Modeling And Optimization Of Non-Profit Hospital Call Centers With Service Blending

This dissertation focuses on the operations problems in non-profit hospital call centers with inbound and outbound calls service blending. First, the routing policy for inbound and outbound calls is considered. The objective is to improve the system utilization under constraints of service quality and operators\u27 quantity. A collection of practical staffing assignment methods, separating and mixing staffing policy are evaluated. Erlang C queuing model is used to decide the minimum number of operators required by inbound calls. Theoretical analysis and numerical experiments illustrate that through dynamically assigning the inbound and outbound calls to operators under optimal threshold policy, mixing staffing policy is efficient to balance the system utilization and service quality. Numerical experiments based on real-life data demonstrate how this method can be applied in practice. Second, we study the staffing shift planning problem based on the inbound and outbound calls routing policies. A mathematical programming model is developed, based on a hospital call center with one kind of inbound calls and multiple kinds of outbound calls. The objective is to minimize the staffing numbers, by deciding the shift setting and workload allocation. The inbound calls service level and staffing utilization are taken into consideration in the constraints. Numerical experiments based on actual operational data are included. Results show that the model is effective to optimize the shift planning and hence reduce the call centers\u27 cost. Third, we model the staffing shift planning problem for a hospital call center with two kinds of service lines. Each kind of service is delivered through both inbound calls and outbound calls. The inbound calls can be transferred between these two service lines. A mathematical programming model is developed. The objective is to minimize the staffing cost, by deciding the shift setting and workload allocation. The inbound calls service level and staffing utilization are taken into consideration in the constraints. Numerical experiments are carried out based on actual operational data. Results show that the model is effective to reduce the call centers\u27 labor cost

An Integrated Approach for Shift Scheduling and Rostering Problems with Break Times for Inbound Call Centers

It may be very difficult to achieve the optimal shift schedule in call centers which have highly uncertain and peaked demand during short time periods. Overlapping shift systems are usually designed for such cases. This paper studies shift scheduling and rostering problems for in bound call centers where overlapping shift systems are used. An integer programming model that determines which shifts to be opened and how many operators to be assigned to these shifts is proposed for the shift scheduling problem. For the rostering problem both integer programming and constraint programming models are developed to determine assignments of operators to all shifts, weekly days-off, and meal and relief break times of the operators. The proposed models are tested on real data supplied by an outsource call center and optimal results are found in an acceptable computation time. An improvement of 15% in the objective function compared to the current situation is observed with the proposed model for the shift scheduling problem. The computational performances of the proposed integer and constraint programming models for the rostering problem are compared using real data observed at a call center and simulated test instances. In addition, benchmark instances are used to compare our Constraint Programming (CP) approach with the existing models. The results of the comprehensive computational study indicate that the constraint programming model runs more efficiently than the integer programming model for the rostering problem. The originality of this research can be attributed to two contributions: (a) a model for shift scheduling problem and two models for rostering problem are presented in detail and compared using real data and (b) the rostering problem is considered as a task-resource allocation and considerably shorter computation times are obtained by modeling this new problem via CP

“You Came to Not Normal Land”: Nurses\u27 Experience of the Environment of Disaster: A Phenomenological Investigation

Previous research suggests US nurses are unprepared for disaster, and suffer from adverse psychosocial outcomes following their disaster response. Current disaster preparedness focuses on providing hospital-centric trauma and acute care in fully resourced Western conditions, and does not include the environmental realities of the disaster setting. This study utilized an existential phenomenological approach to explore the meaning of the nurse’s experience of the disaster environment. Eleven nurses with broad disaster expertise and training levels participated in this research. The essence of their disaster experiences can be summed up by the central theme of “You came to not normal land.” Four global themes that describe this “not normal land” were “All the resources was gone”; “You prepare, you prepare, and you are unprepared”; “It can be done; it’s just different”; and “Stuff that sticks with you.” The environment of disaster was both “not normal” and challenging owing to the many simultaneous breakdowns in healthcare supportive systems. Nurses were surprised and unprepared for the environmental conditions surrounding them. Reductions in systems (i.e. water, power), structures, staff, and supplies were coupled with lack of familiarity with alternative care sites, unaccustomed patient populations, the prevailing need for public health and fundamental nursing, and the isolated nature of disaster environments. Policies and regulations that “normally” guide nurses’ actions were disregarded in the immediacy of providing care when the usual social framework no longer existed. Nurses continue to relive the disaster setting’s sights, sounds, smells, and stories of the people they encountered. A strong sense of pride, duty, and willingness to respond again prevailed in these nurses. Nurses can be prepared for the likely conditions of reduced resources and damaged infrastructure following disaster by including the contextual setting of disaster nursing in disaster education, practice, training, and policy. Suggestions for further research include determining the relevance of current disaster training to the nurses’ actual disaster experience; determining what non-clinical knowledge or skills or training disaster nurses think would be useful; and identifying and measuring the contribution of environmental factors to disaster nurses’ stress

