\n\nObjective To determine whether accreditation performance is associated with self-reported clinical performance and independent ratings of four aspects of organisational performance.\n\nDesign Independent blinded assessment of these variables in a random, stratified sample of health service organisations.\n\nSettings Acute care: large, medium and small health-service organisations in Australia.\n\nStudy participants Nineteen health service organisations employing 16 448 staff treating 321 289 inpatients

and 1 971 087 non-inpatient services selleck chemical annually, representing approximately 5% of the Australian acute care health system.\n\nMain measures Correlations of accreditation performance with organisational culture, organisational climate, consumer involvement, leadership and clinical performance.\n\nResults Accreditation performance was significantly positively correlated with organisational culture (rho=0.618, p=0.005) and leadership (rho=0.616, p=0.005).

There was a trend between accreditation and clinical performance (rho=0.450, p=0.080). Accreditation was unrelated to organisational climate (rho=0.378, p=0.110) and consumer involvement (rho=0.215, p=0.377).\n\nConclusions Accreditation results predict Dactolisib leadership behaviours and cultural characteristics of healthcare organisations but not organisational climate or consumer participation, and a positive trend between accreditation and clinical performance is noted.”
“Recent studies report that multifunctionality-the simultaneous provision of multiple ecosystem functions-in drylands depends on biodiversity. Others report that specific size distributions of vegetation patches indicate overall ecosystem health and function. Using a biocrust BI 2536 (micro-vegetation of mosses, lichens, and cyanobacteria) model system, and multivariate modeling, we determined

the relative importance of biodiversity, patch-size distribution, and total abundance to nutrient cycling and multifunctionality. In most cases we explained at least 20%, and up to 65%, of the variation in ecosystem functions, and 42% of the variation in multifunctionality. Species richness was the most important determinant of C cycling, constituting an uncommonly clear link between diversity and function in a non-experimental field setting. Regarding C cycling in gypsiferous soils, we found that patch size distributions with a greater frequency of small to medium patches, as opposed to very small patches, were more highly functional. Nitrogen cycling was largely a function of biocrust cover in two soil types, whereas in gypsiferous soils, more central-tending patch size distributions were less functional with regards to N cycling. All three community properties were about equally important to multifunctionality.