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The aim of this paper is to explain how University Hospitals of Leicester's Nuclear Medicine service managers needed to reduce waiting times to comply with internal clinical requirements and with external local primary care trust (PCT) and national Department of Health targets.

The team undertook a comprehensive service review to identify problem areas and potential improvements, including: process mapping; data gathering (activity and demand, equipment and staff availability/utilisation); external practice reviews, searching evidence bases; and financial implications. This case study describes how an inter‐disciplinary team redesigned the service and used new working methods to reduce waiting times. Their aim was to discuss a service's practical elements and show how innovation leading to sustainable change can be implemented effectively.

The review highlighted service delivery bottlenecks for myocardial perfusion imaging, which were linked to medical staff shortages, staff use and equipment between hospital sites, and a silo approach to referrals rather than a coordinated organisation‐wide approach.

Introducing enhanced roles allowed nurses, radiographers and technologists to undertake work previously performed by medical staff thus removing a key service bottleneck. Modifications to service delivery and a cultural change in nuclear medicine resulted in a service that was more efficient, flexible and able to cope with increased demand.

These changes meant that minimum waiting‐time targets were achieved, in particular waiting for myocardial perfusion imaging (reduced from 42 weeks in 2005 to two weeks by 2009). Changes allowed service managers to maintain short waiting times in the current, challenging healthcare climate.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the effects of e‐government on service design as perceived by employees.

The study uses semi‐structured interviews with middle managers and front‐line employees, complemented by documentary analysis, to investigate how the introduction of e‐government has affected service design in two Swedish public‐sector organisations.

The analysis reveals five dimensions of change in the design of services as a result of the introduction of e‐government: service encounter and service process; customers as co‐creators and sole producers of services; efficiency; increased complexity; and integration. The study discusses the significance of these findings with particular examples from transcriptions of the interviews.

This study is rather limited and exploratory in nature; however, it does provide useful information on the categories of change in the redesign of services for e‐government and it does point the way to important avenues of future research in this field.

Four practical implications flow from the present research: managers should involve both employees and customers in projects and processes during the introduction of e‐government services; the services must be redesigned to ensure that the benefits of the information and communication technologies systems are fully realised; the introduction of e‐government might require more time being made available to assist certain customers who are in need of extra time and support from employees; and the time that is saved as a result of the introduction of e‐government must be profitably utilized by careful advance planning.

The study makes an original contribution by identifying five categories of change in the design of services in the context of the introduction of e‐government.

Many countries aim to improve public services by use of information and communication technology (ICT) in public service supply chains. However, the literature does not address how inter-organizational ICT is used in redesigning these particular supply chains. The purpose of this paper is to explore this important and under-investigated area.

An explorative multiple-case study was performed based on 36 interviews, 39 documents, extensive field visits and observations providing data on digital transformation in four European criminal justice supply chains.

Two different design approaches to digital transformation were found, which are labelled digitization and digitalization. These approaches are characterized by differences in public service strategies, performance aims, and how specific public characteristics and procedures are dealt with. Despite featuring different roles for ICT, both types show the viable digital transformation of public service supply chains. Additionally, the application of inter-organizational ICT is found not to automatically result in changes in the coordination and management of the chain, in contrast to common assumptions.

This paper is one of the first to adopt an inter-organizational perspective on the use of ICT in public service supply chains. The findings have scientific and managerial value because fine-grained insights are provided into how public service supply chains can use ICT in an inter-organizational setting. The study shows the dilemmas faced by and possible options for public organizations when designing digital service delivery.

This paper aims to demonstrate the approach taken in Norfolk, UK, to engage patients and staff to develop and improve services by stimulating improvements in integrated working. The two year programme focused on making specific improvements that patients said they wanted to see by working with staff who volunteered to take part in the programme.

The “Integrating Care in Norfolk” pilot (ICN) was one of 16 national pilots. GPs from 32 practices worked with local community staff to redesign services to meet “patient pledges”. The impact of changes on patients, staff and services were evaluated locally using questionnaires and by analysing data combined in a performance dashboard. The ICN was subject to both national and local evaluations, which provided a basis for comparison.

The local evaluation showed that progress had been made towards meeting objectives, including patients and staff satisfaction and reducing unplanned admissions. GPs recorded improvements to joint working, and all staff concerned chose to continue the project beyond the pilot period.

The findings of the local evaluation contrasted with those of the national evaluation. The Norfolk study demonstrated the positive impact of integrating care on patients, staff and services. The national study concluded that there were minimal or negative impacts of integrating care, although the study amalgamated all 16 pilots, with very different clients, services and objectives.

The ICN was novel in the way that patients and staff were engaged. Patients were invited to set an agenda for change, and provided a mandate to staff from each organisation to redesign their services. This approach may provide a solution to sustainable integrated working. The ICN was evaluated locally as well as nationally as part of the DH ICP programme, enabling respective findings to be compared and validated.

This chapter presents a novel visualisation tool, known as Flexible Integrated Transport Services (FITS) that transport commissioners, providers and administrators could employ to specify and edit the operating constraints as they redesign transport services.

The context of rural transport planning is discussed noting that where resources are fewer, effective co-ordination is required to provide passengers with efficient transport services. An overview of the FITS visualisation tool and its different sub-systems (e.g. general information regarding services, operating area, passenger eligibility, fare structure and surcharge structure) is given. Additionally, some key computational details of the system are discussed. Preliminary results of a sample case study that trialled the FITS tool in a specific test run, using simulated transport to health data in the Morayshire and North-West Aberdeenshire area of Scotland are presented. The concluding discussion considers the potential impact of employing tools like FITS in planning transport services in rural and low-demand settings.

