Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe how Swisslog Healthcare Solutions, which provides automated logistics solutions for hospitals and other health‐care organizations, has taught its sales force to talk about the operational benefits of its systems to individual hospitals or...

Discusses the use of robots in pharmaceutical laboratories for repetitive tasks and dealing with dangerous substances such as radioisotopes. Presents a project undertaken by BNFL, Amercare Ltd and Middlesex University to develop a fully automated radiopharmaceutical dispensing system. Discusses...

Quality standards in the enquiry answering function of health service drug information units and of pharmaceutical industry medical information departments are studied by an interview/questionnaire survey. Factors examined include the use of standardised and documented procedures, adherence to...

Purpose – This study aims to increase understanding of the factors that affect retail pharmacy performance. This paper investigates how various product-, store-, customer- and competitor characteristics affect over-the-counter (OTC) drug sales and thus store performance....

An understanding of the patterns of GP prescribing is important to those who play a role in the management of healthcare budgets. This paper analyses the contrasts and overlaps between the perceptions of healthcare managers and actual prescribing behaviour. While there are aspects of prescribing...

Purpose – The issue of duplicate publications has received a lot of attention in the medical literature, but much less in the information science community. This paper aims to analyze the prevalence and scientific impact of duplicate publications across all fields of research between 1980 and...

The development of any scientific theory has a certain logic. Bruno Latour formulated a theory, describing the development of science and technology. Outcomes of science are not guided by nature or “the truth”, but by a complex negotiation. It starts with ideas, which follow paths of...

Purpose – The paper aims to explore the increasing feminisation of the medical profession and career progression of women in the medical profession. Furthermore, the paper explores the implications of gender segregation in the medical profession for health service provision....

Purpose – This paper aims to outline and comment on the changes to medical regulation in the UK that provide the background to a special issue of the Journal of Health Organization and Management on regulating doctors. Design/methodology/approach – This paper takes the form of a review....

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore general practitioners' (GPs') and psychiatrists' views and experiences of transparent forms of medical regulation in practice, as well as those of medical regulators and those representing patients and professionals. Design/methodology/approach...