12 research outputs found
Impact of Electronic Auctions on Health Care Markets
Electronic auctions can be applied in certain markets, but the effects on market structure, market behaviour and market performance are unclear. We analyzed the effects of a reverse electronic auction initiative, implemented by a new intermediary (CareAuction.nl), on the market for maternity care in the Netherlands in 2005 and 2006. After an unsuccessful start in 2004 as cybermediary in the care market between patients and care providers, CareAuction successfully moved in March 2005 to the care contracting market between insurance companies and care providers. We found small but significant effects on the price of maternity care (minus 2-4%), and significant effects on market structure (more care providers involved in the bidding processes) and market behavior (bidding behaviors and user preferences). We see good opportunities to improve health care market effectiveness for specific care services (non-emergency, elective, standardized care) and to further adapt the auction mechanism
The impact of the digital divide on the perceived interest of an e-Marketplace to support healthcare and social care services
HCIST 2014 - International Conference on Health and Social Care Information Systems and Technologies, Procedia TechnologyIn a Europe increasingly aging, it is now recognized the importance and potential of the service industry for ageing well based on
information and communication technologies (ICT), as exemplified by the electronic market of social services and health care,
the GuiMarket, proposed by the authors. However, this new range of services requires that individuals have advanced digital
skills to fully participate in society. Based on the results of a survey made on a sample of 315 individuals, this paper discusses the
importance granted GuiMarket and the intended frequency of use, concluding there is a close relationship between ICT access
and use that respondents anticipate making of GuiMarket and alike services
The impact of the digital divide in the potential use of an electronic market for health and social care services
Cada vez mais os indivíduos necessitam de competências digitais
avançadas para participar plenamente na sociedade. Numa Europa em crescente
envelhecimento é atualmente reconhecida a importância e o potencial da indústria
de serviços para envelhecer bem baseados nas tecnologias de informação e de
comunicação (TIC), de que é exemplo o mercado eletrónico de serviços sociais e de
cuidados de saúde, o GuiMarket, proposto pelos autores para um município do
Norte de Portugal. Com base nos resultados de um inquérito realizado junto de
uma amostra de 315 indivíduos, o artigo discute a importância reconhecida a tal
serviço e a frequência de utilização prevista, concluindo existir uma íntima relação
entre o acesso às TIC e a utilização que os inquiridos preveem fazer do GuiMarket.More and more, individuals need advanced digital skills to fully
participate in society. In a Europe increasingly aging is now recognized the
importance and potential of the service industry for aging well based on
information and communication technologies (ICT), as exemplified by the
electronic market of social services and healthcare, the GuiMarket, that the
authors proposed to a municipality in the North of Portugal. Based on the results
of a survey undertaken on a sample of 315 individuals, this article discusses the
importance recognized to such service and the frequency of intended use,
concluding that there is an intimate relationship between the access to ICT and the
use that respondents anticipate making of the GuiMarket
Analyzing the Added Value of Electronic Intermediaries in the Dutch Health Care Sector
The CareAuction intermediary offers a reverse auctioning platform to support the allocation of individual maternity care patient requests between purchasers of health insurance companies (acting on behalf of their policy holders) and care providers. Since its introduction in 2005, CareAuction has contributed to a small price drop of maternity care and induced competition on the supply-side of the market. This is a result of increased transparency for both (demand and supply) sides. The quality of the maternity care that is provided is monitored by a newly introduced quality evaluation system, which includes the patient and introduces quality as another competitive factor next to price. Next to CareAuction, other intermediaries are still active in the health care sector, supporting the allocation of care between insurance companies and care providers. Findings indicate that the influence of CareAuction leads to the disintermediation of at least one other intermediary. Theory on electronic intermediaries and market dynamics is used to identify the added values that these two intermediaries (CareAuction and LTZ) create for the purchasers and providers of maternity care in the context of the maternity care market
Twenty years of electronic markets research: looking backwards towards the future
Over the past 20 years the field of electronic markets has seen a considerable proliferation and differentiation. This position paper takes the opportunity of the 21st volume of “Electronic Markets” to look back at important developments and insights, suggesting a framework that captures the multiple facets and indeed empirical breadth and depths of this concept. It comprises three perspectives which include the market environment, governance choices by economic actors as well as the entrepreneurial dynamics of firms who initiate and operate market platforms as their business. In addition, we propose to study the interplay of technological, market, and institutional drivers in order to understand the phenomenon of electronic markets, which is also a precondition for designing electronic markets. Both activities involve more than an economically motivated choice between the discrete alternatives of markets and hierarchies. Rather, electronic markets are configurations across multiple, interdependent dimensions: Technology is an important force in shaping the field, but needs to be complemented by considerations of the competitive environment and the setting of rules in order to ensure efficient and effective plays of the game. Based on this framework, this position paper develops six propositions for the future of electronic markets. Overall, the advantages of intermediated structures, an ongoing technological sophistication, as well as further innovation in market mechanisms and services make electronic markets an ena-bler for many interorganizational value chains. While we are confident that the ingenuity of inventors will yield a flow of innovations, recent economic crises have shed a dark shadow over the sustainability of electronic markets. They call for suitable rules and regulation amenable to economic prosperity and stability to be agreed upon on a broad level
Fair task allocation in transportation
Task allocation problems have traditionally focused on cost optimization.
However, more and more attention is being given to cases in which cost should
not always be the sole or major consideration. In this paper we study a fair
task allocation problem in transportation where an optimal allocation not only
has low cost but more importantly, it distributes tasks as even as possible
among heterogeneous participants who have different capacities and costs to
execute tasks. To tackle this fair minimum cost allocation problem we analyze
and solve it in two parts using two novel polynomial-time algorithms. We show
that despite the new fairness criterion, the proposed algorithms can solve the
fair minimum cost allocation problem optimally in polynomial time. In addition,
we conduct an extensive set of experiments to investigate the trade-off between
cost minimization and fairness. Our experimental results demonstrate the
benefit of factoring fairness into task allocation. Among the majority of test
instances, fairness comes with a very small price in terms of cost
Emotions and cognitive workload in economic decision processes - A NeuroIS Approach
The influence of cognitive and emotions on decision processes have been recently highlighted. Emotions interplay with the process of cognition, and determine decision processes. In this work, the role of external and internal influences on economic decision processes are studied. A NeuroIS method is applied for measuring emotions and cognitive workload. The lack of a suitable experimental platform for performing NeuroIS studies was recognized and the platform Brownie was developed and evaluated