Clinical Patient Management System Information Technology Essay

Clinical Patient Management System Information Technology Essay Clinical Patient management is introduced to optimize clinics operation. Because of huge changes in management nowadays, management for clinic is important due to the widely spread of technology. This system is proposed for those clinics which are still using paper-based to record down patient record, disease history and etc. This system is to manage the clinics operation efficiently. The area consists of the user in clinic which is doctor and clinic assistant. Basically there are no such systems in the clinic. The traditional paper-based management method has caused a lot of problems to the user. This system will help out the user in the clinic in managing the work. 1.2 Problem Statement and Motivation Clinical Patient management system is enhanced from the traditional paper-based management system that has been using in the clinic. Based on the previous system, the patient who comes to the clinic for the first time is registered via the system. The assistant assist the patient by write down the personal detail in a form. The patient gets the treatment and information about the treatment is record in a file. The system manages the activities in the clinic but the previous system has cause problems to the user. Problems of using paper to record down the records of patient: Only one copy, emergent consult problem Waste time to search the record Easy to lost record or duplicate record Waste money on purchase paper Waste space for store record These problem are so important is because they will affect the operation of clinic cause decrease of patients visits, inefficiency and increase of cost. Clinical Patient management is developed to overcome the problems. The system has few modules such as patient registration, inventory module, medical certificate, disease history, patient record search, appointment, billing and reporting. Objectives The project aims to overcome the problem exists in the previous system. In order to overcome the problem exists in the previous system, we must determine the problems existing in previous system, find out the reason cause the problems in previous existing system and create a solution to solve the problems. Investigate on system/user request and define new requirements. To achieve this objective need to determine who the user is, understanding the user request, verify the request can be achieve or not. Make user easy to maintain record Determine what record is requiring in the system. All the records will be kept in database. Ensure the system useful to user as it help in daily activity in the clinic. Determine how will the system work/operate and understand daily activity in the clinic. Project scope There are nine modules in the system: Patient Registration Patient must register first. Patients IC number, name, address, age, gender, phone number, specified relative IC. Disease History This module manages data about patients treatment history and register for various type of disease. It allows doctor to add, edit and update the disease history. Medical certificate This module allow doctor to create the medical certificate to patients. Allow user to add, edit, delete. Inventory module This module manages all the medicine stock in the clinic. It allow user to add, edit and delete the medicine information. It will show current quantity of medicine in the clinic. It includes the record search. Backup Backup the system setting and database. 1.5 Project significance Clinical Patient Management System is used by the doctor and clinic assistant. The user will feel the system is useful because it has benefits to manage the clinics operation efficiently. The web-based Clinical Patient Management gives profit to user as the user can retrieve information regard to themselves through the internet. They can access the clinic system throughout the internet and those who have difficulties to go the clinic will find it practical. The system makes record keeping more efficient and secure from an unauthorized people. Only authorized user has the right to retrieve their own information. This will secure the patients information. This system has also overcome the problems in paper-based management system. Besides that, the system is easy for the management to maintain record about the patient and inventory. The time for retrieving the information needed will be less compare to the manual. This will help the clinic assistant in doing the job. The system also helps in minimize the loss of data. The clinic assistant can view and generate report for the specified data. CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Web-based clinical patient management Medical services computerize is an irresistible general trend, this web site will provide medical information for the client, the user can find out a message they care. CMS provide on line appointment feature, which allow patients to make the appointment through Internet. Furthermore, doctors can manage the clinic daily work by using CMS. (Andrew Ho 2002, Louis Leong 2002, Onofre da Costa 2002). In journal article Clinics Management System (CMS) based on Patient Centered Process Ontology (Vissers J. M. H. 1998), conducted study and found one of the important trends in business managements is the focus on processes to create value added services for their ultimate customers. This is to get rid of unwanted, time consuming, unnecessarily repeated business activities of the processes and to monitor how value for customer is as efficiently as possible In the journal entitled, Best practice Clinic: The making of a good quality management system written