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Working Papers | 2005

Preliminary analysis of claims data to understand relationship between disease patterns and quality of care and its implications for health insurance in India

Bhat Ramesh and Rajagopal Srikanth

This paper provides preliminary analysis of claims data of Mediclaim insurance scheme to understand the relationship between disease pattern and the quality of health care. We use length of stay (LOS) and average length of stay (ALS) as one of the indicators of quality of care. We use the Diagnostic Related Grouping (DRG) based ALS as the benchmark to make this evaluation and comparison. It is observed that the reimbursements in insurance system are tied to hospital inputs and resource use and not to diagnostic related groups or outputs. Therefore the current system of reimbursements and provider payment system influences the length of stay and there is significant variation in ALS observed across disease groups and its sub-groups. There is no consistency observed in ALS as the severity of diseases under each group increases. This reflects lack of standards/protocols and unintended consequences of current practice of provider payment system. Implementing systems like Diagnosis Related Grouping would be an attempt to link it with outcomes. The paper provides insights into whether there is a significant mismatch in the premium that insurance companies charge in comparison to the risk insurer undertake while issuing policies. It was also found that after adjusting for the purchasing power parity, the claims data suggest that healthcare costs reimbursed for medical insurance to private providers in India are actually higher than healthcare costs reimbursed to providers of healthcare in the US under DRG system. The paper argues that under less regulated private healthcare providers market and health insurance market, cost based reimbursement is highly undesirable. The regulators should put in place a system of pre-determined rates for reimbursements in health insurance.

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Working Papers | 2005

Human Resource Practices and Commitment of Senior Officials in Health System: Reflections from a Progressive State in a Developing Economy

Sunil Kumar Maheshwari, Bhat Ramesh, and Saha Somen

It is widely recognised that the commitment and competencies of people working in the health sector has significant bearing on sector performance and its reform process. The current paper attempts to analyse the commitment of the health officials and its implications for HR practices in Maharashtra. The study suggests that the district health officials do not share a strong emotional bond with their department. The state needs to reform its Human Resource Management practices to effectively strengthen the functioning of the health system. The study shows that there is a need to involve senior doctors in staffing decisions that affect their work units. There is a need to develop a proper tribal/remote area posting plan for the health officials, failing which creates a sense of frustration among the health officials. The study also suggests investing in development of multiple strategies for the growth and career development of health professionals. Finally the study advocates the need to develop areas of public private partnership and community participation in making the public health programme successful.

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Working Papers | 2005

World Class Logistics Operations: The Case of Bombay Dabbawallahs

N. Ravichandran

The Bombay Dabbawallahs operation is widely recognized as an outstanding example of excellence in Logistics. It is often quoted as a standard example of six sigma implementation in the Indian context. Because of its popularity Prince Charles of the United Kingdom paid a visit to the operations site during his official visit to India in 2003. In this article we study in detail the nature and content of this system, critically examine its salient features and analyze the possibility of extending the system to similar or related domains.

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Working Papers | 2005

New Economy – The Behavioral Issues

Parikh Indira J and Kollan Bharti

The paper New Economy - The behavioral Issues focuses on the impact of the Information Technology. The IT virtually has sipped into the very existing structure of the mankind, be it a kitchen or a corporate office. The paper contains a description of some of the main characteristics of New Economy, as well as its terminology. The fundamental role of Information and Communication Technology is highlighted. Today, the organization is at the cross roads as it is going through a transition period by shedding the baggage of traditional mode of working and accepting as well as trying to absorb the fast pace changing environment of the IT world. The paper explores the various plethora of New Economy, which is becoming as an octopus. It talks about the presence of IT in the global world, society as well as its grip on organization. The paper also provides a glimpse of how it affects on the very life of human being. Overall, the paper gives an indication not only of the importance of New Economy but also of how it inter-linkages with our behavioral pattern.

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Working Papers | 2005

A Reflection of the Indian Women in Entrepreneurial World

Parikh Indira J and Kollan Bharti

Entrepreneurship amongst women has been a recent concern. Women have become aware of their existence their rights and their work situation. However, women of the middle class are not too eager to alter their role in fear of social backlash. The progress is more visible among upper class families in urban cities. This paper focuses on Women entrepreneur. Any understanding of Indian women, of their identity, and especially of their role taking and breaking new paths, will be incomplete without a walk down the corridors of Indian history where women have paused, lived and internalized various role models. Some have taken entrepreneurship roles where some have opted for employment, some in entertainment field and some for leadership roles while millions of others have taken the role of ideal stereotyped social roles. The paper slides from the era of fifties to the 21st centuries and how transformation has occurred in the women roles. Also the paper talks about the status of women entrepreneurs and the problems faced by them when they ventured out to carve their own niche in the competitive world of business environment.

