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Issues. Many policy review articles have concluded that alcohol screening and brief intervention (SBI) is both cost-effective and cost-beneficial. Yet a recent cost-effectiveness review for the United Kingdom's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence suggests that these conclusions may be premature. Approach. This article offers a brief synopsis of the various types of economic analyses that may be applied to SBI, including cost analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-utility analysis, cost-benefit analysis and other types of economic evaluation. A brief overview of methodological issues is provided, and examples from the SBI evaluation literature are provided. Key Findings, Implications and Conclusions. The current evidence base is insufficient to draw firm conclusions about the cost, cost-effectiveness or cost-benefit of SBI and about the impact of SBI on health-care utilisation.[Cowell AJ, Bray JW, Mills MJ, Hinde JM. Conducting economic evaluations of screening and brief intervention for hazardous drinking: Methods and evidence to date for informing policy. Drug Alcohol Rev 2010;29;623-630] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accountability movement in public policy hails a new programme for US foreign assistance – the Millennium Challenge Account established in 2004 with the aim of ‘picking winners’ for grants among developing countries based on their demonstrated quality of governance. This article uses the MCA's own rating system to dispute its claim to know in advance which countries are best positioned to meet major development goals. High governance scores alone bear little or no relationship to growth in national income or decline in poverty. Attempting to measure public-policy performance limits the range of choice available to policy-makers, and may inadvertently limit true performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical supervision has always been important, but latterly the heightened demands for more trainees, effective continuing professional development, quality services and accreditation make it a topic for serious scrutiny. The present paper summarizes the structures, processes and outcomes that 10 NHS professions use to respond to this demand in relation to initial professional training. It does this by placing them in the context of the professional debate on balancing the traditional emphasis on supervision quality with the increasing quantity of those requiring supervision. The findings, based on scrutiny of each profession's placement and supervision documentation, indicate significant variability in the quality standards between the professions. Implications are drawn for reconstructing clinical supervision, based on the literature and a composite of the best quality standards in the professions. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality standard, BS 5750 has been revised for the British Ministry of Defence (MoD). New identity of the standard will be as BS EN ISO 9000. Standards affected by the revision includes: Quality management and quality assurance, model for quality assurance in design, development, production, installation and servicing. Another standards affected are model for quality assurance in final inspection and test. The Association of British Certification Bodies, in consultation with MoD, have declared that organizations making application to Third Party Certification Bodies after 1 August 1994 should normally be assessed to the appropriate BS EN ISO 9000:1994 standard.

The Management Charter Initiative (MCI) has announced that it is to develop vocational standards of best practice for quality managers throughout Great Britain. MCI, an industry-led organization, has been appointed by the government to devise a comprehensive set of standards to measure the performance of quality managers in the workplace, across all type and size of organizations. MCI aims to produce a model of standards for quality managers by October 1992. The standards will not only apply to quality managers but will also emphasize the quality aspect of a general manager's role.

NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) has awarded Rockwell International Corp.'s Space Systems Division, Florida Operations, and Rockwell International's Rocketdyne Division the NASA KSC Excellence Award for Quality for outstanding attention to quality. Rockwell and Rocketdyne can take pride in receiving this award knowing that they have set a quality standard at KSC by which other companies will now have to measure their performance', said Alan Parrish, KSC's safety, reliability, and quality assurance director.

The article reports that Russia's State Committee for Standards, Grosstandard has joined forces with Lloyd's Register to make comprehensive technical consulting and inspection services available to national and international industries in Russia. Gosstandard is a state organization that assesses and develops quality standards for the Russian domestic engineering and manufacturing fields. Within the organization, a supervisory body, gospriomka, ensures that quality assessment and control practices are implemented and goods are manufactured in accordance with relevant standards set by Gosstandard. Lloyd's Register will provide qualified inspectors and consultants to supervise this process.

The article discusses research activities at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In order to encourage small businesses to improve their quality and productivity processes, NASA is establishing a separate small business category for the 1989-90 NASA Excellence Award Program. Small businesses applying for the NASA Excellence Award for Quality and Productivity should follow the instructions as stated in the 1989-90 Excellence Award. Application reports will be accepted with as few as 15 pages.

The article discusses training video on quality. The British Broadcasting Corp. has produced a new video training package in conjunction with Mike Robson, author of the book, "The Journey to Excellence," for use in quality management courses. The package consists of two tapes, Mr. Robson's book and training notes. Examples are taken from notable company successes such as International Business Machines Corp. and Jaguar Cars Ltd.

The article discusses international quality standards. The new series of international quality assurance standards, the ISO 9000 series, was issued by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in June 1987. The ISO 9000 series will replace national Quality Assessment(QA) standards in the participating nations. The new ISO Standard emphasizes modern aspects of quality assurance, including design control and internal audits. The subparts of ISO 9000: ISO 9001, 9002, 9003 and 9004, cover new product development and manufacture, production of existing lines, control of non-conformity and the setting up of QA systems, respectively.

The article discusses safety and reliability standards. The European Safety and Reliability Association (ESRA) has published its first course directory. No fewer than 91 western European courses on safety and reliability related topics are listed in the directory. ESRA promise that the listings wilt be updated regularly. The courses range from basic to advanced, and cover courses offered by universities, professional organizations, consultancy firms, and others. The courses are described by keywords, a course abstract and the contact addresses for further information.