On the afternoon of December 11, 2017, Prof. Saurabh Mishra, Marketing Department, McGill University, Canada, was invited to visit Beijing Institute of Technology School of Management and Economics and gave an academic report entitled "Customer and Financial Outcomes of Service Outsourcing Emphasis: Evidence from United States Hospitals." The meeting was chaired by Professor Ma Baolong from School of Management and Economics of Beijing Institute of Technology. More than 20 faculty and students of the School attended the seminar.
Professor Saurabh Mishra is a professor of marketing at McGill University Business School and holds a Ph.D. in marketing from Kelly School of Business at Indiana University and a postdoctoral fellow at Kellogg School of Management. His research has been published in many internationally renowned academic journals, including Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Ethics.
In this report, Professor Saurabh first described the development of the medical industry in the United States in recent years. The scale of the medical industry grew by 6.2% annually and is expected to account for 19.8% of the GDP by 2020. A large number of scholars have devoted themselves to medical and health care related research, indicating the significance and importance of the medical industry research. At present, US hospitals often outsource patient care services to effectively manage patient needs and achieve better financial performance. Based on this, Professor Saurabh proposed questions whether hospital medical service outsourcing can significantly affect hospital performance and how the hospital capital utilization can regulate hospital performance.
Professor Saurabh's study analyzed the impact of hospital service outsourcing on patient care and financial performance based on the exchange cost theory and agency theory. Employing the big data from the Medicaid Service Center (CMS), it was verified that higher service outsourcing significantly improved Hospital operating profit margin, but also increased the patient's hospital stay – meaning less effective patient care. Professor Saurabh also pointed out that the hospital's internal resource utilization and other variables will adjust the main effect of the study. The study findings provide some guidance for hospital managers on developing patient care outsourcing strategy.