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Purpose: This study investigates the role of telemedicine in sustaining healthcare systems in Europe, during the COVID-19 pandemic. It focusses on how telemedicine serves as a strategic response to modern healthcare challenges, emphasising its efficiency, accessibility, and patient-centred nature.

Need for the study: The need for this study arises from the escalating demands on healthcare systems, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to understand the adoption of telemedicine practices across European Union (EU) countries and their impact on healthcare sustainability.

Methodology: This study employs hierarchical and K-Means clustering to analyse EU citizens’ attitudes towards teleconsultations during COVID-19. Principal component analysis (PCA) is used for data compression and insight extraction. Data is sourced from Eurofound’s 2020 and 2021 surveys, involving extensive participant responses across the EU.

Findings: The study’s findings reveal significant shifts towards digital healthcare solutions, such as an increase in online consultations and prescriptions. It identifies different patterns of telemedicine use across EU countries, influenced by socioeconomic and geographical factors. These findings offer insights into future healthcare policy and strategy development.

Practical implications: The findings provide valuable insights into the shifts in telemedicine adoption in the EU, highlighting the significance of economic and sociological factors in healthcare trends. This study stresses the importance of customising healthcare strategies to suit the unique needs and digital capabilities of different countries.

Most UK ambulance services undertake remote assessments of 999 calls with nurses and paramedics to manage demand and reduce inappropriate hospital admissions. However, little is known about the differences in the types of cases managed by the two professions comparatively, their clinical outcomes, and the quality and safety they offer.

The retrospective descriptive study analysed data collected at Welsh Ambulance Services University NHS Trust (WAST) from prioritisation, triage, and audit tools between the 17th May 2022 to 8th November 2022. A total of 21,076 cases and 728 audits were included for review.

There was little difference in the type and frequency of the presenting complaints assessed, and clinical outcomes reached in percentage terms. Whilst paramedics had more highly compliant call audits and fewer non-compliant call audits, there was, again, little difference in percentage terms between the two, indicating positive levels of safety across the two professional groups.

There continues to be a substantial difference between UK paramedics to those in the Middle East, the United States, and some African nations, which may limit the applicability of findings. This study also looked at a six-month window from only one UK service using one type of prioritisation and triage tool. Future research could explore longer periods from multiple services using various tools. It is important to note that this study did not link outcome data with primary, secondary or tertiary care settings. Thus, it is impossible to determine if the level of care aligned closely with the final diagnosis.

The practical implications of this work include better workforce planning for agencies who have perhaps only employed one type of clinician or a reaffirmation to those who have employed both. The authors suggest that the training and education of both sets of clinicians could remain general in nature, with no overt requirement for specificity based on professional registration alone. Commissioners and stakeholders in the wider health economy should consider ensuring equitable access to alternative pathways for patients assessed by both nurses and paramedics.

It has been posited that UK nurses and paramedics are, by virtue of their consistency in education, skill set, licensure, and general experience, both able to achieve safe and effective remote outcomes in 999 settings. This study provides evidence to support that hypothesis. These results say more about the two professions' ability to work together rather than just the professions themselves. The multidisciplinary team approach is well-established in acute care settings, and is broadly considered to improve communication, coordination decision making, adherence to up-to-date treatment recommendations, and be positive for shared learning and development for younger colleagues.

Most UK services use a mix of nurses and paramedics; however, little is known about the differences in the types of cases managed by the two professions comparatively, their clinical outcomes, and the quality and safety they each offer. The most recent studies of this nature were published in 2003 and 2004 and looked only at low-acuity 999 calls when remote assessment was not even an established role for UK paramedics. This study updates the literature, identifies areas for future research, and applies to the international setting for the most part.

