Hessam Bavafa

Hessam Bavafa the Wisconsin School of Business Bascom Professor and Associate Professor of Operations and Information Management. He is an affiliate faculty of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He is also affiliated with the Center for Demography of Health and Aging. 

His recent projects, based on econometric analysis and stochastic models, have focused on innovative technologies and service delivery models (e.g., telemedicine), people-centric and behavioral factors that affect performance (e.g., fatigue), healthcare resource management (e.g., panel sizing), and quality management (e.g., pharmaceutical manufacturing). His research has been published in academic journals such as Management Science, Operations Research, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production & Operations Management, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Health Economics, and Annals of Family Medicine.  

He is currently serving as a Department Editor for Decision Sciences. He is also an Associate/Senior Editor for Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production & Operations Management, and Health Care Management Science. 

Professor Bavafa received his Ph.D. and master’s degrees in Operations Management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2014. He also holds a master’s degree in Operations Research from the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, and a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from the Sharif University of Technology. 

He has worked with leading healthcare organizations such as the University of Pennsylvania Health System, the Provincial Health Services Authority of British Columbia, Veterans Health Administration, University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, and British Columbia Children’s Hospital. He held a visiting position as Senior Innovation Strategist at the Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation. He is also a moderator for the Health & Wellness Stream of the Creative Destruction Lab, which is a nonprofit organization focused on scalable, seed-stage, science- and technology-based startups. 


Link to my CV
Link to my Google Scholar
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Research

Publications

The Distributional Impact of Fatigue on Performance, with J. Jónasson
Management Science (2024)


Gender and Serious Drug Recalls: A Textual Sentiment Analysis of Drug Reviews on WebMD, with G. Ball, C. Blanco, and H. Park
Production and Operations Management (conditionally accepted)


Inequality in the Golden Years: Wealth Gradients in Disability-Free and Work-Free Longevity in the United States, with A. Mukherjee and T.Q. Welch
Journal of Health Economics (2023)

  • Finalist: 2023 SCOR/EGRIE Young Economist Best Paper Award


Does What Happens in the ED Stay in the ED? The Effects of Emergency Department Physician Workload on Post-ED Care Use, with R. Batt and M. Soltani
Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (2022)

  • Winner: 2019/2020 POMS Best Paper Award Competition in Healthcare Operations Management
  • Finalist: 2022 POMS College of Behavior in Operations Management Junior Scholar Paper Competition


Capacity Rationing in Primary Care: Provider Availability and Care Channel Diversion, with A. Canamucio, S. Marcus, C. Terwiesch, and R. Werner
Management Science (2022)


Surgical Case-Mix and Discharge Decisions: Does Within-Hospital Coordination Matter?, with L. Örmeci, S. Savin, and V. Virudachalam
Operations Research (2022)


Customizing Primary Care Delivery Using E-Visits, with C. Terwiesch and S. Savin
Production and Operations Management (2021)


The Variance Learning Curve, with J. Jónasson
Management Science (2021)

  • Finalist: M&SOM Service Management SIG Best Paper Award (2021)


Recovering from Critical Incidents: Evidence from Paramedic Performance, with J. Jónasson
Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (2021) 


Managing Portfolio of Elective Surgical Procedures: A Multidimensional Inverse Newsvendor Problem, with L. Örmeci, C.M. Leys, and S. Savin
Operations Research (2019)


Managing Patient Panels with Non-Physician Providers, with C. Terwiesch and S. Savin
Production and Operations Management (2019)


Work after Work: The Impact of New Service Delivery Models on Work Hours, with C. Terwiesch
Journal of Operations Management (2019)


The Impact of E-Visits on Visit Frequencies and Patient Health: Evidence from Primary Care, with L. Hitt and C. Terwiesch
Management Science (2018)


Building Financial and Health Literacy at Older Ages: The Role of Online Information, with J. Liu and A. Mukherjee
Journal of Consumer Affairs (2019)


The Burgeoning Health Care Needs of Aging Prisoners, with A. Mukherjee
American Economic Association: Papers and Proceedings (2019)


Standardization vs Customization: Finding the Right Balance, with C.A. Sinsky, J.W. Beasley, and R.G. Roberts
Annals of Family Medicine (2021)


If You're Not Keeping Score, You're Just Practising: A Lean Healthcare Program Evaluation Framework, with M. Puterman, Y. Zhang, S. Aydede, B. Palmer, S. MacLeod, and J. MacKenzie
Healthcare Quarterly (2013)




Working Papers


Quality-Speed Trade-off in Pharmaceutical Review, with C. Blanco and I.J. Noh
Revise & Resubmit,  Management Science


Quality Improvement Spillovers: Evidence From the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, with R. Batt and M. Soltani
Revise & Resubmit,  Management Science


Beyond Fee-for-Service: How Comprehensive Contracts Can Transform Primary Care, with A.M. Özbek, E.D. Güneş, L. Örmeci
Revise & Resubmit, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management


Teaching

I have been teaching Business Analytics (GB 306) at the Wisconsin School of Business since 2014.  The goal of this course is to develop students’ quantitative intuition through practical data analysis. Specifically, the students learn how to produce summary statistics in both tabular and visual forms, the essentials of probability and decision-making under uncertainty, hypothesis testing, regression analysis, and simulation methods. Throughout the course, special attention is given to effectively writing and presenting data analysis.