Emmanouil Avgerinos, from IE University, will present "The Role of Non-Clinical Call Handlers on Patient Service: Evidence from the NHS Helpline".

Abstract: Healthcare organizations rely on a mix of clinical and non-clinical staff to deliver health services. Although non-clinical workforce is vital in many healthcare delivery settings today, its impact on the quality of patient service has not been examined in operations management literature. While non-clinical staff like call handlers can offer significant cost and patient access advantages in providing healthcare services such as medical helplines, determining their overall effect remains a major challenge in healthcare settings. In this study, making use of a dataset based on a single organization, the National Health Service (NHS)’s 111 non-emergency helpline in England, we demonstrate and quantify the effects associated with employing a mix of call handlers and clinical advisors in delivering patient service. Our results indicate that a high ratio of non-clinical call handlers to clinical advisors can increase the number of unresolved patient problems and decrease their overall satisfaction with the service whereas a high workload for clinical advisors can decrease the number of unresolved problems.