The Rhetorical Art of Risk Assessment: Lessons from Risk Management in Rural and Tribal Communities

Risk assessment, mitigation, and communication rely on data from multiple sources to form a complete understanding of hazards and how to manage them. Experts can use these data to make informed decisions about the nature and extent of risks and inform the public to protect health, the environment, and economic welfare. However, in an effort to objectively make decisions, technical experts and policymakers increasingly rely on quantitative data as the most important determiner of risk, which can alienate the public, limit risk understanding, and delay or miss obvious signals of impending catastrophe. I examine several cases based on my experiences practicing and researching traffic safety, public safety, and technical and professional communication (TPC). The cases include a look at the impact of limited quantitative data in addressing motor vehicle traffic injuries and death in American Indian and rural communities; the challenge of collecting accurate data by first responders and firefighters to better understand and respond to health and physical hazards; and a recent history of failures to prevent airline and aerospace disasters due to an overemphasis on quantifiable data and devaluation of certain kinds of expert knowledge. The results of this study call attention to the weaknesses resulting from a quantitative imperative in risk management and a proposal for renewed focus on risk assessment using rhetorical practices and qualitative data readily available from expert and non-expert perspectives

Creative Management: Disciplining the Neoliberal Worker

This integrated article dissertation examines some of the new managerial practices that have emerged to handle cognitive capitalism’s ongoing need for creative, flexible labour power. The three articles included in this dissertation offer a glimpse into the widespread processes employed by management to regulate and discipline a workforce that must also be granted a degree of relative flexibility, creativity, and autonomy in order to be effective under post-Fordist conditions of production. The first chapter looks at the emergence of corporate improvisational training at the turn of the twenty-first century as an attempt to cultivate flexible and innovative workers, a move that ultimately succumbs to what Andre Spicer (2013) calls “organizational bullshit”—the deployment of cynical and self-serving discourse that functions to build confidence and legitimacy within workplaces where a clear sense of occupational purpose is lacking. Chapter two explores the recent trend of workplace mindfulness as a specific element of the now-prevalent \u27wellness\u27 discourses, which inevitably work to align workers\u27 personal values with those of their employer. The final chapter involves an analysis of the working conditions of voice-over and motion capture actors in the video game industry and the processes of rationalization and neo-taylorization to which they are subjected

Pengukuran Beban Kerja Operator Call Center PT. X (Third Party Administrator) Untuk Menentukan Jumlah Operator Call Center Optimal

PT.X (PT.X) merupakan leading company dalam perusahaan third party administrator (TPA). PT.X menjalankan proses bisnisnya PT.X sangat mengandalkan peran Call Center sebagai penghubung antara peserta asuransi dengan rumah sakit. Karena itu peran operator Call Center sangat penting dalam proses bisnis PT.X Thesis ini akan melakukan penelitian workload analysis untuk menghitung jumlah operator Call Center di PT.X saat ini sudah cukup, ada indikasi bahwa beban kerja operator Call Center di PT.X besar. Penelitian ini akan menggunakan metode stopwatch time study dan NASA-TLX unuk beban kerja mental. Penelitian juga akan melihat perbandingan penggunaan metode Erlang-C dan Full Time Equivalent dalam menghitung jumlah pegawai yang dibutuhkan. Dari hasil penelitian akan diketahui bahwa beban kerja fisik dan mental akan berbeda di masing-masing tim dan masuk dalam kategori berat karena jumlah operator tidak optimal. Dalam penelitian ini juga akan diketahui bahwa dalam kasus PT.X lebih metode perhitungan lebih cocok menggunakan metode FTE dibandingkan dengan menggunakan metode Erlang-C dalam menghitung jumlah operator Call Center karena jumlah operator yang kecil sehingga membuat tingkat error metode Erlang-C lebih tinggi. ============================================================================================================== PT.X (PT.X) are leading company Third Party Administrator (TPA) businesses. PT.X services product is really broad and their business processes is really complex. PT.X very depends on their Call Center operator as their connector between insurance member and the hospital. Thats why Call Center operator performance is affected their company performance. In this thesis, will be conducted a research of workload analysis to measure the workload (physical and mental) using stopwatch time study and NASA-TLX .After the workload is measured it will be the pivot for calculating the numbers of operator needed based on the workload measurement result. And in this research there will be comparison between calculating Call Center operator needed using Erlang-C and Full Time Equivalent method. From the result of this study its know that some team have different workload (phsyical and mental) than the other team because the operator is not sufficient, and the best method for calculating operator needed in this case is using Full Time Equivalent method because Erlang-C method have higher error rate in small scale call center

