LATENT ERROR: failures that tend to be removed from the direct control of the operator and include things such as poor design, incorrect installation, faulty maintenance, bad management decisions, and porly structured organisations
LEA The local education authority
LEADERSHIP styles include coercive (demands immediate compliance), authoritative (provides longterm vision). Affiliative (creates harmony), democratic (builds consensus), pacesetting (adheres to high standards). Coaching (develops people). Bad leaders can be classified as incompetent, rigid, intemperate, callous, corrupt, insular, and evil.
LEARNING DAIRY: a journal or diary of learning events or opportunities, and to identify their needs from these day to day records, or by available assessment strategies, such as Patients Unmet Needs ‘Puns’ & Doctors educational needs ‘Dens’. A record is made in the journal of how the identified needs are addressed, and a portfolio of relevant literature, personal summaries of learning achieved, and outcomes is kept. Outcomes may include: learning accomplished, prior learning affirmed, new learning need identified
LEARNING NEEDS ANALYSIS: see Formative Assessment
LEARNING SETS – a cluster of individuals who come together to provide a group vehicle for the discussion of problems in an open way
LEARNING STAGES: Gimme, Gripe, Grope then Grasp
LEARNING STYLES see Tripartite and Kolb
LECTURE. More or less interrupted talk
LEGACY SYSTEMS IM&T systems currently in place that are inherited by a new IM&T contractor, which may or may not work with the new systems introduced by that contractor.
LIFE EVENTS Changes or disruption of life caused by socio-economic changes or other external factors, which have an effect on health. They can be positive or negative for the individual. Rating scales have been constructed to try and measure this effect on people's life.
LIFE LONG LEARNING. We never stop learning!
LIFE-STYLE The way each individual lives with respect to eating, working, smoking, drinking, socialising, exercise and other habits which have a profound effect on the person's health and well-being. One of the important tasks of the family physician is to help patients to awareness of life-style induced symptoms or diseases.
LIKELIHOOD RATIO (LR): the ratio of the probability of a test result among patients with the target disorder to the probability of that same test result among patients who are free of the target disorder. The LR for a positive test is calculated as sensitivity/(1 — specificity). The LR for a negative test is calculated as (1 — sensitivity)/specificity. POST-TEST ODDS: the odds that the patient has the target disorder after the test is carried out (pretest odds x LR).
LIKELIHOOD RATIO: The ratio of the probability of an event (such as a symptom or a positive test result) in diseased persons to the
LIKERT SCALE A scale evaluated and scored according to the method of summated ratings in which items are summed or averaged to obtain an overall score.
LINE-UP. Students form line representing spectrum of views on a topic- adjust position by discussion with neighbours
LINKAGE (Syn: conversion structure) In a classification system, the linkage is the manner in which parts of separate classifications can be united.
LITERATURE REVIEW. Task of selecting information on a topic using library and computerised sources
LITERATURE SEARCH A systematical search for literature on a specified subject of interest. One can perform a LITERATURE SEARCH by hand with help of a library and references of retrieved publications, or by computer with help of retrieval system which can search in data banks of the medical literature, e.g. Medline or Embase. See: REVIEW, META-ANALYSIS.
LLL: Life Long Learning
LOCAL HEALTH COMMUNITY (LHC) A group of NHS organisations – Trusts and PCTs in a common geographical patch.
LOCAL SERVICE PROVIDER (LSP) A centrally contracted provider of IT services. There are 5 LSPs covering 5 regional clusters across the country.
LOCAL STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP: Draws together organisations from the public, private, business, community and voluntary sectors within the local authority, social and environmental wellbeing of the community. In Bristol, this is the Bristol Partnership.
LOCUM TENENS: A practitioner employed for a stated period of time by a physician to assume responsibility for the care of his/her practice population during his/her absence. Responsibility reverts to the principal physician upon his return.
LONGITUDINAL STUDY See COHORT STUDY.