Business Commons^™

Social Media Firestorms: How Does Observing Customer-To-Customer Incivility Affect Consumers’ Brand Evaluation And Behavioral Intentions?, Tyson Ang

Faculty Research Day

Project Description: Brands increasingly engage customers through social media platforms. However, just like human, brands too can make mistake when interacting with customers. The higher the engagement, the higher the chance of brands committing mistakes. These mistakes tend to be amplified in the context of social media, which may eventually lead to a firestorm against the brand. Social media firestorm refers to a sudden, rapid discharge of large quantities of intensely negative messages against a brand. Even more concerning is that these firestorms are usually accompanied by uncivil interactions between customers who have opposing views on the issue at …

Impact Of Changes In State Merit-Aid Programs On College Attendance, Nabaneeta Biswas, Poulomi Dasgupta

Faculty Research Day

Between 1990 and 2010 a total of 25 states adopted merit aid programs. Merit-aid programs increase college enrollment. West Virginia's PROMISE had a statistically significant impact on college enrollment in the state.

Telehealth In Critical Care: Quality And Cost Outcomes, Michael Robbie, Stephanie Cole, Bukola Abodunde, Alberto Coustasse

Faculty Research Day

The purpose of this study was to assess the potential for the implementation of telehealth in the ICU to determine its impact on quality of care and overall healthcare costs. The primary hypothesis of this study was that telehealth would be linked with lower ICU LOS and hospital mortality rates among critically ill patients.

Post-Implementation Analysis Of The Impact Of Intravenous Automation Systems On Health-System Pharmacy Operations, Craig Kimble, Ken Maxik, Chris Booth, Michael Rudolph, Kim Broedel-Zaugg

Faculty Research Day

We have all seen the reports on the news about issues related to IV rooms and IV room compounding. Many health-system pharmacies have implemented, or are considering some form of intravenous (IV) automation and/ or compounding system in their clean rooms to reduce pharmacy errors and improve accuracy, productivity, and workflow. Manufacturers tout that automated systems, used appropriately, aid in reducing errors from reaching patients. Additionally, IV admixture automation is one of the most recent areas where technology has been added to pharmacy workflow.

Fdi Inflows And Educational Attainment: Evidence From China, Yi Duan, Lei Li

Faculty Research Day

This study investigates the impact of FDI on education attainment through labor market conditions in China using micro data. China has attracted a substantial amount of FDI in the past years and has made education advancement its priority. However, attracting FDI can have unintended consequences to depress educational attainment and human capital formation.

Patient Communication With Their General Practice Physicians: Does Age Matter?, William K. Willis, Marcy Butler, Ashish Chandra

Faculty Research Day

We examine the difference in outcomes between various age groups and their communication with their General Practitioner.

Does Global Vs. Local Scope Matter? Contingencies Of Cause-Related Marketing In A Developed Market, Monica Wei

Faculty Research Day

Project Description: Cause-related marketing refers to a company’s social initiative in which the company donates a specified amount to a chosen cause in response to every purchase the consumers made. Many multinational corporations (MNCs) have used cause-related marketing as a strategy to improve their brand image and positioning in the global market. However, what makes cause-related marketing effective in the international market is not well understood. Drawing on social impact theory, this project uncovers the factors that affect the effectiveness of cause-related marketing strategy in the global market context. Specifically, across two studies, this research has found that the …

Tax Law And 100 Years Of New York Giants Season Tickets: A Multifaceted Analysis Of One Fan’S Fortune, Casey W. Baker

Faculty Research Day

Sports and tax Law? The confluence of money and unique factual situations create issues that the regulatory structure may not contemplate.

Telehealth In Critical Care: Quality And Cost Outcomes, Stephanie Cole, Michael Robie, Bukola Abodunde, Alberto Coustasse

Management Faculty Research

As the population of the United States has continued to age, there has been an increase in usage and Hospital Length of Stay (LOS) costs of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds. In the early 2000s, it was determined there would be a shortage of all ICU providers within the next decade due to the increased need for critical care for the aging generation. Around this time, the Leapfrog Group was formed to demand that hospitals improve quality and decrease cost. Utilization of telehealth in the ICU was a possible alternative, which had a positive impact on both clinical and financial …

The 340b Program, Contract Pharmacies, Hospitals, And Patients: An Evolving Relationship Impacting Health Care Delivery, Morgan Ruley, Morgan Belcher, Hannah Sayre, Alberto Coustasse

