【時空經濟沙龍第110期】 A Blessing or a Curse? Teletriage Service in Healthcare
時間:2024年10月27日(周日)下午3:00-5:00
地點:思源東樓307
報告人簡介:關旭,教授/博導,供應鏈管理與系統工程系主任。2007年畢業于華中科技大學管理學院,獲管理學學士學位; 2013年畢業于華中科技大學管理學院管理科學與工程專業,獲管理學博士學位。主要研究方向為供應鏈管理、運營與市場結合,信息設計和平臺經濟。研究成果先后發表于Production and Operations Management,Information Systems Research, Marketing Science等商學院UTD 24期刊論文上,主持包括國家自然科學杰出青年科學基金在內的多項科研項目。現擔任Service Science 期刊副主編(Associate Editor)和Management Science等國際權威學術期刊審稿人。
報告摘要:Teletriage is a telehealth service that uses telecommunication technologies to remotely assess patients’ conditions and determine their needs for medical treatment. This paper examines how teletriage affects patients’ decisions to seek treatment and when healthcare providers (e.g., medical businesses, hospitals, or clinics) should launch teletriage services. Our findings reveal that teletriage can encourage more mild patients to seek treatment while discouraging more severe patients. This occurs when teletriage lacks sufficient precision and patients’ hassle cost of seeking treatment falls outside a moderate range. Specifically, when hassle costs are low, patients are generally inclined to seek treatment, but teletriage can misclassify severe patients, leading them to avoid necessary care. Conversely, when hassle costs are high, patients tend to stay home, yet teletriage can misidentify mild patients, prompting them to seek unnecessary treatment. As a result, even if teletriage is costless, healthcare providers may abandon this service, even though teletriage always increases patient surplus by improving their assessment of their medical needs. Interestingly, patients can be better off seeking treatment from providers who charge higher prices, as these providers are more likely to adopt teletriage services. These results caution healthcare policymakers that teletriage can exacerbate healthcare inefficiency instead of alleviating it. Nevertheless, to improve patient surplus, the government should sometimes subsidize providers to offer teletriage or allow providers to charge a higher treatment fee.