In the modern workplace, it is increasingly common for workers to concurrently attend to tasks across multiple physical locations. However, frequent site switching can lead to increased setup and overhead costs. Specifically, workers expend significant time and cognitive effort getting...

Although product advertising has been widely studied and understood in relation to the consumer’s purchase decision, advertising may also have unintended but important societal and economic consequences. In this paper, we examine a public health outcome — birth rate — associated with...

In this study, we examine the hospital’s ability to admit patients from its emergency department. From a medical perspective, the number of patients being admitted should depend solely on the patients’ clinical conditions. Using a large scale econometric study that includes detailed...

The current state of outpatient healthcare delivery is characterized by capacity shortages and long waits for appointments. Yet a substantial fraction of valuable doctors’ capacity is wasted due to no-shows. In this paper, we examine the effect of wait to appointment on patient flow,...

This paper examines the effect of multitasking on overall worker performance, as measured by processing time, throughput rate, and output quality using micro-level operational data from the field. Specifically, we study the multitasking behavior of physicians in a busy hospital emergency...

We use hospital level discharge data from cardiac patients in California to estimate the effects of focus on operational performance. We examine focus at three distinct levels of the organization – at the firm level, at the operating unit level, and at the process flow level. We find that...

This paper explores the rationing of bed capacity in a cardiac intensive care unit (ICU). We find that the length of stay for patients admitted to the ICU is influenced by the occupancy level of the ICU. In particular, a patient is likely to be discharged early when the occupancy in the ICU is...

We examine the published empirical literature in healthcare operations management over the last 20 years. We note several unique characteristics of the research in healthcare operations, including a focus on operational and organizational variables, an interest in the underlying mechanisms that...