by Dwyer, G. (2004), he said that to be manageable and effective, a quality management system should be easy to manage and involve minimal or no allocation of additional staff, and work in tandem with existing initiatives, systems and structures. In the case study of Lance Technologies LLC The web-based system kept track of all patient schedule information. Thus, patients could visit the web service at any later date and cancel or re-schedule their appointment based on Agho Clinic policies. A web-based administrative system provided password-protected access to patient scheduling data to Agho Clinic staff, allowing them to see schedules and patient contact information. The staff also used the same system to manage in-office scheduling as well. All provider schedules and office hours were also database-driven. (Lance Technologies LLC (2006). In Web Based Patient Scheduling with IVR Backend. Retrieved March 13, 2012) From article state in above they appears in nowadays all clinics are necessary to automate its daily functions. Furthermore, regardless of the type clinic, owning and operating it can be a lot of work. Web-based system is a technology important to clinic domain because it can help them face the problem of increasing diversity and differentiation by improve their competitiveness, efficiency and provide better convenient to patient. 2.2 Fact Finding In a personal interview with a clinic assistant, the clinic assistant had explained in detail about the clinic daily operation. Through the information provided by the clinic assistant, the following function has been listed out. 2.2.1 Functions of the System Patient Function Allow patients to view the doctors schedule. In order to supply a direct appointment way on web. The system require to show out the doctors schedule of working day. Making appointment is several simple steps. The patients can log in by using the User ID and Password. For the first time to log in, the patients can register on the web site and set their own ID and Password. Doctors can check and review the Medical history of a patient through patient ID. The Patients can check their own Medical history through the web browser, which include the patient info, such as Name, address, age, sex, record of diagnose, any allergic reaction. Doctor Clinic Assistant Function The system must provides the calendar for the doctors, to check the calendar and appointment on the day. The calendar allows the staff to apply different kind of leave. For instance, annual leave or non-paid leave, etc. By using the system, the medicine records can be checked. They can view the information of the medicines such as Medicines name, Expired date, Prices, Supplier info (Address and contact number) and Description. During the consultation, the doctor can store the patient treatment into the database, such as patient diagnosis, medicines, drug allergy, chronic disease. After the checking, the doctor will add the information and status in the system. Finally the system will calculate the total amount and print out the receipts. Through the functions state in above, a list of system module had been arranged out and already writes down in project scope, you can refer it on page 3. 2.3 Critical Remarks of previous works BioAXS Adastra Proposed system Patient registration Finger print verification Make appointment Scheduling Disease history Medical certificate management Billing Inventory management Reporting Backup Web-Based Figure 2.3 Existing system compare with proposed system From figure 2.3 above we can found that both of the existing system BioAXS and Adastra they dont have include most of the feature in proposed system. Many patients need to get medical certificate to rest at home, so the proposed system include the feature of medical certificate management to manage the record. Most of the clinic requires billing management feature in the management system to help them manage and record daily expense and revenue. The inventory in proposed system can help clinic manage the medicine stock, so the clinic assistant can always monitor on the quantity of various medicine. The backup feature in proposed system allow user to backup their data, this can prevent loss of data. If the system accidently down, user can through restore backup file to recover the data. CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 3.1 Prototyping The methodology I choose for develop the system is prototyping. Prototyping include 5 phases planning, analysis, design, implementation, delivery. A prototyping-based methodology performs the analysis, design and implementation phases concurrently, and all three phrases are performed repeatedly to build the first version, with user feedback, repeat these three phases a cycle until system complete. In figure 3.1 it shown how prototyping works. C:UsersKelvin GiottoDesktopprototype.png Figure 3.1 Prototyping 3.1.1 Planning The project planning starts in this phase. First, the information is gathered from the clinic staff. Then, the scope, objectives and the goals for the proposed system are set up. The tentative schedule consists of project work plan and Gantt chart is developed. 3.1.2 Analysis In this phase, we have to understand previous system problems and find out analysis existing system find out their pros and cons. We also have to realise clinic daily operation process to investigate and define new requirements. The problem statement of the system can be defined throughout the observation. It will become the objective for the system. The scope can be extracted from the objective to develop the system. 