Management Faculty Research

The 340B Drug Pricing Program, created by Congress in 1992 through the Veterans Health Care Act, has provided discounted drug prices to hospitals and other health care organizations serving a wide population of low-income patients. Some 340B programs use contract pharmacies, an arrangement whereby the hospital or health care organization signs a contract directly with a pharmacy to provide covered pharmacy services at discounted prices. The federal 340B Drug Pricing Program has provided access to reduced price prescription drugs to more than 35 000 individual health care facilities and sites certified by the US Department of Health and Human Services, …

Provider Based Billing In The United States: The Effect On Government Reimbursement, Victoria Walker, Uyi Lawani, Alberto Coustasse

Management Faculty Research

Introduction: Provider-based status has been a Medicare payment designation established by the Social Security Act. It has allowed facilities to bill for physician services based on facility type. Medicare reimbursement has been based on whether services were rendered at a freestanding healthcare facility or a provider-based facility. Provider-Based Billing [PBB] comprises of two separate charges from the outpatient department, including a facility charge and a professional charge.

Methodology: The methodology for this research analysis was a literature review complemented with a semi structure interview of a PBB expert. The review illustrated examples of provider-based clinics who have billed all Medicare …

Medicare Access And Chip Reauthorization Act And Rural Hospitals, Erica Kelley, Rhea Lipscomb, Jennifer Valdez, Natesh Patil, Alberto Coustasse

Management Faculty Research

The cost of health care within the United States has continued to increase, whereas the quality of patient care has generally decreased in some areas. With the continued use of Medicare's former physician reimbursement algorithm, termed sustainable growth rate, national expenditures within the United States have been expected to increase 5.6% annually. To modernize the delivery and financing of care, Congress has introduced the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), which has permanently eliminated and replaced the sustainable growth rate. The purpose of this study was to review MACRA and its implementation to determine how it would …

Partnering With Corporate Entrepreneurs On An Experiential Design Thinking Project, Ben Eng, Ralph E. Mckinney, Isabelle Rogner

Entrepreneurship Faculty Research

This article offers faculty an innovative teaching approach for an experiential class project centered around design thinking. The basic processes of the project are detailed using a running example where the entrepreneurship instructor partners with corporate entrepreneurs from a leading financial technology firm to develop, teach, and team with student groups to design think solutions for three of the community’s greatest challenges: substance abuse, youth education, and technology. Learning objectives are identified and measures of the program’s effectiveness at achieving the learning objectives are collected, assessed, and reported. Analysis of the data suggests the program is effective at enhancing student …

Attorney-Client Sexual Relationships In The #Metoo Era, Casey Baker

Faculty Research Day

Attorneys play a critical role in remedying the problem of sexual assault in American industry, but the legal profession does not consistently police itself regarding such issues.

In 2002, the American Bar Association established a model ethical rule prohibiting attorneys from entering into sexual relationships with a client unless the sexual relationship existed at the time the attorney-client relationship began. As of 2019, twenty states plus the District of Columbia have failed to adopt the model rule or substantially similar prohibitions. Furthermore, only eight states by rule address sexual relationships between attorneys and constituents of organizational clients. State ethics rules …

An Examination And Survey Of The Current State Of Charter Schools In The United States, Raymond Keener Iii

Faculty Research Day

Charter Schools were introduced in the United States nearly thirty (30) years ago as an alternative to the traditional model of public schools. The current analysis examines the underlying structure and nature of charter schools, their perceived advantages and disadvantages, and whether the system is working effectively.

Barriers To Employment: A Substance Abuse Story, Ralph E. Mckinney

Faculty Research Day

Whilst prior research is available on substance abuse and resources have been allocated from various governmental agencies and private organizations, the effects of substance abuse issues continue to persist within Appalachia. A constant variable in mitigating recidivism in substance abuse is employment. Moreover, the economy and culture of Appalachia is distinctly different with limited research in the field having focused on these issues. The purpose of this study is to identify barriers (e.g., criminal convictions, financial resources, and jobseeker KSAO (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and Other Characteristics)) in obtaining sustainable employment that individuals may experience as a result of an association …

Monetary Policy In China: A Factor Augmented Var Approach, Boniface Yemba, Biyan Tang, Erick Kitenge