Results from the case study show how these effects could be quantified in terms of changes in costs incurred by transport providers, the level of potential demand that could be covered and the associated revenues (fares and subsidies) which could be generated by providers.

The FITS visualisation tool has the potential to act as a planning tool to help transport commissioners, providers and administrators visualise the effects of shifting operating boundaries of flexible transport services.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss learning about service-user and carer involvement from an action research (AR) study into self-directed support implementation in one English mental health trust. The paper promotes appointing and supporting carers and people with experience as co-researchers to obtain authentic local perspectives when undertaking service implementation or redesign.

The researchers used an AR spiral method incorporating carers and people with mental health experience as co-researchers. The co-researchers worked alongside the lead researcher gathering data from focus groups, training sessions and other meetings over four years and attending collaborative steering group meetings alongside professional workers throughout the study.

The authors suggest that participation gave co-researchers a powerful and effective voice in this service redesign. This approach revealed more authentic research data and required professionals to be more accountable for their perceptions and to make explicit their understandings throughout the study, which enabled more effective working. Steering group participation was central to securing this participation.

The paper illustrates how carer and service-user co-researchers can be supported to benefit both mental health organisations undergoing change and to co-researchers themselves. It also identifies AR’s utility in uncovering learning as well as structuring change.

The study aims to provide an exploratory investigation of the magnitude of the customer-centric approach in the specific area of healthcare as a contribution to the scarce and preliminary literature on this topic. In particular, it explores the role of sharing economy-based (SE-based) platforms as an experiential touchpoint to co-create value within different levels. Specifically, the purpose of the study is threefold. First, it aims to address the service experience innovation in healthcare with a customer-centric approach. Second, it seeks to define the role of the SE-based platform as a touchpoint to redefine business processes, and third, it measures the co-created value within the network when redesigning the service experience.

To address the research question, the authors proposed an analysis of service innovation and customer centricity in healthcare networks by using the case study of Saluber, an SE-based platform that offers logistics services for non-emergency medical transportation in the Campania region (south of Italy). By using a qualitative approach, the authors analysed primary and secondary data from multiple sources of evidence.

The results show that a customer-centric approach based on the SE-based platform can improve the customer experience and help to redesign and expand the business processes of healthcare organisations. A multilevel model demonstrates the possible service innovations that use SE principles that can co-create value for the customer (micro level), for the healthcare network (meso level) and for the community (macro-level).

This study provides managerial implications for the players who intend to take advantage of the possibilities offered by service innovations developed by the health and social organisations in the network. The SE-based platform helps redefine business processes to improve clinical and financial outcomes and improves the overall customer experience within this network.

This study allows new and important reflections from ethical, social and managerial points of view and underlines how digital platforms act as a support for healthcare services, not as a substitute.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the value of information in consumer safety complaints for organizational learning.

Empirical analysis of this study uses a novel secondary data set, which is formed by combining complaints data filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for potential safety defects, and design change information from 2003 to 2011 model-year vehicles in the USA.

First, the paper demonstrates the value of information embedded in complaints. Second, in the case of radical product redesigns, owing to the lack of direct applicability of consumer feedback based learning, the impact of learning on product safety is found to be muted, third, the results suggest that the safety complaint rates vary by vehicle classes/categories and, fourth, the findings differ from prior research conclusions on vehicle quality. Prior research finds the debuting car models have the lowest repair rates among all car models produced in a given year, but the current study finds the debuting models to have the highest rates of safety complaints.

Quality management literature rarely examines the safety complaints data (which, unlike other consumer feedbacks, focuses exclusively on the safety hazards due to flaws that result in accidents). This paper fills the gap in literature by linking safety complaints with future product quality and organizational learning.

How can academic libraries unlock staff capacity for new initiatives as they transition their collections from print to digital? The following are four strategies for recapturing staff time as libraries adopt new formats while still supporting older ones at a smaller volume. First, librarians should employ strategic collection development that takes into consideration opportunities for efficiencies as they make the print to digital transition. Second, libraries should implement creative reorganizations in order to scale down print services and effectively manage new digital formats. Third, libraries should rightscale their infrastructure, that is, choose the appropriate level – local, consortial/regional, national, or global – where collection management activities should take place. Fourth, libraries, library software vendors, and publishers should develop purchasing and resource discovery infrastructures that harness shared data to enable network level electronic resource management.

Merging library traffic from dispersed service points into a combined services desk is not new, and many reasons prompt this move. George Mason University, Virginia’s largest public research institution, combined a total of 10 service desks located in four libraries on three distributed campuses. To consolidate services and reduce costs, the Mason Libraries established a “one-stop” service point in each library. With the goal of “one-stop” service point in each facility, the Mason Libraries recrafted physical spaces, reviewed policies, procedures, and workflows as well as revised staff roles and responsibilities.

This chapter explores why institutions embark on redesigning the traditional library service desk; discusses how changing service needs impact desk space; and addresses the effect on public services personnel. Observations are based on highlights from the evolution of George Mason University Libraries’ goal of a “one-stop” service point in each library to provide more efficient and consistent user-focused interactions and services.

As a manager of one of the facilities, the author provides insights on achieving a “one-stop” service point.

This chapter considers library staff needs, in concert with internal effort to not only refine user services influencing changes, but also revisit policies, procedures, and workflows to align staff roles and responsibilities. Mason Libraries is one of a few university library systems trying to implement single service points in all libraries.