3.1.3 Design Database design, where a design for the database is form. It can support the Clinical Patient Management System operational and objective, as Microsoft Access is choose for the database management. The minimum requirement for the installation need to be confirmed first in order for the DBMS in the server to run smoothly. Moreover, the Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD), and data dictionary is create where it will explain the main basic workflow of the system. All relationship between the tables, define the storage structures and the access paths will be known. For interface design, we will regard to user request and make it more user-friendly. 3.1.4 Implementation In implementation phase is start working on programming, after complete the first version of prototype, we will delivery it to user to testing the prototype, test for performance, integrity, and concurrent access and security constraints. Other than that, testing and evaluate the system parallel with application programming is done. This phase involve all the users in Clinic Management system that will use this system. In this stage it can be define that the users meets their requirement. Once the data insert into the database, the processes such as tests and fine-tunes will be carried out for purposes of performance, integrity, and concurrent access and security constraints. The testing and evaluation phase occurs in parallel with applications programming. If the database implementation fails to meet the users requirement, several options will be consider in order enhancing the system. Implementation Issues and Challenges Many issues and challenges will be face In develop clinical patient management system. Develop this system can be say like start from zero, require to learning new programming language, new development software and make it operate on server. Unfamiliar Programming language C# The system is develop through Microsoft Sharepoint 2013, and it require using C# programming language to develop. Unfamiliar system area The web-based Clinical Patient Management system is a medical area system, this will cause negligence on the development of software features. Unfamiliar development tools Microsoft Sharepoint 2013 is a new development tools, many useful feature for developer, so require to take some time to learning how to use it. Blur on User Interface design Due to the user of the system are doctor and clinic assistant, difficult to design a user-friendly that is suitable for them. Timeline 3.3.1 Current Semester Figure 3.3.1 Current Semester In figure 3.3.1, meeting to discuss the process of the final year project is a recurring task, the task is execute on everyweek Wednesday. Took totally 12 days on choose project title. Totally 17 days use for create preliminary report, start from 16 Feb 2012 to 9 March 2012. For develop the comb-bound project proposal, this task totally used 21 days start from 12 Mar 2012 to 9 Apr 2012. 3.3.2 Next Semester Figure 3.3.2 Next Semester In figure 3.3.2, planning phase start from 28 May 2012, take 6 days to complete it. Due to using the prototyping methodology to develop the system, so Analysis, Design and Implementation should be recurring task and start from 13 Apr 2012 to 17 Aug 2012. The system should be delivery on 20 Aug 2012. Requirement Specification User Requirement Functional Patient Registration Disease History Medical certificate Inventory Inventory Backup Non-Functional User authentication Fast response time Maintainability Integrity 3.4.2 System Performance Definition Software Requirement Development tool Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2013 Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Operating System Windows Server 2012 Database system Microsoft SQL Hardware Requirement Minimum Hardware Requirements Processor 64-bit, quad-core processor, 3 GHz RAM 8 GB for single server and multiple server farm installation for production use. Hard disk 80 GB Programming language C# C#, as part of the .NET framework, is compiled to Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL), which is a language similar to Javas bytecode. MSIL allows C# to be platform independent and runs using just in time compiling. Therefore programs running under .NET gain speed with repeated use. Furthermore, because the other languages that make up the .NET platform (including VB and Cobol) compile to MSIL, it is possible for classes to be inherited across languages. The MSIL, like bytecode, is what allows C# to be platform independent. Microsoft SharePoint 2013 In-alignment with SharePoints approach of doing more with no additional resources, investments like the integration with Visual Studio 2012 will enable our customers to rely on existing pools of programming expertise to enrich the SharePoint platform and increase the quality and ROI on their investments. Can be used to build any kind of web solution, including Internet publishing sites share contents, applications, and data to improve collaboration and provide a unique user experience CHAPTER 4 CONCLUSION Briefly this chapter describes on literature review and project methodology. Information for literature review is gathered from journals in library, online journal, magazines and article. All the information is useful to support the statement from the approaches that has been made. In project methodology, it described about methodology that will be develop for the system. It consists of 5 phases which has been explained in this section. Furthermore, in project requirements, it tell about the software and hardware that been choose to develop the project. Gantt chart attached is to help to manage project schedule so that this project will be finished on time. Managing time is the way to assuring the project can be finish according to the plan.

