Mobile health care technology (mHealth) has the potential to improve communication and clinical information management in disasters. This study reviews the literature on health care and computing published in the past five years to determine the types and efficacy of mobile applications available to disaster medicine, along with lessons learned. Five types of applications are identified: (1) disaster scene management; (2) remote monitoring of casualties; (3) medical image transmission (teleradiology); (4) decision support applications; and (5) field hospital information technology (IT) systems. Most projects have not yet reached the deployment stage, but evaluation exercises show that mHealth should allow faster processing and transport of patients, improved accuracy of triage and better monitoring of unattended patients at a disaster scene. Deployments of teleradiology and field hospital IT systems to disaster zones suggest that mHealth can improve resource allocation and patient care. The key problems include suitability of equipment for use in disaster zones and providing sufficient training to ensure staff familiarity with complex equipment. Future research should focus on providing unbiased observations of the use of mHealth in disaster medicine.

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The most important asset is people. This fact must be recognised before management can begin to effectively coach their employees. Since every person is in themselves an individual, however, it is impossible to guarantee that all people will respond identically to a single type of stimuli designed by management to bring about a desired effect. It is for this reason that “coaching” is not in itself a method, but rather it is comprised of many different tactics used to guide employees towards maximising their potential within the working environment. Rewards, compensation, training, employee development programmes, goal setting, discipline, employee participation, and group discussion problem solving are only some of the techniques that can fall under the general heading of coaching. Managers must be trained to become better “coaches” as well, since their degree of competency and expertise will have great impact on the effectiveness of their coaching programmes.

This article describes a model quality assessment and improvement system for long-term care facilities and outlines ongoing research and pilot-testing of its component parts. The model is based on six guiding principles identified as appropriate for the long-term care industry and four highly interrelated key functions of quality assessment.

Suggests that many methods of effective coaching are available to top management. Sets out a number of techniques for coaching employees and maximising their potential in the organisation. Examines motivation techniques, reward schemes and compensation, training and discipline. Concludes that it is up to management to choose their own coaching methods.

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