Should employees be empowered? Resource allocation in telemedicine

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Operations Research
• Game Theory

Background:

• Multichannel healthcare systems integrate telemedicine and offline services.
• Optimal resource allocation is crucial for system efficiency and patient outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare hospital-led versus physician-led decision-making models for resource allocation.
• To analyze strategies in multichannel healthcare systems integrating telemedicine and offline services.

Main Methods:

• A game-theoretical model was developed to analyze decision-making.
• Factors analyzed include revisit risk, copayment ratios, and market coverage.
• Analytical and numerical methods evaluated patient choice, hospital profit, and social welfare.

Main Results:

• Physician autonomy maximizes social welfare in fully covered markets.
• Centralized hospital decision-making is superior in partially covered markets.
• Hybrid strategies are most effective in high-risk scenarios.

Conclusions:

• Decision-making autonomy in healthcare resource allocation should be context-dependent.
• Empowering physicians improves adaptability in fully covered markets.
• Centralized management is preferable in partially covered markets; hybrid models suit high uncertainty.