Mercedes Lackey :: Free Essay Writer

Mercedes Lackey Dear Mercedes Lackey, You probably get letters from people everyday who say what I’m gonna say, but oh well. See, I am a huge fan of your work, and just recently got told to write a LAL (Letters about Literature) for one of my favorite books, and since I didn’t feel like writing to the judges on your Dragons Bane Trilogy, I decided I would write my letter as if talking to you. As I said before, we have to write a letter explaining our favorite book, so, to explain the Dragons Bane book , I guess I should tell what made it the best. First, of course, it was written by you, my all time favorite author, and also it’s fantasy, which is my favorite genre, but it goes deeper than that, too. It deals with the characters, all of them. I can relate to them so well it’s amazing. I mean with the main girl, let’s say Lila’s her name , godz, we could be twins, except my ears don’t point in the slightest and I don’t have green eyes, but that’s besides the point. In mind, we are practically one in the same. We both are extremely determined and rebellious at times and quite curious all the time. We also both hold a love for animals that is almost second to nothing else. And we’re both tremendously loyal to most of our family. Now, she can mindspeak which I can’t, and she also has magic abilities, which of course I don’t, and I’m real, and she’s not, but you get the point. In essence we are related I guess is what I’m saying. There’s also her â€Å"older brother†, ( I’ll call him Jeff since I can’t remember his name either) the dragon who raised her. It seems as if I’m related to him, too. He’s definitely got a knack with animals, which I’ve already said I have. He also is kind, to everyone, and amazingly enough, that’s another trait I try (key word here; try) to possess since reading this book. But he’s not as close to me as the girl, I have no idea why, except maybe because he’s a he, or he’s a dragon, or he’s not the main character or whatever else differs between them, but he could really be an older brother to me. Then of course, you can’t have a brother without a sister, and you provide one of those, too, one that fits my little sister exactly, actually.

Failure to maintain the rule of law Essay

The government’s repeated failures to bring levels of violent crime under control contributed to an environment which saw people resort to violence without fear of arrest or successful prosecution. In failing to maintain the rule of law the state had conditioned many poor communities to violent behaviour. The failure to protect communities from criminal elements and to remove those elements had allowed criminals to take full advantage of chaos and disorder to rob, rape, and loot during the violent uprisings. Incompetence in the ministry of safety and security, falling standards in the South African Police Service, corruption up to the highest levels of the police, and affirmative action had eroded the capacity of the police to provide a safe and secure environment in South Africa. This was further exacerbated by the poor performance of the prosecution service in securing convictions for offenders and the failure of the department of correctional services to rehabilitate offenders. South Africa was faced with an effective breakdown of the organs responsible for maintaining law and order. Warnings to this effect from a variety of sources had been largely ignored or treated with arrogance and contempt from the office of the minister of safety and security downwards. That not a single minister or deputy minister responsible for law and order, justice, or prisons was dismissed over close on ten years of Thabo Mbeki’s presidency suggests that the government was either unable to identify the risks presented by lawlessness or had resigned itself to the consequences. Regardless of which of the two options is correct the failure of the state to maintain law and order is the first direct contributing factor to the violence. 2.) Border control The collapse of proper border control mechanisms saw literally millions of people gaining entry to South Africa illegally. The responsibility for this law enforcement failure rests jointly with the army, police and the government who saw fit to hand many border dut ies to the police when it should have been obvious that the police were unable to handle the responsibility. The closure of the commandos is instructive in this regard as it suggests a government more interested in ideology than in pragmatism. During a period when South Africa experienced some of the highest levels of violent crime in the world the state saw fit to close down one of the key organs responsible for rural policing. Poor policy decisions and simple incompetence in border policing therefore contributed directly to the presence of a large illegal population in South Africa. Without adequate legal standing in the community these people became easy or soft targets for mob violence. The police’s own heavy handed raids on illegal immigrants further created the impression that they were fair game in South Africa. The policy response to the cross border influx revolved chiefly around a programme of arrests and deportations often without regard to the human rights and due process issues that should have applied. This policy continued long after it was apparent that it was having no effect on the number of illegal immigrants in South Africa. Again no senior political official with responsibility for this critical area of policing was dismissed for underperformance despite the obvious threat to national security. 