Social workers' workload survey: messages from the frontline: findings from the 2009 survey and interviews with senior managers

"The research findings which have been reported emerged from work commissioned to inform the Social Work Task Force but they also make a contribution to issues discussed in this section and to other social work debates. It is important to recognise that this was the most comprehensive diary exercise conducted with social workers in this country. The findings generated from the analysis of the diaries have provided the first systematic examination of how social workers use their time. Yet for the reasons examined in the report there are provisos regarding the representativeness of data which leads to the recommendation that the exercise should be repeated with an instrument which is redesigned to reflect lessons from this survey and with a larger negotiated sample, along the lines of the Teachers’ Workload Survey." - Page 138

Multi-Agent Systems

This Special Issue ""Multi-Agent Systems"" gathers original research articles reporting results on the steadily growing area of agent-oriented computing and multi-agent systems technologies. After more than 20 years of academic research on multi-agent systems (MASs), in fact, agent-oriented models and technologies have been promoted as the most suitable candidates for the design and development of distributed and intelligent applications in complex and dynamic environments. With respect to both their quality and range, the papers in this Special Issue already represent a meaningful sample of the most recent advancements in the field of agent-oriented models and technologies. In particular, the 17 contributions cover agent-based modeling and simulation, situated multi-agent systems, socio-technical multi-agent systems, and semantic technologies applied to multi-agent systems. In fact, it is surprising to witness how such a limited portion of MAS research already highlights the most relevant usage of agent-based models and technologies, as well as their most appreciated characteristics. We are thus confident that the readers of Applied Sciences will be able to appreciate the growing role that MASs will play in the design and development of the next generation of complex intelligent systems. This Special Issue has been converted into a yearly series, for which a new call for papers is already available at the Applied Sciences journal’s website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/special_issues/Multi-Agent_Systems_2019

Electronic Enterprises: Looking to the Future

This report takes a strategic look at the development of electronic commerce and identifies the characteristics of the infrastructure that will be required to support it. The report found that, in an electronically networked economy, the design and underlying architecture of the global information infrastructure will have a major impact on national economic growth and development

The deferred model of reality for designing and evaluating organisational learning processes: A critical ethnographic case study of Komfo Anokye teaching hospital, Ghana

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The study proposed an evidence-based framework for designing and evaluating organisational learning and knowledge management processes to support continuously improving intentions of organisations such as hospitals. It demarcates the extant approaches to organisational learning including supporting technology into ‘rationalist’ and ‘emergent’ schools which utilise the dichotomy between the traditional healthcare managers’ roles and clinicians’ roles, and maintains that they are exclusively inadequate to accomplish transformative growth intentions, such as continuously improving patient care. The possibility of balancing the two schools for effective organisational learning design is not straightforward, and fails; because the balanced-view school is theoretically orientated and lack practical design to resolve power tensions entrenched in organisational structures. Prior attempts to address the organisational learning and knowledge management design and evaluation problematics in actuality have situated in the interpretivist traditions, only focusing on explanations of meanings. Critically, this is uncritical of power relations and orthodox practices. The theory of deferred action is applied in the context of critical research methods and methodology to expose the motivations behind the established organisational learning and knowledge management practices of Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) which assumed rationality design conceptions. Ethnographic data was obtained and interpreted with combined critical hermeneutics and narrative analyses to question the extent of healthcare learning and knowledge management systems failures and unveil the unheard voices as force for change. The study makes many contributions to knowledge but the key ones are: (i) Practically, the participants accepted the study as a catalyst for (re)-designing healthcare learning and knowledge management systems to typify the acceptance of the theory of deferred action in practice; (ii) theoretically, the cohered emergent transformation (CET) model was developed from the theory of deferred action and validated with empirical data to explain how to plan strategically to achieve transformative growth objectives; and (iii) methodologically, the sense-making of the ethnographic data was explored with the combined critical hermeneutics and critical narrative analyses, the data interpretation lens from the critical theory and qualitative pluralism positions, to elucidate how the unheard emergent voices could bring change to the existing KATH learning and knowledge management processes for improved patient care