We explore how reliance on part-time medical staff affects operational and medical outcome performance in two general surgery departments Whereas prior research has indicated that operational performance is positively associated with medical performance, we find that heavier reliance on part-time practice may deteriorate operational performance but not necessarily medical-outcome performance. For so-called "complex" patients, reliance on part-time practice may even override the effect of patients' characteristics on medical-outcome performance. This result calls into question common perceptions in behavior marketing literature regarding part-time employees' working patterns and efficiency, and thereby provides a new perspective regarding current labor-market trends.
Keywords: Data envelopment analysis; medical performance measures; operational performance measures; operations management; part-time practice.