Since 1960s it has been realized that the bilateral trade at international level cannot be explained solely by the classical and neoclassical models of trade based on inter-industry trade. There is an existence of export and import within the same industry among the trading partners. Intra-industry trade (IIT) for products and product groups has been empirically observed by several studies. However, there is not much literature available on IIT in services. So also, from country perspective many studies are based on IIT for advanced countries. There is not much empirical evidence available for IIT among the emerging economies. The study aims to analyze the IIT in tourism services for five major emerging economies constituting BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The group constitutes 41% of world population with 24% of world GDP and 16% share in world trade. The study used both static and dynamic approaches to measure the IIT between India and other BRICS nations between 2018 and 2020. To empirically estimate the IIT, the study employs Grubel and Lloyd index and Brülhart index (MIIT). The study reveals that India had a very high level of intra-tourism trade with Brazil and South Africa. While with China and Russian Federation it was moderate. Results denote a correlation between the theory of international trade and tourism. There is two-way trade in BRICS tourism flows.

This study assesses whether the strategic orientation of financial institutions to provide value to customers influences the dimensions of personal data privacy perceived by consumers of banking services. We also analysed whether these dimensions directly influence the value in use and, indirectly, the reputation of financial institutions.

Based on the literature, a model was developed to verify the proposed relationships. To test the model, we collected data via an online questionnaire from 2,422 banking customers, with analysis using structural equation modelling with partial least squares estimation.

The results suggest that strategic value orientation tends to have a direct positive influence on the constructs knowledge, control, willingness to value privacy and trust in sharing personal information and a direct negative influence on the personal data privacy experience. Three dimensions of personal data privacy (knowledge, willingness to value privacy and trust in sharing personal information) tend to have a direct positive influence on value in use. The results showed that the dimensions of personal data privacy experience and control had a significant and negative impact on the value in use construct. Another finding is the positive influence of value in use on organizational reputation. Investing in strategic value orientation can generate consumer perceptions of personal data privacy, which is reflected in the value in use and reputation of banks.

This study is theoretically original because it brings up the organizational reputation of financial institutions based on the strategic orientation to offer value to customers, personal data privacy and the value in use of banking services. The study of these relationships is unprecedented in the literature.

Providing high-quality and cost-efficient care of older people is an important development priority for many health and social care systems in the world. This paper suggests a shift from acute, episodic and reactive hospital-centered care toward longitudinal, person-centered and proactive home-centered care. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the knowledge of a comprehensive development strategy for designing and providing home-centered care of older people.

The study design is based on qualitative research with an inductive approach. The authors study development initiatives at the national, regional and local levels of the Swedish health and social care system. The data collection methods included interviews (n = 54), meeting observations (n = 25) and document studies (n = 59).

The authors describe findings related to policy actions and system changes, attempts to achieve collaboration, integration and coordination, new forms of care offerings, characteristics of work settings at home and differences in patients' roles and participation at home and in the hospital.

The authors suggest home-centered care as a solution for providing person-centered and integrated care of older people and give examples of how this can be achieved.

The authors outline five propositions for research and development related to national policies, service modularity as a solution for customized and coordinated care, developing human resources and infrastructure for home settings, expanding services that enable older people living at home and patient co-creation.

As internet banking service marketing platforms continue to advance, customers exhibit distinct behaviors. Given the extensive array of options and minimal barriers to switching to competitors, the concept of customer churn behavior has emerged as a subject of considerable debate. This study aims to delineate the scope of feature optimization methods for elucidating customer churn behavior within the context of internet banking service marketing. To achieve this goal, the author aims to predict the attrition and migration of customers who use internet banking services using tree-based classifiers.

The author used various feature optimization methods in tree-based classifiers to predict customer churn behavior using transaction data from customers who use internet banking services. First, the authors conducted feature reduction to eliminate ineffective features and project the data set onto a lower-dimensional space. Next, the author used Recursive Feature Elimination with Cross-Validation (RFECV) to extract the most practical features. Then, the author applied feature importance to assign a score to each input feature. Following this, the author selected C5.0 Decision Tree, Random Forest, XGBoost, AdaBoost, CatBoost and LightGBM as the six tree-based classifier structures.

This study acclaimed that transaction data is a reliable resource for elucidating customer churn behavior within the context of internet banking service marketing. Experimental findings highlight the operational benefits and enhanced customer retention afforded by implementing feature optimization and leveraging a variety of tree-based classifiers. The results indicate the significance of feature reduction, feature selection and feature importance as the three feature optimization methods in comprehending customer churn prediction. This study demonstrated that feature optimization can improve this prediction by increasing the accuracy and precision of tree-based classifiers and decreasing their error rates.

