Many service systems exhibit service slowdowns when the system is congested. Our goal in this paper is to investigate this phenomenon and its e ffect on service performance. We modify the Erlang-A model to account for service slowdowns and perform an asymptotic analysis in the Quality-and-E...

Problem definition: Emergency Departments (EDs) impose a complicated service process on patients and accompanying family members (from now: people). ED patients typically encounter long waits, various procedures, and multiple staff members. People lack knowledge about the various elements their...

In customer support contact centers, a successful service interaction involves a messaging dialogue between a customer and an agent. Both parties depend on one another for information and problem solving, and this interaction defines a co-produced service process. In this paper, we propose,...

Problem definition: Previous research has shown that early discharge of patients may hurt their medical outcomes. However, in many cases the “optimal” length of stay (LOS) and the best location for treatment of the patient are not obvious. A case in point is hematology patients, for whom...

Service systems' behavior can be affected by multiple factors. In the case of intensive care units (ICUs), which admit patients from four primary loci (the emergency department (ED), scheduled patients, planned transfers from other ICUs, and unplanned transfers), it is known that admission rates...

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Quality Forum have endorsed 30-day mortality rates as important indicators of hospital quality. Concerns have been raised, however, as to whether post-discharge mortality rates are reasonable measures of hospital quality as they...

Emergency Departments (EDs) typically have multiple areas where patients of different acuity levels receive treatments. In practice, different areas often operate with fixed nurse staffing levels. When there are substantial imbalances in congestion among different areas, it could be beneficial...