3.) Corruption Corruption in the state sector became endemic under Thabo Mbeki and very little was done to curb it. The examples of Travelgate, Armsgate, and Oilgate served to create the impression that the South African state was corrupt up to the highest levels of government. Such corruption in turn filtered down into the various government departments at local, provincial, and national level. In the home affairs, social welfare, and law enforcement areas literally tens of thousands of officials were implicated in corrupt dealings. Anger by South Africans at immigrants with illegal documents getting access to services is therefore understandable and was brought about in large part by the failure of the police and the department of home affairs to crack down on fraudulent documents. Evidence of widespread corruption was uncovered by a host of agencies and the media. The government, however, failed to act with due diligence and most corrupt officials got away with a slap on the wrist. Even where the law took its course as in the case of Tony Yengeni the ANC saw fit to carry him into prison like a conquering hero. Confidence in the state was substantially eroded by corruption policy failures and poor judgment on the part of government. Consequently it is not surprising that communities saw the need to take their anger onto the streets. Widespread corruption undermining the role of the state is therefore a further direct contributing factor to the violence. 4.) Employment With close on 40% of South Africans failing to secure a proper job it is not surprising that scores of youths were able to conduct days and nights of violent campaigns in informal settlements around Johannesburg. Unemployment was therefore a direct contributing cause to the violence. Among young black South Africans the unemployment rate extends to over 50% in some areas. Overall only 50% of African households get their main source of income from employment. Social welfare which now reaches 25% of South Africans was never going to be sufficient to meet communities’ expectations of a better life. Warnings as to the risks of sustained levels of high unemployment were largely ignored by government. Labour legislation, hopelessly inappropriate for a largely unskilled workforce, has contributed to keep many mainly black South Africans out of jobs. Immigrants were able to secure employment as these labour policies did not apply to them and were in many cases able to make a living free from government grantsor regulation. Policy responses such as the Expanded Public Works Programme were a case of too little too late to prevent the turbulence that has gripped parts of Johannesburg for the past seven days. The government showed limited urgency in dealing with an unemployment crisis that required dramatic changes in policy to address. A host of talk shops, forums, and strategies were substituted for actual progress. It is a valid question how the government could ignore such an obvious political risk factor for so long without an adequate policy response. Partly the answer may lie in the ANC misjudging its electoral support for satisfaction with its policies. 5.) Education This has been government’s biggest failure and carries much of the blame for the high unemployment levels. It is arguable whether current state education is in its totality any better than that under apartheid. Only 1% of black matriculants achieve a good HG maths pass. The output of the school education system was therefore far from adequate to free households from state dependency or to acquire the skills necessary to find employment in a heavily regulated labour market. The education system is a good example where policy failures in one area compounded those in another. In this case poor education compounded the inappropriate labour market policy which in turn compounded the unemployment problem. Many warnings to government in this regard have been dismissed as alarmist and sensationalist. That combined with critical policy misjudgments such as the adoption of outcomes based education and the closure of teacher training colleges sabotaged any chance of rehabilitating the education system. The failure of education is therefore a further direct contributing cause to the violence. 6.) Slowing economic growth The failure to take proper advantage of a global boom in commodities meant that South Africa attracted limited benefit from the economic climate of the last five years. Empowerment policy, affirmative action, and bureaucratic interference in mining for example saw South Africa’s mining sector stutter over a period when it should have boomed. In many cases racial bean counting, self enrichment through economic empowerment, and ideological arguments for transformation trumped the need to boost economic growth rates above 4.5%. South Africa was therefore unable to use the global commodity boom to establish subsidiary industries or to invest in its industrial base. Policy failures in electricity supply and telecommunication technology in turn further hampered the economic growth rate in South Africa and further compounded the failure to adopt an industrial policy aimed at facilitating growth off the