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...

Twenty percent of Medicare patients are readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge, resulting in substantial costs to the U.S. government. As part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program financially penalizes hospitals with higher than expected...