Variety and Experience: Learning and Forgetting in the Use of Surgical Devices

Kamalini Ramdas (), Khaled Saleh (), Steven Stern () and Haiyan Liu
Additional contact information
Kamalini Ramdas: Management Science and Operations, London Business School, London NW1 4SA, United Kingdom
Khaled Saleh: Department of DMC Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine Service Line, Detroit Medical Center, Detroit, Michigan 48201
Steven Stern: Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794

Management Science, 2018, vol. 64, issue 6, 2590-2608

Abstract: We use a unique, hand-collected data set to examine learning and forgetting in hip replacement surgery as a function of a surgeon’s experience with specific surgical device versions and the time between their repeat uses. We also develop a generalizable method to correct for the left censoring of device-version-specific experience variables that is a common problem in highly granular experience data, using maximum simulated likelihood estimation with simulation over unobservables conditional on observables. Even for experienced surgeons, the first use of certain device versions can result in at least a 32.4% increase in surgery duration, hurting quality and productivity. Furthermore, with the passage of time, surgeons can forget knowledge gained about the use of particular devices. For certain devices, when the time gap between repeat uses increases from its median to its 75th percentile, surgery duration increases by about 3.4%. The high productivity and quality costs associated with device variety suggest that the gain from a new device design needs to be large enough to compensate for the short-term disadvantages of starting up on a new learning curve and of increasing the chances of knowledge depreciation over time.

Keywords: product variety; learning and forgetting; experience curves; productivity; healthcare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.287/mnsc.2016.2721 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:64:y:2018:i:6:p:2590-2608

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().