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Purpose: To estimate the impact of dry eye disease (DED) on work performance and productivity in office workers using visual display terminals (VDTs)., Design: Cross-sectional study., Methods: Six hundred seventy-two Japanese young and middle-aged office workers using VDTs completed a questionnaire that was designed to measured at-work performance deficits and productivity losses using the Japanese version of the Work Limitations Questionnaire, completed by e-mail. Using the Japanese dry eye diagnostic criteria, respondents were classified into 3 groups: definite DED, probable DED, and non DED., Results: Of the 672 office workers, 553 subjects (82.3%), including 366 men and 187 women, completed the questionnaire and underwent clinical evaluation. As for the total workplace productivity loss, the non DED group demonstrated a loss of 3.56%, those with probable DED demonstrated a loss of 4.06%, and those with definite DED demonstrated a loss of 4.82%, indicating significantly worse performance and productivity (P = .014, trend test). For the 4 subscales, DED was associated with significantly lower on-the-job time management (P = .009, trend test) and combined mental performance and interpersonal functioning (P = .011, trend test). After controlling for age, sex, VDT working hours, and diagnosis of DED, time management, physical demands, and mental and interpersonal functioning showed a significant relationship to DED (each P > .05). Annual DED productivity losses were estimated to be $6160 per employee when measured by total production and $1178 per employee calculated by wage., Conclusions: This study indicated that there is a significant impact of DED on the total productivity of Japanese VDT users., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Standard-form software and hardware contracts need critical review to ensure that the product meets the needs of the practice.

The steady progress of microelectronics, communications and information technology will enable the realisation of the vision for "ubiquitous computing" where the Internet extends into the real world embracing everyday objects. The necessary technical basis is already in place. Due to their diminishing size, constantly falling price and declining energy consumption, processors, communications modules and sensors are being increasingly integrated into everyday objects today. This development is opening up huge opportunities for both the economy and individuals. In the present paper we discuss possible applications, but also technical, social and economic barriers to a wide-spread use of ubiquitous computing in the health care sector., (.)

Return on investment is an excellent mechanism for evaluating large practice purchasing decisions. Whether you are purchasing a new practice, opening an office, building a new facility, recruiting an associate or adding technology, the issue that always should be evaluated is whether the investment will create a positive return for the practice and, if so, in what period. While most dental investments actually provide a positive return on investment within 12 months, larger investments, such as purchasing a practice or opening new offices, may require several years to gain a positive return. They still may be good decisions. At the very least, return-on-investment considerations allow dentists to evaluate options from a business-plan perspective, rather than simply making uninformed decisions.

As Britain's industrial economy matured and the volume of administrative work increased, different kinds of clerical jobs and clerical careers became possible. Using examples from a variety of small- to medium-sized enterprises in Glasgow, this article will describe how the main functions of administrative work - financial, secretarial and managerial - were divided both horizontally and vertically in order to preserve secure, well-paid, "breadwinning" jobs for men, leaving routine secretarial work for women. The isolation of women in all-women enclaves carrying out shorthand and typing work and the subsequent devaluation of these as kinds of work were of primary importance in the creation of office work that was explicitly women's work.

Three good reasons why you should file claims electronically: lowering postage and handling charges, improving response time, and receiving immediate feedback on errors and rejections.

A popular PC magazine recently conducted a survey asking readers whether a paperless office or Santa Claus was more believable. Santa Claus won. Health care professionals would make that same choice. They come from an educational process that teaches, if it is not on paper, it never happened. However, the necessity for fast and easy access to medical documents, particularly in managed care networks, is causing the paperless office to rush forward at breakneck speed.

A reduction of healthcare costs is an important part of the reform our society is demanding. We cannot ignore this. Lowering administrative costs is a particularly good way to reduce health care expenditures since this decreases the cost without compromising the quality of services. Implementing an EDI structure for submitting claims and receiving claim remittance advice is one way to significantly reduce the cost of health care by lowering administrative costs. EDI allows the consumer to receive the same level of health care at a lower cost. To accomplish this goal, the industry must accept some standardization. While providers, dental software vendors, and clearinghouses request an electronic claims system that is uniform-payers (insurance companies, State-administered Medicaid programs, etc.) often insist on proprietary formats that fit their own requirements. This impedes the implementation of a successful electronic interchange of data. Under the leadership of the Canadian Dental Association, payers and dentists in Canada were able to create a superior electronic claim processing network, CDAnet. Providers and payers using CDAnet agree that the system works very well. The Canadian dentist does not pay for this service, and insurance companies benefit significantly. Dentists in the USA do not have a universal electronic claim processing network. A USA dentist who wants to send claims electronically has limited selections and often pays additional fees. Organized dentistry has the best opportunity of establishing electronic data interchange between providers and payers in the USA. The first step is creating a universal electronic claim processing system. This system must protect confidentiality by maintaining data that keeps anonymous provider and patient data. It is the dentist who produces the claim. Dentists must become involved in the decisions affecting electronic claim processing. The proper guidance from organized dentistry will enable providers, payers, software vendors, and clearinghouses to cooperate together in creating a cost effective electronic communication network.

General information and principles regarding the automation of medical examiner and coroner offices are presented. Topics discussed include the importance of using available resource groups, questions that should be answered to determine the need for automation, the importance of specifically defining office needs and goals prior to automation, the value of capturing data in multiple ways, the importance of maintaining some hardcopy files, the value of ensuring capability to modify and enlarge the computer system, the need to tailor systems to the needs of specific offices, possibilities for generating money or acquiring equipment at little or no cost, the use of personal computers and commercially available software, the value of having all operations inhouse, transition to new operating systems and environments, and the foreseeable use of emerging technologies.