报告摘要:
Teletriage is a telehealth service that uses telecommunication technologies to screen patients remotely to determine patients' condition and need for medical treatment. This paper investigates how teletriage service affects patients' decisions to seek medical treatment and when healthcare providers (e.g., medical businesses, hospitals, or clinics) should launch teletriage. We show that teletriage can draw more mild patients to seek treatment while deterring more severe patients. Consequently, even if teletriage is costless, healthcare providers might abandon this service, despite the fact that teletriage always improves patient surplus. Patients can be better off seeking medical treatment from a provider who charges a higher treatment price. Adoption of teletriage leads some providers to increase their price of medical treatment but other providers to reduce it. When providers can charge a fee for patients to use teletriage, they always launch teletriage and may choose to offer teletriage for free. Patients can be better off if providers charge patients a non-zero fee to access teletriage service. 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 teletriage fee.
报告人简介:
关旭,华中科技大学管理学院教授,博士生导师,供应链管理与系统工程系主任。博士毕业于华中科技大学管理学院,获管理科学与工程博士学位。主要研究方向为运营与供应链管理、不对称信息、信息获取与披露。近年来在Production and Operations Management, Information Systems Research, Journal of Retailing等国内外权威学术期刊发表论文60余篇。主持包括国家自然科学杰出青年基金和国家自然科学基金优秀青年基金在内的多项科研项目。现担任Service Science期刊Associate Editor和Management Science等国际权威学术期刊审稿人。