commodity boom. Education and skills shortages share some of the blame for this. In many cases ideologically driven beliefs in the state’s role in managing the economy overruled pragmatic policy responses. Agriculture is a prime example where the governments’ policy on commercial producers could best be described as hostile even as food prices begun to rise. Increasing food prices directly compromised the welfare of poor communities and must be identified as one of the key causal factors responsible for the violence. Rising inflation is a second key causal factor for the violence where a failure of the Reserve Bank’s inflation targeting policy has largely undone much of the anti-poverty impact of social grants spending. Again this is an example of one policy failure compounding failures in a host of other areas. Both food prices and inflation together with rising fuel costs directly impacted upon poor households and must have forced them to cut down on basic staples. That alone may have been sufficient to spark much of the anger visible in and around Johannesburg this week. These three factors directly undid the efforts of social grants in alleviating poverty as they undermined the value of those grants. Two of the three factors were in government’s direct policy responsibility to address. An analysis of economic policy failures would not be complete without examining the role of empowerment policy in establishing a very small and often politically connected black middle class. Government saw fit to celebrate this limited success even as the majority of black South Africans continued to live in relative squalor and poverty. In retrospect it is extraordinary that government would flaunt such limited participation in the broader economy by a select group of individuals when most of its supporters had no hope of ever becoming the beneficiary of an empowerment transaction. The now regular site of a high speed government convoys of black luxury sedans escorted by scores of police shoving through traffic points to a similarly misguided and extraordinary arrogance on the part of those who had promised a better life for all in 1994. Warnings of political risk accompanying such policy blunders where sharply disputed by government most notably in the example of Tony Trahar who was admonished by Thabo Mbeki for raising the issue of political risk in South Africa. 7.) Foreign policy Particularly in the case of Zimbabwe foreign policy was wholly inappropriate and incompetent. Thabo Mbeki’s quiet diplomacy provided a lifeline to the ailing Zimbabwe regime that kept it in power longer than would otherwise have been the case. The failure to condemn initial violence and electoral fraud in Zimbabwe contributed directly to the massive inflow of foreign immigrants. Such quiet diplomacy stands in strong contrast to the unanimous condemnation by government of the current violence in South Africa and creates the impression that violence targeted at Zimbabweans was acceptable as long as it took place in Zimbabwe. Seen in light of South Africa’s inability to secure its borders our foreign policy on Zimbabwe was destined to have only one effect – the inflow of illegal immigrants. It is far from convincing to argue that the best South Africa, as Africa’s economic superpower, could do was to quietly engage the Harare regime. Targeted economic and financial sanctions together with clear criticism of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe were a perfectly feasible alternative policy. As in almost every area of policy failure warnings directed at government were scoffed at and dismissed. In the Zimbabwe case Thabo Mbeki’s government was quick to describe as racist any criticism of his Zimbabwe policy. Need one only remember the tumultuous reception Robert Mugabe was given at Thabo Mbeki’s inauguration? Ideology again trumped pragmatism, a failure for which South Africa is paying heavily. 8.) Service delivery While a host of government targets were met service delivery provision was far from adequate to meet expectations of a better life for all. A policy failure is again at the heart of the problem as the state took it upon itself to provide services and jobs and thereby tied households to its ability to deliver. Where delivery appeared to falter public protest was the outcome and literally thousands of protests, many of them violent, have been directed at the state over the past 36 months. In many cases the government relied on corrupt and incompetent local authorities to implement its policies. Despite much bluster and posturing not enough was done to bring these authorities into line even as a growing trend of protest actions became visible over the past 36 months. The failure of local government in delivery was never adequately addressed and communities lost faith in the willingness of government to address their queries when these were made through official channels. Communities learnt to express their dissatisfaction violently and this is set to continue as long as local authorities remain corrupt and incompetent. High unemployment was again a further contributing factor exacerbating other policy failures. The protests of the past 36 months have in the main been isolated and sporadic but should have sent a clear warning to government that dissatisfaction with delivery could spark large scale unrest. Government however continued to insist that it was on the right track and that dismissed criticism as alarmist or aimed at threatening the national democratic revolution. The government effectively miscalculated that continuing strong voter support for the ANC translated directly into support for its delivery efforts. This has proven to be a tragic misjudgment. Current legislation pending in provinces to ‘eradicate’ informal dwellings is a perfect example of a type of heavy handed delivery blunder that has characterised the government. If implemented it will no doubt aid in creating exactly the kind of havoc currently experienced around Gauteng. It is in a sense a good measure in deciding whether the government has learnt any lessons from this week’s violence. 