Joint work with Alex Mills. Forthcoming in Production and Operations Management: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/poms.13036

Abstract: The Emergency Medical Services (EMS) system is designed to handle life-threatening emergencies, but a large and growing number of non-emergency patients are accessing hospital-based healthcare through EMS. A national survey estimated that 17% of ambulance trips to hospital Emergency Departments (EDs) were medically unnecessary, and that these unnecessary trips make up an increasing proportion of all EMS trips. These non-emergency patients are a controllable arrival stream that can be re-directed to an appropriate care provider, reducing congestion in EDs, reducing costs to patients and healthcare payers, and improving patient health, but prehospital triage to identify these patients is almost never implemented by EMS providers in the United States. Using a decision model, we show that prehospital triage is unlikely to occur under the current structure of fee-for-service reimbursements, regardless of how effective the triage process might be, unless low-acuity patients are unprofitable and a hospital is willing to coordinate with EMS. We demonstrate several mechanisms a payer such as Medicare could use to promote prehospital triage: reforming fee-for-service reimbursements or offering a value-based payment, such as bundled payments or shared savings contracts. Using data from a national survey and levels of triage effectiveness demonstrated in the literature, we conservatively estimate that Medicare alone could save between $3 and $70 million per year (depending on triage effectiveness) by providing incentives for prehospital triage. Between 26,500 and 628,000 non-emergency patients could be diverted to more appropriate care options, making prehospital triage a practical step to address hospital emergency department crowding.

After an exhausting job search, I’m happy to announce that I will be heading to the University of Cincinnati this fall, after accepting a job as Assistant Professor in the Operations, Business Analytics, and Information Systems (OBAIS) Department of the Lindner College of Business.

UC has a great department, with strong researchers and incredible people. I look forward to contributing my research in energy operations management and behavioral operations to their research portfolio, as well as teaching classes in simulation, sports analytics, service operations, and other topics in operations management and business analytics. A new building for the business school is under construction, set to open in Fall 2019.

It’s been a busy 4+ months. My main interview conference (INFORMS) was in October this year, pushing up the job search cycle a bit. I had flyouts in November, December, and January, and chose between offers over the last couple weeks.

Here is a summary of my job search process:
-I applied to 76 schools. In retrospect, I should have been a bit more selective, but applying is free and relatively quick.
-I received 28 first-round interview invitations, one of which I did not accept due to it being too late in the process. 18 of the interviews were in-person and held at INFORMS. The rest were either by phone or Skype.
-From those 27 accepted interviews, I was invited to 8 campus fly-outs. 1 occurred in November, 3 were in December, and 4 were scheduled for January. I had to cancel the last fly-out, due to receiving attractive offers and the visit occurring too late.
-From those 7 campus visits, I received 3 job offers.
-Today, I accepted UC’s offer.

It was great to meet so many members of my field during the search process. And thanks so much to my family, friends, and co-workers who helped guide and advise me during the process.