"It's particularly important now because of the service problems they had last year, with the integration of United's and Continental's computer systems," Mr. Derchin said.
Several studies [ 17, 18] have shown that providing more health facilities since the 1990s has not increased service utilization, most likely because of service quality problems.
Most of the failures were because of "service provider network problems," the commission said — meaning that the phone companies that connect homes to the call center were not prepared with backup power generators or with adequate monitoring systems that would have alerted them to breakdowns.
Because so many of the calls dealt with network and service problems, a lot of the callers were already miffed before they even dialed.
The vehicle routing problem (VRP) is one of the most important combinational optimization problems that has nowadays received much attention because of its real application in industrial and service problems.
"Many Asian Americans tend to avoid the juvenile justice or legal system, mental health agencies, health services, and welfare agencies, because the utilization of services for certain problems is a tacit admission of the existence of these problems and may result in public knowledge of these familial difficulties," the report notes.
"If plans are taking people who don't know how to come in and use services, because of language problems or the location or just plain knowledge problems, it means you collect the capitation, and don't have to provide the service," said Diane Rowland, executive director of the Kaiser Family Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.
19 In Hong Kong, many caregivers fail to join caregiver support services because of logistical problems.
Professional help-seeking was ascertained by asking: "Have you during the past 12 months used any health services because of mental problems?".
One internal Global e-mail message from a customer service representative to a company vice president in March 2000 said the company was "losing customers left and right" because of "network problems" and "poor service".