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Working Papers | 2005

Managerial Roles and Interfaces: Some Organizational Issues and Implications through Thematic Apperception Test

Parikh Indira J and Kollan Bharti

Indian organizations are encountering transformations within the organization and in the external-both national and global environment. In this era of rapid transformations Indian managers need assess their role taking and interfaces across the organization. This study is based on 30 workshops arising out of diagnostic studies of the organization and its resultant identification of developmental inputs. The organizations were set on a path of growth and a commitment to professionalize their existing managers so that the organization could become vibrant and dynamic. The present paper emphasis on the content of the stories, situations involving mostly interpersonal relations, Such as father-son or superior and subordinate are examined for the feelings and subsequently, what actors are being triggered off by the interface. The paper also explores the manager's perception of the job, role, task and performance. Based on the content analysis of each story, the paper investigate how the manager take's initiatives to accept the challenges of their jobs and subsequently, adding new dimensions to their role.

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Working Papers | 2005

An Efficient Algorithm for Frequent Pattern Mining for Real-Time Business Intelligence Analytics in Dense Datasets

Rajanish Dass

Finding frequent patterns from databases has been the most time consuming process in data mining tasks, like association rule mining. Frequent pattern mining in real-time is of increasing thrust in many business applications such as e-commerce, recommender systems, and supply-chain management and group decision support systems, to name a few. A plethora of efficient algorithms have been proposed till date, among which, vertical mining algorithms have been found to be very effective, usually outperforming the horizontal ones. However, with dense datasets, the performances of these algorithms significantly degrade. Moreover, these algorithms are not suited to respond to the real-time need. In this paper, we describe BDFS(b)-diff-sets, an algorithm to perform real-time frequent pattern mining using diff-sets and limited computing resources. Empirical evaluations show that our algorithm can make a fair estimation of the probable frequent patterns and reaches some of the longest frequent patterns much faster than the existing algorithms.

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Working Papers | 2005

Are You Risk Averse Over Other People's Money?

Chakravarty Sujoy, Harrison Glenn W, Haruvy Ernan E, and Rutstrom Elisabet E

Abstract. Decisions with uncertain outcomes are often made by one party in settingswhere another party bears the consequences. Whenever an agent is delegated tomake decisions that affect others, such as in the typical corporate structure, does theagent make decisions that reflect the risk preferences of the principal? We examinethis question in the simplest possible setting using controlled laboratory experiments.We find a remarkable result: when an individual makes a decision for an anonymousstranger, he tends to exhibit less risk aversion. This reduction is relative to his ownpreferences, and also relative to his belief about the other's preferences. This resulthas significant implications for the design of contracts between principals and agents.

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Working Papers | 2005

What's Keeping the Apples Away? Addressing the Market Integration Issue

Satish Y. Deodhar

Apples have been grown in India for a century. At present apple production exceeds 1.4 million tonnes a year. Still, there are wide variations in the apple prices across the country. We test the price data for market integration using cointegration and error correction methodology. Delhi, the major wholesale market for apples, does not seem to influence other markets. Mumbai market does influence Bangalore market, although with about a two week lag. Absence of integration can be attributed to traders from southern region bypassing the Delhi wholesale market, cascading effect of trader margins at various distribution points, absence of competition to agricultural produce marketing committee markets, and, inadequacy of road and cool chain infrastructure.

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Working Papers | 2005

A Process Oriented Approach to Waiting Line Management in a Large Pilgrimage Center in India: A Case Study

N. Ravichandran and Rao Subba I V

This article documents an innovative approach to manage waiting line in the largest pilgrimage center in the world. By a judicious combination of process orientation and advances in Information Technology, the pilgrimage center's management has been able to dramatically change the pilgrims waiting experience. The pilgrimage location under study is Tirumala located in Andhra Pradesh state in India. The number of visitors to this important location has been steadily increasing over time. As of 2005, the location attracted approximately 16 million visitors a year. The primary objective of a pilgrim visiting Tirumala is to have darshan of the principle deity in the temple. The secondary objectives include tonsure (shaving head as a mark of respect), offering donations, prasad collection, local sight seeing and shopping. The immense popularity of the temple and its location poses significant challenges to the management of the system. This temple is a tradition bound Institution. Therefore, some alternatives to resolve pilgrim waiting time are feasible and some are not. There are some hard constraints which may not stand the test of logic. The ability to manage the traffic volume is a function of processing rate (darshan duration) at the temple and darshan time available per day. This case study is an example of improving operational effectiveness by using formal management methods in addressing an important real life problem in an under researched area.

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