Search

Process automation reduces racial disparities in credit access by enabling smaller loans, broadening banks' geographic reach, and removing human biases from decision making. We document these findings in the context of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), where private lenders faced no credit risk but decided which firms to serve. Black‐owned firms obtained PPP loans primarily from automated fintech lenders, especially in areas with high racial animus. After traditional banks automated their loan processing procedures, their PPP lending to Black‐owned firms increased. Our findings cannot be fully explained by racial differences in loan application behaviors, preexisting banking relationships, firm performance, or fraud rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the asset pricing implications of a firm's opportunities to replace routine‐task labor with automation. I develop a model in which firms optimally undertake such replacement when their productivity is low. Hence, firms with routine‐task labor maintain a replacement option that hedges their value against unfavorable macroeconomic shocks and lowers their expected returns. Using establishment‐level occupational data, I construct a measure of firms' share of routine‐task labor. Compared to their industry peers, firms with a higher share of routine‐task labor (i) invest more in machines and reduce more routine‐task labor during economic downturns, and (ii) have lower expected stock returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Thailand has a shortage of community health nurses for supporting the self‐management of type 2 diabetes, which is prevalent and poorly controlled. Aim: This study examined the feasibility and acceptability of a self‐care assistance programme for poorly controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus. The SukapapNet programme consisted of automated interactive voice response calls to patients and automated follow‐up email notifications to their nurses. Design: Single‐arm pre‐post trial. Methods: Six nurses and 35 type 2 diabetes patients were recruited from primary care settings in suburban provinces in Thailand. The study was conducted from June 2017 to November 2017. We assessed patients before and after 12 weeks of the SukapapNet intervention. Results: Mean glycated haemoglobin decreased by 0.9%. Patients reported reduced carbohydrate consumption, increased physical activity, increased medication adherence, improved sleep quality, and more frequent foot care. Patients and nurses both recommended using the intervention, although nurses expressed concerns regarding increased workload. Conclusions: The study programme could improve outcomes in Thai type 2 diabetes patients. Further study of the impact of technology upon nurses' workload is warranted. SUMMARY STATEMENT: What is already known about this topic? Prevalence of type 2 diabetes is increasing in Thailand, and nurses who play an important role in health care at the community level are limited.Mobile health strategies including short message service, automated telephonic monitoring, and internet‐based education have been successfully applied in Thailand with prenatal care, depression, Parkinson disease, cardiac rehabilitation, and diabetes.Although mobile health is a promising way to bridge gaps in managing type 2 diabetes, an effect of automated mobile health with nurse follow‐up has never been investigated in primary care settings. What this paper adds? Automated interactive voice response monitoring of diabetes patients with emailed updates to nurses is acceptable to Thai patients with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes.Mobile health strategies could also improve Thai nurses' ability to help diabetes patients with glycaemic control.To reduce burden for nurses, summaries of patients' responses should be emailed on a less‐than‐daily basis. The implications of this paper: This study contributes to the knowledge of how mobile health strategies could help Thai patients with type 2 diabetes achieve glycaemic control and increase nurses' engagement with these patients.Innovative use of automated interactive voice response with feedback to community health nurses should be further developed in Thailand.Future research should investigate a mobile health benefit to diabetes glycaemic control through a large‐scale randomized controlled trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dind A, Short A, Ekholm J, Holdgate A. International Journal of Nursing Practice 2011; 17: 525-533 The inaccuracy of automatic devices taking postural measurements in the emergency department Automatic devices are used to take postural blood pressures in the emergency department despite research proving their inaccuracy in taking single blood pressures. This study assessed the accuracy of an automatic device compared with a manual aneroid reference standard for determining orthostatic hypotension and postural drops at triage. Supine and standing blood pressures were taken with an automatic and a manual device in a sequential and random order, and postural drops were calculated. The manual device indicated 10/150 emergency department patients had orthostatic hypotension (7%) and the automatic device detected this with a sensitivity of 30% and a specificity of 91%. The automatic-manual differences were clinically significant in 13% of systolic drops and 37% of diastolic drops. Findings suggest that automatic devices cannot reliably detect or rule out orthostatic hypotension, indicating that triage nurses need to use manual devices to take accurate postural blood pressures for optimal patient care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the frictions that impede individual investors' use of accounting information and, in particular, their costs of monitoring and acquiring accounting disclosures. We do so using an archival setting in which individuals are presented with automated media articles that report both current earnings news and past stock returns. Although these investors have earnings information readily available, we find no evidence that their trades incorporate it. Instead we find that their trading responds to the trailing stock returns presented in the articles. Our study raises questions about the efficacy of regulations that aim to aid less sophisticated investors by increasing their awareness of and access to accounting information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]