Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ibanez, Maria R.; Clark, Jonathan R.; Huckman, Robert S.; Staats, Bradley R.
• 署名单位: Harvard University; University of Texas System; University of Texas at San Antonio; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; University of North Carolina School of Medicine
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2017.2810
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 4389-4407
• 关键词: Discretion; Scheduling; QUEUE; Healthcare; learning; experience; decentralization; DELEGATION; behavioral operations

摘要

Work scheduling research typically prescribes task sequences implemented by managers. Yet employees often have discretion to deviate from their prescribed sequence. Using data from 2.4 million radiological diagnoses, we find that doctors prioritize similar tasks (batching) and those tasks they expect to complete faster (shortest expected processing time). Moreover, they exercise more discretion as they accumulate experience. Exploiting random assignment of tasks to doctors' queues, instrumental variable models reveal that these deviations erode productivity. This productivity decline lessens as doctors learn from experience. Prioritizing the shortest tasks is particularly detrimental to productivity. Actively grouping similar tasks also reduces productivity, in stark contrast to productivity gains from exogenous grouping, indicating deviation costs outweigh benefits from repetition. By analyzing task completion times, our work highlights the trade-offs between the time required to exercise discretion and the potential gains from doing so, which has implications for how discretion over scheduling should be delegated.