9.) Race relations Thabo Mbeki’s efforts at re-racialising South Africa and the numerous pieces of race based policy and legislation that accompanied his time in office undid much of the progress in improving race relations accomplished under Nelson Mandela. Mbeki’s tenure re-enforced differences and assigned values based on race. It was not surprising therefore that racial conflict could be an end result of his government’s numerous policy failures. That that conflict is black on black and not black on white is unsurprising considering that levels of latent ethnic tension remain present in South Africa. Obsession with black on white racism meant that the apparently more widespread form of black on black racism was never adequately addressed. Overzealous self censorship and political correctness prevented many commentators from speaking up clearly about a possibly far more deep seated racism between black and black than existed between black and white. What can be done? Combined failures in these key policy areas have come together to create a virtual tinderbox of dissatisfaction with government delivery and the protests originating in Alexandra where merely a matter of a spark igniting the tensions at the right time in the right place. Similar political risk factors exist throughout South Africa and there exists the danger that the violence could spread further at a point in time. A second danger exists that the violence could come to take on a more ethnic nature and devolve into a renewed conflict particularly if it spreads in KwaZulu-Natal. It is a risk that South Africa will have to live with for several years as there is no quick fix solution for the current crisis. The appointment of a panel to investigate the violence is a useful academic exercise but is again a wholly inappropriate policy response to resolve the crisis. This is equally true of revitalising the failed Roll Back Xenophobia campaigns and the like which cannot adequately capture the underlying causes to the violence. The short term response should be a well thought out and coordinated law enforcement response that aims to identify and arrest anyone responsible for inciting violence or the destruction of property while isolating violent hotspots and saturating these areas with police personnel. It should be intelligence driven and managed by detectives. Tragically it is questionable, however, whether the police have the skills or equipment to conduct such an operation effectively. Employing the military in a civilian capacity risks a major disaster. They are not trained, equipped, or prepared for such a function. There is a real risk of the army shooting into a crowd with live ammunition and causing casualties that could inflame tensions even further and will almost certainly see a nationwide uprising against the state. Conclusion The violence we have experienced over the past week can be directly attributed to a series of policy failures on the part of Thabo Mbeki’s government. Warnings to that effect were too easily dismissed by government spokespeople who accused analysts of racism and ‘doom and gloom’ scenarios. A ‘worst possible scenario’ has now materialised and requires a more mature and measured response from government. Failing that we should expect that similar unrest could occur with little warning in any area of South Africa. *Frans Cronje is the Deputy CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations. This is an edited version of an article published by the SAIRR on May 20 2008

The Former Country of Yugoslavia

After the fall of the Austria-Hungary empire at the conclusion of World War I, the victors established a new country out of six ethnic groups: Yugoslavia. Just over seventy years later, this piecemeal nation disintegrated and war broke out between newly independent states. Yugoslavias history is hard to follow unless you know the whole story. Read here about events that transpired to make sense of the fall of this nation. The Fall of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito, president of Yugoslavia, managed to keep the country unified from its formation in 1943 to his death in 1980. A prominent ally to the Soviet Union during World War II, Yugoslavia came to resent the USSRs growing desire to dominate its economy and land. Subordinate Yugoslavia turned the tables in an infamous alliance rupture with Josip Tito and Joseph Stalin on either side. Tito ousted the Soviet Union and was consequently excommunicated by Stalin from a previously strong partnership. Following this conflict, Yugoslavia became a satellite Soviet nation. When Soviet blockades and sanctions were established, Yugoslavia got creative and developed diplomatic relationships with western European governments in order to trade, despite the fact that Yugoslavia was technically a communist country. After the death of Stalin, relations between the USSR and Yugoslavia improved. Upon Titos death in 1980, increasingly nationalistic factions in Yugoslavia became agitated once again with Soviet control and demanded full autonomy. It was the fall of the USSR—and communism in general—in 1991 that finally broke the jigsaw kingdom of Yugoslavia into five states according to ethnicity: the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. An estimated 250,000 people were killed by wars and ethnic cleansing in the new countries of the former Yugoslavia.