with discharging process, bedridden ward is considered as the most crucial. Also, according to the algorithms employed in this study, Decision Tree, with Correlation Value=0.30 and Root-Mean Square Error=103.29, was the best algorithm.
Conclusion: Results show that Data-Mining Algorithms can be employed to identify crucial factors regarding the whole discharging process and the most important factor during discharge process variable is hospitalization.

Background and Aim: Strategic planning has an important role in achieving competitive advantage for nonprofit organizations. However, some strategic plans fail. The present study aimed to investigate challenges of strategic planning in Welfare Organization.
Materials and Methods: A qualitative approach was used for this case study. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 senior and middle managers who were members of the strategic planning committee. Content analysis method was used for data analysis, and 7 themes and 16 sub-themes were identified from the data.
Results: Lack of justification of the strategic planning, the strategic planning model, inappropriate composition of the strategic planning team, the structural and managerial changes of the Welfare Organization, time limitation, insufficient training, and budget constraints were the main challenges of strategic planning in the Welfare Organization. 
Conclusion: If the strategic planning challenges are not managed well, more problems are expected to occure during the implementation of the strategic plan. Senior managers’ commitment, strong management and leadership, participative corporate culture, education and training, staff empowerment, and provision of required resources will facilitate strategic planning implementation in organizations.

Background and Aim: Conditions, advantages and limitations of professional ethics have not been discussed. The present study aimed to determine the framework, dimensions and requirements of professional ethics in selected countries in order to review their experiences.
Materials and Methods: The present study was comparatively conducted in 2017. Considering inclusion criteria in designing study including purposeful and specified activity in terms of professional ethics, five countries of United Kingdom, Malaysia, Japan, Turkey and United States of America achieved the conditions to enter the study. For data analysis, comparative tables were used which included dimensional comparison obtained from professional ethics development study in the selected countries. 
Results: Medical and nursing associations and headquarters units in Ministries of Health, prepare appropriate utilization of professional ethics principles. Using temporary or permanent and regular committees in line units, also includes other characteristics of attention to the professional ethics concept in the selected countries. In Malaysia and Japan, professional ethics is taught in different courses and majors. 
Conclusion: Applying professional ethics concept requires information transparency and factors such as education, organizational structure set up and their establishments and institutionalizing must should be discussed more and to be localized on the basis of the countries situations.

Background and Aim: Thalassemia is a chronic disease which is extremely expensive, complex and debilitating. The management skill of thalassemia patients should be enhanced to minimize the risk of disease complications. The main purpose of this study was to develop personal electronic health records for thalassemia major patients.                                             

Materials and Methods: This is a developmental applied study which was conducted to develop a personal electronic health record for thalassemia major. First, a questionnaire was prepared to determine the data elements and was filled by Hematology and Oncology professionals in the country (110 persons). Then, based on the results of needs analysis, the system was designed using PHP programming language and MySQL database and was evaluated by 50 thalassemia patients who referred to the Thalassemia Clinic of Bu Ali Sina Hospital of Mazandaran University of Medical of Sciences during the second half of the month of Aban. Finally, a standard questionnaire of usability and user satisfaction assessment was distributed among them.   
Results: Usability evaluation of the system showed that patients evaluated the system at a good level with a mean rating of 7.91 (out of 9 points). 

Conclusion: The web-based systems can be used to help thalassemia patients to control injection and reduce the complications of the disease and to promote health. 

Background and Aim: Creativity and innovation are considered among the most important factors that help an organization survive. Therefore, it seems necessary to examine the status of this important issue in healthcare organizations such as hospitals. The present study was conducted to determine the relationship between organizational innovation and creativity among the staff of teaching hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS).  
Materials and Methods: This descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study was conducted on 285 staff members of TUMS selected teaching hospitals in 2015. To collect the required data, demographic data form, organizational creativity 
questionnaire and Martin Patchen’s innovation questionnaire were used. Data were analyzed in SPSS software version 21, using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation analysis at a less-than-0.05 significance level. 
Results: The organizational creativity rate for the studied staff showed an average of 2.99±0.80, assessed at middle and lower middle levels and the organizational innovation rate showed an average of 19.37±3.71, assessed as middle and upper middle. A statistically significant relationship was observed between organizational creativity and organizational innovation (p=0.02, r=0.20).
Conclusion: The results suggest that an increase in creativity leads to an increase in innovation. Therefore, to survive and maintain a competitive advantage to provide more desirable treatment services at a high quality, hospital managers are required to use their best effort and expenditure so that they can enhance innovation within their organizations.