Design and analysis of diagnostic service centers

Management Science

Volumn 56, Issue 11, 2010, Pages 1873-1890

  Wang, Xiaofang ^a   Debo, Laurens G ^b   Scheller Wolf, Alan ^c   Smith, Stephen F ^d  

^a Renmin Business School   (China)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

^c CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^d CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Call center; Diagnostic process; Health service operations; Strategic queueing

Indexed keywords

CALL CENTERS; CLINICAL RESEARCHERS; COURSE OF ACTION; DESIGN AND ANALYSIS; DIAGNOSTIC PROCESS; ERROR RATE; MANAGEMENT DECISIONS; OPTIMAL STAFFING LEVEL; PATIENT POPULATION; QUEUEING SYSTEM; SEQUENTIAL TESTING; SERVICE CENTER; SERVICE MANAGERS; STAFFING COSTS; STRATEGIC QUEUEING; WAITING-TIME;

HEALTH; MANAGEMENT; MANAGERS; PERSONNEL SELECTION; POPULATION STATISTICS; QUEUEING THEORY; SERVERS;

TELEPHONE SYSTEMS;

EID: 78649725885     PISSN: 00251909     EISSN: 15265501     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.1100.1236     Document Type: Article

References (48)

1. Anand, K. S., M. Fazil Paç, S. Veeraraghavan. 2010. Quality-speed conundrum: Trade-offs in customer-intensive services. Management Sci. Forthcoming.
2. Armony, M., I. Gurvich. 2010. When promotions meet operations: Cross-selling and its effect on call center performance. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 12(3) 470-488.
3. Arora, A., A. Fosfuri. 2005. Pricing diagnostic information. Management Sci. 51(7) 1092-1100.
4. Arrow, K. J. 1963. Uncertainty and the welfare economics of medical care. Amer. Econom. Rev. 53(5) 941-973.
5. Bogdan, G. M., J. L. Green, D. Swanson, P. Gabow, R. C. Dart. 2004. Evaluating patient compliance with nurse advice line recommendations and the impact on healthcare costs. Amer. J. Managed Care 10(8) 534-542.
6. Bouns, G. 2003. Queueing models with admission and termination control-Monotonicity and threshold results. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
7. Bunik, M., J. E. Glazner, V. Chandramouli, C. B. Emsermann, T. Hegarty, A. Kempe. 2007. Pediatric telephone call centers: How do they affect health care use and costs? Pediatrics 119(2) 305-313.
8. Cariello, F. P. 2003. Computerized telephone nurse triage: An evaluation of service quality and cost. J. Ambulatory Care Management 26(2) 124-137.
9. Courson, S. 2005. What is telephone nurse triage? Connections Magazine (November), http://www.connectionsmagazine.com/ articles/5/090.html.
10. Debo, L. G., L. B. Toktay, L. N. Van Wassenhove. 2008. Queuing for expert services. Management Sci. 54(8) 1497-1512.
11. de Véricourt, F., P. Sun. 2009. Judgment accuracy under congestion in service systems. Working paper, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, NC.
12. Dvoretzky, A., J. Kiefer, J. Wolfowitz. 1953. Sequential decision problems for processes with continuous time parameter problems of estimation. Ann. Math. Statist. 24(3) 403-441.
13. Fiorenzio, C. 2009. Interim Director of NurseAdvice New Mexico. Telephone interview by A. Scheller-Wolf and L. Debo, September 3.
14. Gans, N., G. Koole, A. Mandelbaum. 2003. Telephone call centers: Tutorial, review, and research prospects. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 5(2) 79-141.
15. Garnett, O., A. Mandelbaum, M. Reiman. 2002. Designing a call center with impatient customers. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 4(3) 208-227.
16. Günes, E. D., O. Z. Aksin. 2004. Value creation in service delivery: Relating market segmentation, incentives, and operational performance. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 6(4) 338-357.
17. Gurvich, I., M. Armony, C. Maglaras. 2009. Cross-selling in a call center with a heterogeneous customer population. Oper. Res. 57(2) 299-313.
18. Hasija, S., E. J. Pinker, R. A. Shumsky. 2005. Staffing and routing in a two-tier call centre. Internat. J. Oper. Res. 1(1/2) 8-29.
19. Hassin, R., M. Haviv. 2003. To Queue or Not to Queue: Equilibrium Behavior in Queueing Systems. Kluwer, Norwell, MA.
20. Hellinghausen, M. A. 2000. Dialed in: Nurses prepare for the future of telephone triage. NurseWeek (May 22), http://www .nurseweek.com/features/00-05/ triage.html.