Faculty Research Day

We use a Factor-Augmented VAR (FAVAR) model to investigate the effectiveness of monetary policy in China. As the Chinese economy is an open economy, our FAVAR model divides the macroeconomic variables into three groups. The first group contains measures of external shock to Chinese economy while others groups contain the measure of output and price. This approach allows factors to have an economic interpretation. We estimate our model with the maximum likelihood technique and that an increase in the change of money supply "Divisia M2"has substantial and direct impact on Chinese economic activity and inflation. Our results also find that …

Benefits And Constraints Of Telepsychiatry And Rural Healthcare In The United States And West Virginia, Alberto Coustasse

Faculty Research Day

About 60 million individuals, or 19.3% of the U.S population, lived in rural areas. Rural areas have encountered a higher than average shortage of mental health services, transportation, number of providers, poverty, and lack of insurance. The purpose of this research was to analyze the quality of care with the utilization of telemedicine in psychiatric care as well as its potential cost-saving benefits to both the payers and patients in the US and West Virginia. Tele psychiatric has been a successfully integrated program into psychiatric facilities reaching rural, prisons or city facilities based on that it has increased the volume …

A Promise-Ing Change? West Virginia’S Merit Aid Program And College Enrollment, Nabaneeta Biswas

Faculty Research Day

Merit-based aid is known to increase college attendance and completion. By altering the economic costs of higher education and providing incentives for academic excellence such programs increase the educational attainment of student populations. In a similar vein, West Virginia’s college scholarship program, PROMISE has been found to improve educational outcomes of college attendees and facilitate on-time degree completion among scholarship recipients. However, little is known about the scholarship’s impact on college-going rates. For a state with historically low rates of college attendance this is a pertinent question. This paper examines the effects of PROMISE on enrollments at post-secondary institutes. Using …

An Analysis Of Job Application Method Preference: Comparing Online And Traditional Recruitment Systems, Uyi Lawani

Faculty Research Day

The use of the internet has become pervasive in the recruitment process involving both hirers and job seekers. Prior to this era, firms relied on traditional methods for recruitment. Presently, organizations try to balance the combination of electronic hiring tools and various other traditional methods for recruitment but they differ in the extent to which they adopt a mix of these systems. While some can be found at the extremes, others situated in between have adopted hybrid forms that combine both methods in varying proportions. Candidates who are mainly the targets of these recruitment approaches are the consumers of what …

Foreign Aid Allocation And Conflict In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Spatial Analytical Approach, Yi Duan

Faculty Research Day

This project uses geographic information systems (GIS) skills to test the effect of foreign aid on conflict occurrences and fatalities at local level in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using lagged aid variables as the instruments for current aid, negative relationship between current aid and future conflict is detected. Aid is effective to deter conflict when conflict events happening in short period or particular types of conflict events are under way. Income per capita, with night lights per capita as proxy, has non-linear impacts on conflict occurrences. Foreign aid can alleviate conflict and help Sub-Saharan countries to jump out of the low-income-conflict trap.

Personal Health Records Interoperability, W. Kent Willis, Alberto Coustasse

Faculty Research Day

Implementation of Personal Health Record interoperability requires the adoption of national standards. These standards have been driven by regulation. The Center for Information Technology Leadership (CITL) estimates PHRs could result in an annual net value of nineteen-billion dollars. This is based on cost savings to healthcare providers and payers over a ten-year implementation period with an 80% U.S. adoption rate.

Rethinking The Obvious: Time For New Ideas On Medical Malpractice Tort Reform, Jarred Gerlach, Bukola Abodunde, Marc D. Sollosy, Alberto Coustasse

Management Faculty Research

States have engaged in medical malpractice litigation reforms over the past 30 years to reduce malpractice insurance premiums, increase the supply of physicians, reduce the cost of healthcare, and increase efficiency. These reforms have included caps on non-economic damages and legal procedural changes. Despite these reforms, healthcare costs in the U.S. remain among the highest in the world, provider shortages remain, and defensive medicine practices persist. The purpose of this study was to determine how successful traditional medical malpractice reforms have been at controlling medical costs, decreasing defensive medicine practices, lowering malpractice premiums, and reducing the frequency of medical malpractice …

Implications Of Upcoding On Medicare, Katrina Cremeans, Samantha Marcum, Carli Followay, Jessica Oldaker, Alberto Coustasse