This research aims to enhance the understanding of customer behavior on internet banking service platforms by predicting churn intentions. This study demonstrates how feature optimization methods influence customer churn prediction performance. This approach included feature reduction, feature selection and assessing feature importance to optimize transaction data analysis. Additionally, the author performed feature optimization within tree-based classifiers to improve performance. The novelty of this approach lies in combining feature optimization methods with tree-based classifiers to effectively capture and articulate customer churn experience in internet banking service marketing.

This study aims to measure the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure on divorce for a sample of developed countries for the period (2012-2021).

This paper uses fixed effect and generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation to delve into the impact of eight ICT infrastructure factors on divorce. The analyses are based on data collected from the World Bank Development Indicators.

The fixed effect analysis revealed that an increase in both fixed-telephone subscriptions and population covered by at least a 4G led to an increase in divorce. However, an increase in mobile cellular subscriptions and active mobile broadband subscriptions lead to a decrease in divorce. The results of the GMM estimator showed that fixed broadband internet prices, mobile broadband internet prices, the percentage of the population covered by the 4 G mobile network and fixed-telephone subscriptions had a substantial effect on divorce. While fixed broadband subscriptions, active mobile broadband subscriptions and mobile cellular basket were found to hinder divorce.

The findings of this study contribute to the existing literature by highlighting the impact of ICT on divorce in a sample of developed countries. Furthermore, it helps decision-makers and families to understand the causes of divorce related to ICT infrastructure in these societies, so they can understand this phenomenon and provide proactive policies.

This study used multiple factors to measure ICT infrastructure as well as the GMM estimator to delve into the impact of ICT on divorce.

The network capacity deployed to manage the busy hour (or peak-hour) traffic remains underused during the nonbusy (off-peak) hours. Transferring some traffic from peak-hour to off-peak hours is likely to improve the utilization of network resources during the off-peak hours. This paper aims to examine whether diverting traffic from peak-hour to off-peak hours is possible by adopting the differential pricing policy.

The peak-load pricing theory suggests that the policy of differential pricing is socially optimal when there is peak demand for a particular duration and then there is off-peak demand. In this study, hourly traffic data from both peak and off-peak periods were collected from the Indian telecom service provider, “Aircel.” The paper analyzed the disparity in traffic between peak and off-peak hours using the nonparametric Tukey’s test. An experiment was also conducted to analyze whether a significant shift in telecom traffic occurs from the peak to the off-peak period when a price discount is applied during the off-peak period.

Statistically significant differences were observed in network traffic between peak-hour and off-peak hours. The network utilization of the telecom service provider Aircel was notably lower, particularly during the off-peak hours. The experiment demonstrated a high degree of price sensitivity among telecom service subscribers. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has not considered network utilization of telecom service providers as a key performance indicator. Based on the outcomes of the study, this paper recommends that TRAI should adopt a more proactive approach by encouraging telecom service providers to follow the policy of differential pricing to enhance utilization of their network capacity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to explore the issue of pricing as a tool for bringing about more uniform movement of telecom traffic, thereby enhancing network utilization within India’s telecommunications sector.

While the proliferation of chatbots allows companies to connect with their customers in a cost- and time-efficient manner, it is not deniable that they quite often fail expectations and may even pose negative impacts on user experience. The purpose of the study is to empirically explore the negative user experience with chatbots and understand how users respond to service failure caused by chatbots.

This study adopts a qualitative research method and conducts thematic analysis of 23 interview transcripts.

It identifies common areas where chatbots fail user expectations and cause service failure. These include their inability to comprehend and provide information, over-enquiry of personal or sensitive information, fake humanity, poor integration with human agents, and their inability to solve complicated user queries. Negative emotions such as anger, frustration, betrayal and passive defeat were experienced by participants when they interacted with chatbots. We also reveal four coping strategies users employ following a chatbots-induced failure: expressive support seeking, active coping, acceptance and withdrawal.

Our study extends our current understanding of human-chatbot interactions and provides significant managerial implications. It highlights the importance for organizations to re-consider the role of their chatbots in user interactions and balance the use of human and chatbots in the service context, particularly in customer service interactions that involve resolving complex issues or handling non-routinized tasks.