21. Herzog, S. 2003. Health care call centers: A rich opportunity (Health care services: Advertising supplement). Los Angeles Bus. J. (May 5), http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/ 101532000.html.
22. Hibbard, J. H. 2004. Moving toward a more patient-centered health care delivery system. Health Affairs Web Exclusive, http://content.healthaffairs.org/ cgi/reprint/hlthaff.var .133v1.pdf.
23. Hopp, W. J., S. M. R. Iravani, F. Liu. 2009. White collar workforce management: An operations-oriented survey. Production Oper. Management 18(1) 1-32.
24. Hopp, W. J., S. M. R. Iravani, G. Y. Yuen. 2007. Operations systems with discretionary task completion. Management Sci. 53(1) 61-77.
25. Kabala, E. J. 1998. Legalities of a telephone nurse triage system. Physician's News Digest (September), http://www .physiciansnews.com/law/ 998kabala.html.
26. Kempe, A., C. Dempsey, J. Whitefield, J. Bothner, T. MacKenzie, S. Poole. 2000. Appropriateness of urgent referrals by nurses at a hospital-based pediatric call center. Arch. Pediatrics Adolescent Medicine 154 355-360.
27. Lattimer, V., F. Sassi, S. George, M. Moore, J. Turnbull, M. Mullee, H. Smith. 2000. Cost analysis of nurse telephone consultation in out of hours primary care: Evidence from a randomised controlled trial. British Medical J. 320(7241) 1053-1057.
28. Lynch, W. 2000. Value premises behind nurse call centers. Managed Healthcare 10(3) 24.
29. Machlin, S. R. 2006. Expenses for a hospital emergency room visit, 2003. Report, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, http://www.meps.ahrq.gov/ mepsweb/data-files/publications/ st111/stat111.pdf.
30. Massaro, K. 2009. Triage nurse and QI coordinator for the Children's Hospital of Denver, Aurora, CO. Telephone interview by A. Scheller-Wolf and L. Debo, September 17.
31. Mayo, A. M., B. L. Chang, A. Omery. 2002. Use of protocols and guidelines by telephone nurses. Clinical Nursing Res. 11(2) 204-219.
32. McCaig, L. F., C. W. Burt. 2005. National hospital ambulatory medical care survey: 2003 emergency department summary. Technical Report 358, Division of Health Care Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC.
33. Naor, P. 1969. The regulation of queue size by levying tolls. Econometrica 37(1) 15-24.
34. Poole, S. R. 2003. Developing a Telephone Triage and Advice System for a Pediatric Office Practice During Office Hours and/or After Hours: The Complete Guide. American Academy of Pediatrics, Elk Grove Village, IL.
35. Quality Improvement of Literacy, TeleCare and Self Help (QUILTS) Collaborative. 2006. BC healthguide program evaluation: Final report. Evaluation of findings to June 2005. Retrieved September 8, 2008, http://www.healthlinkbc. ca/finalreport.pdf.
36. Ross, S. M. 2002. Introduction to Probability Models. Academic Press, San Diego.
37. Sabin, M. 1998. Telephone triage improves demand management effectiveness-Managed care. Healthcare Financial Management 52(8) 49-51.
38. Sarvary, M. 2002. Temporal differentiation and the market for second opinions. J. Marketing Res. 39(1) 129-136.
39. Shumsky, R. S., E. J. Pinker. 2003. Gatekeepers and referrals in services. Management Sci. 49(7) 839-856.
40. Siegmund, D. 1985. Sequential Analysis. Springer-Verlag, New York.
41. Sirjaev, A. N. 1973. Statistical Sequential Analysis. American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI.
42. Stokey, N. L. 2008. The Economics of Inaction: Stochastic Control Models with Fixed Costs. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
43. Valanis, B., C. Tanner, S. R. Moscato, S. Shapiro, S. Izumi, M. David, C. Keyes, A. Mayo. 2003. A model for examining predictors of outcomes of telephone nursing advice. J. Nursing Admin. 33(2) 91-95.
44. Wald, A. 1947. Sequential Analysis. John Wiley & Sons, New York.
45. Wang, X., L. G. Debo, A. Scheller-Wolf. 2010. Managing nurse lines-Practical challenges and the developing theory. Working paper, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.
46. Wang, X., L. G. Debo, A. Scheller-Wolf, S. Smith. 2007. Service design at diagnostic service centers. Working paper, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.
47. Wheeler, S. Q., B. Siebelt. 1997. Calling all nurses-How to perform telephone triage. Nursing 27(7) 37-41.
48. Whitt, W. 1993. Approximations for the GI/G/m queue. Production Oper. Management 2(2) 114-161.