W study a manufacturer’s problem of managing his direct online sales channel together with an independently owned bricks-and-mortar retail channel, when the channels compete in service. We incorporate a detailed consumer channel choice model in which the demand faced in each channel depends on the service levels of both channels as well as the consumers’ valuation of the product and shopping ex...

BACKGROUND Recently, a strategy for treating stroke directly at the emergency site was developed. It was based on the use of an ambulance equipped with a scanner, a point-of-care laboratory, and telemedicine capabilities (Mobile Stroke Unit). Despite demonstrating a marked reduction in the delay to thrombolysis, this strategy is criticized because of potentially unacceptable costs. METHODS We...

What effect does firm structure have on the product service quality on offer? We answer this question by empirically assessing the impacts of complete vertical separation, such as ownership unbundling, on the quality of service delivered by a liberalized network industry. Electricity distribution utilities in New Zealand are considered for this purpose. The results show robust evidence that own...

Asthma represents a growing public health problem and the cost of asthma has been rising in many countries. The aim of this study was to estimate the direct and indirect cost of asthma among adult patients in Italy, and to assess the relationship between healthcare resource use and asthma severity according to the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) classification system. A multicentre cross-se...

Based on the aggregated findings of 25 studies from the literature, this paper presents a comprehensive overview of the impacts, motivation, and success factors of the adoption of the IS/IT service management reference framework ITIL in IS/IT service organizations in practice. Positive effects across studies include increased customer satisfaction, service quality, and the increase of time and ...

Software services offer many opportunities like reduced cost for IT infrastructure. They also introduce new risks, for example the clients lose control over their data. While data can be secured against external threats using standard techniques, the service providers themselves have to be trusted to ensure privacy. In this paper, we examine methods that can increase the level of privacy a serv...

Public hospitals in Greece are part of a National Health System, established in 1983. This paper presents the hospital sector changes in Greece over the last 20 years, emphasizing cost efficiency. We break down its historical developments into two periods: 1983-1999 and 2000-2008. From the historical review, it is concluded that the system is cost inefficient, based on two components. First, a ...

The behavior that accompanies schizophrenia and related disorders interferes with professional and social activities. As a result, schizophrenia is one of the most costly psychiatric illnesses. Direct medical costs associated with schizophrenia were estimated from the Italian National Health Service perspective. This was a multicenter observational 1-year study conducted in 14 Italian community...

In this paper we consider a 1-warehouse, N-retailer inventory system where demand occurs at all locations. We introduce an inventory model which allows us to set different service levels for retailers and direct customer demand at the warehouse. For each retailer a critical level is defined, such that a retailer replenishment order is delivered from warehouse stock if and only if the stock leve...

BACKGROUND Guidelines have helped standardize methods of cost-effectiveness analysis, allowing different interventions to be compared and enhancing the generalizability of study findings. There is agreement that all relevant services be valued from the societal perspective using a long-term time horizon and that more exact methods be used to cost services most affected by the study intervention...