Managing nurse lines -- practical challenges and the developing theory

Xiaofang Wang, Laurens G. Debo and Alan Scheller-Wolf

International Journal of Production Research, 2015, vol. 53, issue 24, 7213-7225

Abstract: As a fast growing specialty, medical telephone triage lines (nurse lines) play an important role in providing advice and recommendations to help ensure that medical care is delivered at the appropriate level. In this paper, we discuss the operations of these nurse lines, based on studies in the literature and interviews with nurse line researchers and practitioners. This leads us to identify issues relevant for the design and management of such lines, challenges that operations research (OR)/operations management (OM) can help address. We demonstrate that a classical call center modelling approach, focusing exclusively on congestion, will be insufficient in addressing these challenges. Thus, we motivate research on an integrated framework in which both congestion and decision-making accuracy are coupled. We summarise the limited extant research in OR/OM that is applicable to the unique challenges posed by nurse lines, highlighting these models’ contributions, as well as the questions they leave unanswered. These questions provide significant opportunities for future research.

Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00207543.2015.1005875 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:tprsxx:v:53:y:2015:i:24:p:7213-7225

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TPRS20

DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2015.1005875

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Production Research is currently edited by Professor A. Dolgui

More articles in International Journal of Production Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().