Research Overview
Description
Jillian has an interest in understanding the effect of high worker autonomy and uncertainty on operational metrics. Her research attempts to empirically explore the relationship between efficiency, resource utilization, and quality in hospital settings. Specifically, her primary focus is on how state-specific factors (e.g., patient workload and resource availability) affect resource use and patient outcomes at inpatient-unit and hospital-wide levels.
Jillian has developed a model of the spillover effects of patient workload on LOS in hospitals. Using patient-level data state of California, she is examining how different measures of workload affect LOS at more than 200 hospitals. Her findings show that workload effect spillover across inpatient units. These results indicate that, contrary to current behvior, optimal resource allocation and management decisions should not only be based on the information of a single inpatient unit. Related to this work, Jillian is exploring the interhospital differences in workload effect.
In addition, Jillian is working on a project with a two-site major academic medical institution examining the effect of a recent resource policy change. Specifically, at one site, ultrasound availability improved in the Emergency Department (ED) during the study period. She is attempting to quantify the increase ultrasound use that resulted from this policy change, as well as its impact on other resources (e.g., CT scans, length of stay) and patient outcomes (e.g. probability of readmission to the ED).