题目：Uncover the Black Box of Slack-Performance Relationship: An Investigation of the Impacts of Nurse Slack on Quality and Cost

主讲人：Dr. Xiaosong Peng

时间：2018年6月12日下午4:00-5:30

地点：同济大厦A楼402教室

报告内容摘要

As value-based purchasing (VBP) and patient-centered care take the center stage in today’s healthcare environment, healthcare organizations including hospitals are in an ongoing quest to improve care quality while containing rapidly rising costs. Among all healthcare professionals, nurses constitute the largest clinical subgroup in hospitals (American Nurse Association) and have profound impacts on care quality and hospital operating costs. Optimizing the level of nurse slack (i.e., the amount of nurse capacity relative to the amount of work performed), therefore, can have a significant impact on hospital performance. This research seeks to identify the fine-grained relationships between nurse slack and hospital operating performance with respect to care quality and operating costs. We also explore whether these relationships will be affected by the degree of competition in the local hospital market. Our analyses lead to several important findings: First, nurse slack initially is associated with improved care quality (measured by readmission rate) until it reaches a turning point, beyond which nurse slack is associated with worsen care quality, exhibiting a U-shaped relationship. Second, similar pattern applies to the relationship between nurse slack and operating costs, although the turning point is at a much lower nurse slack level. Third, market competition moderates the relationship between nurse slack and care quality so that the turning point of nurse slack will be higher when the degree of competition is higher. This shift of turning point also is observed in the relationship between nurse slack and operating costs. Collectively, the study findings point to three ranges of nurse slack in which hospitals will likely experience simultaneous improvements, a tradeoff, or simultaneous decline of care quality and operating cost when investing in  more nurse capacity.

Key words: slack, care quality, operating cost, U-shaped effect, tradeoff, market competition

 报告人简介

Dr. Xiaosong Peng is an Associate Professor in Bauer College of Business, University of Houston. Previously he was assistant professor at Texas A&M University. Dr. Peng completed his doctoral degree in Operations Management from the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. Dr. Peng’s current research interests include operations strategy, global sourcing, and information technology impacts on manufacturing and service operations. Dr. Peng’s research has appeared in Journal of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Decision Sciences, International Journal of Production Research, among others. He is currently senior editor for Production and Operations Management Journal, and associate editor for Journal of Operations Management, Decision Sciences Journal, and Journal of Supply Chain Management.

Dr. Peng’s recognitions include Decision Science Institute Best Inter-Disciplinary Conference Paper Award, China Ministry of Education Research Award, Journal of Operations Management Associate Editor Service Award, Academy of Management Chan Hahn Best Paper Award Finalist, Juran Center for Leadership in Quality fellowship, among others.