Management Faculty Research

The complexity of and amount of funds involved in Medicare has led to a significant increase in the incidence of Medicare fraud. A type of Medicare fraud, upcoding, has contributed to excessive and unnecessary health care spending. Upcoding has been an illegal strategy that some providers have used to increase their Medicare reimbursement for certain conditions. This is accomplished by coding a provided service as a more expensive service than what was actually performed. With the proliferation of upcoding, there has been an astonishing $12.5 billion in fraudulent Medicare charges since 2007. The fraudulent strategy of upcoding to increase Medicare …

Potential Savings From Consumer-Driven Health Plans, Jessica Mcnair, Brittany White, Christopher Miller, William Ferguson, Alberto Coustasse

Management Faculty Research

Consumer Driven Health Plans (CDHPs) have been identified as a high-deductible insurance option that has increased consumer responsibility while health care expenditures have decreased. Anticipated savings through the use of CDHPs have drawn increased interest of employers and policymakers. The increased need to control healthcare costs as well as healthcare utilization have also fostered the development of increased use of CDHPs. As the use of CDHPs have expanded, educated consumers have become more engaged in their healthcare services and have increased demands for transparency of healthcare costs. Healthcare costs, utilization, and moral hazard of this study are further discussed.

Personal Health Record Interoperability, Manal Alghamdi, Courtney Stanley, William K. Willis, Alberto Coustasse

Management Faculty Research

Personal Health Records (PHRs) is a software application that allows patients to review their medical information remotely through a secure domain. There are four forms of PHRs which are; 1) self-contained Electronic Health Record (EHR), 2) self-contained EHR, 3) PHRs integrated care EHR controlled by health provider and partially by the patient/consumer, 4) PHRs integrated care EHR controlled by the patient/consumer. The methodology for this study was a literature review and semi-structure interview with a specialist in health information technology. Electronic databases used included PubMed, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, LexisNexis and Google Scholar. A total of 38 sources were referenced. …

The Use Of Big Data By Managed Care Organizations, Bojing Wang, Xiaoying Liu, Alberto Coustasse

Management Faculty Research

Big data have become available in all kinds of healthcare organizations. The application of big data analytics in Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) has the potential to improve health care, lower costs, save lives, and help to make better-informed decisions. The study illustrated the implication of big data in MCOs. Big data can help MCOs reduce patients’ relevance, analyze specific diseases such as asthma and diabetes. Big data also could help MCOs to reduce cost after collecting data and determined the specific patients’ situation. The implication of big data has benefited MCOs in reducing costs, improving the quality of healthcare care. …

Charge Master And The Effects On Hospitals, Whitney Layton, Katie Lemmon

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Introduction: The hospital charge master, has been the heart of the healthcare revenue cycle, as it has served as the hospitals’ starting point for billing patients and payers. The CDM was made as an extensive breakdown of the cost of the care provided and in order for a hospital to correctly bill a patient for care received as every chargeable item in the hospital must be included in the master.

Methodology: The methodology for this study utilized a literature review. It consisted of academic sources, five electronic databases, academic journals, and government websites. Thirty- six sources were referenced for this …

Rural Hospital Health In The United States, Stephanie Cole, Kathleen Lanham

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Introduction: Rural hospitals experienced both challenges and opportunities in providing healthcare to the community. As these facilities were one of the largest employers in the area, their impact was significant. Additionally, accessibility to necessary medical services was essential. Thus, sustainability of rural hospitals was vital. In order to assess sustainability, exploration into financial and quality outcomes could help support their ability to thrive.

Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this study was to determine the sustainability of rural hospitals in the U.S. by examining variables that affect these institutions such as accessibility, availability of services, quality outcomes, and …

The Utilization Of Telehealth/ Telemedicine In Cardiology In Rural Areas, Sophia Noplis, Jocelyn Stout

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Introduction: Telecardiology has been defined as a way of practicing cardiology through the utilization of telecommunications and a more cost-effective way to deliver cardiac care. As a subset of telemedicine, telecardiology has functioned to bring providers to underserved communities through technological mechanisms. Rural regions have turned to telemedicine and tapped into a network of clinical institutions exchanging practitioners and patients to emphasize value-based instead of volume-based care.

Methodology: The methodology of this qualitative study was a literature review having used mixed methodologies. Five electronic databases and government websites were utilized, and one semi-structured interview with an expert in …