​ The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia What remained of Yugoslavia after its dissolution was initially referred to as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This republic was comprised of Serbia and Montenegro. Serbia Although the rogue state of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was exiled from the United Nations in 1992, Serbia and Montenegro regained recognition on the world stage in 2001 after the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic, former Serbian president. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was dissolved and rebranded. In 2003, the country was restructured into a loose federation of two republics called Serbia and Montenegro. This nation was called the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, but there was arguably another state involved. The former Serbian province of Kosovo lies just south of Serbia. Past confrontations between ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and ethnic Serbs from Serbia have drawn attention to the province, which is 80% Albanian, on a global scale. After many years of struggle, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in February 2008. Unlike Montenegro, not all the countries of the world have accepted the independence of Kosovo, most notably Serbia and Russia. Montenegro Montenegro and Serbia split into two separate countries in response to a referendum for Montenegros independence in June 2006. The creation of Montenegro as an independent country resulted in landlocked Serbia losing access to the Adriatic Sea. Slovenia Slovenia, the most homogeneous and prosperous region of what was once Yugoslavia, was the first to secede from the diverse kingdom. This country now has its own language and capital city, Ljubljana (also a primate city). Slovenia is mostly Roman Catholic and has a compulsory education system. Slovenia was able to avoid much of the bloodshed induced by Yugoslavias collapse due to its ethnic uniformity. Not a large nation, this once Yugoslavian republic had a population of approximately 2.08 million as of 2019. Slovenia joined both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union in the spring of 2004. Macedonia Macedonias claim to fame is its rocky relationship with Greece, a longstanding dispute caused by the very name Macedonia that existed before Yugoslavia even fell apart. For geographical and cultural reasons, Greece feels that Macedonia, named after the Greek kingdom of Macedon, was appropriated and should not be used. Because Greece is so strongly opposed to the use of the ancient Greek region as an external territory, Macedonia was admitted to the United Nations under the name the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In 2019, just over two million people lived in Macedonia: about two-thirds Macedonian and 27% is Albanian. The capital city is Skopje and major exports include wheat, corn, tobacco, steel, and iron. Croatia In January 1998, Croatia assumed control of its entire territory, some of which had been under the control of Serbs. This also marked the end of a two-year United Nations peacekeeping mission there. Croatias declaration of independence in 1991 caused Serbia, unwilling to cede, to declare war. Croatia is a boomerang-shaped country of over four million with extensive coastline along the westernmost portion of the Adriatic Sea. The capital of this Roman Catholic state is Zagreb. In 1995, Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia signed a peace agreement. Bosnia and Herzegovina The almost landlocked cauldron of conflict of four million inhabitants is a melting pot of Muslims, Serbs, and Croats. While the Winter Olympics of 1984 were held in Bosnia-Herzegovinas capital city of Sarajevo, the country has since been devastated by war. The mountainous region has been trying to rebuild its infrastructure since its 1995 peace agreement with Croatia and Serbia, on whom the small country relies for imports such as food and materials. The area that was once Yugoslavia is a dynamic and interesting region of the world. It is likely to continue to be the focus of geopolitical struggle and change as countries work to gain recognition and membership in the European Union. Sources Chapman, Bert. â€Å"Yugoslav-Soviet Split.†Ã‚  Purdue Libraries e-Pubs, 16 Oct. 2014.Harris, Emily. â€Å"Former Yugoslavia 101: The Balkans Breakup.†Ã‚  NPR, All Things Considered, 18 Feb. 2008.Kà ¤stle, Klaus.  Serbia and Montenegro. One World Nations Online.â€Å"The Breakup of Yugoslavia.†Ã‚  Remembering Srebrenica, Scotland, 16 Nov. 2014.Uvalić, Milica.  The Rise and Fall of Market Socialism in Yugoslavia. DOC Research Institute, 28 Mar. 2019.