How to make intelligent automation projects agile? Identification of success factors and an assessment approach

Assessment framework for the selection of a potential interactive dressing material for diabetic foot ulcer

Diabetic foot ulcer is a chronic health issue leading to lower leg amputations in approximately 15% of patients with diabetics. There are many factors directly or indirectly involved in the physiology of wound healing but being a multisystem disorder, wound healing in diabetic patients retard or worsen with heavy exudates and severe microbial infections. Wound management is of prime importance and is an emerging area to incorporate wound regenerative materials in natural or synthetic dressing materials along with proper microbial control. The article aim to identify suitable dressing materials which exhibit inherent wound healing properties at the same time flexible to be used as drug carriers for slow, consistent and effective delivery of 'functional drugs' to the wound environment. The authors selected nine materials from the popular and well accepted dressings of patient choice, analyzed them using graph theoretic approach and ranked them on the basis of graph index values obtained. A critical review has also been done on the basis of their ranking, providing insights to the advantages, disadvantage and potential of top 5 ranked candidate materials. Alginate, Honey, Medifoam, Saline, and Hydrogel dressings were the top five candidate materials ranked respectively, even then, the authors suggests that 'modified hydrogels' can have the potential to be used as a future candidate in DFU treatment as it is the only material (among the top ranked ones) which can effectively used as regenerative drug carrier, while providing all other wound healing properties in relative proportions. The proposed framework can be modified and applied in the selection and ranking of materials for any kind of applications both in industry and medical fields by identifying factors influencing the final outcome of study and by listing the characteristics of the materials selected.

Readiness for sustainable-resilience in healthcare organisations during Covid-19 era

Purpose

Using total interpretive structural modelling (TISM), this paper aims to “identify”, “analyse” and “categorise” the sustainable-resilience readiness factors for healthcare during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

To obtain the data, a closed-ended questionnaire was used in addition to a scheduled interview with each respondent. To identify how the factors interact, the TISM approach was employed and the cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to a classification method was used to rank and categorise the sustainable-resilience readiness factors.

Findings

This study identified ten sustainable-resilience readiness factors for healthcare during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study states that the major factors are environmental scanning, awareness and preparedness, team empowerment and working, transparent communication system, learning culture, ability to respond and monitor, organisational culture, resilience engineering, personal and professional resources and technology capability.

Research limitations/implications

The study focused primarily on sustainable-resilience readiness characteristics for the healthcare sector.

Practical implications

This research will aid key stakeholders and academics in better understanding the factors that contribute to sustainable-resilience in healthcare.

Originality/value

This study proposes the TISM technique for healthcare, which is a novel attempt in the subject of readiness for sustainable-resilience in this sector. The paper proposes a framework including a mixture of factors for sustainability and resilience in the healthcare sector for operations.