IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orinte/v38y2008i4p324-337.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Integrating Excel, Access, and Visual Basic to Deploy Performance Measurement and Evaluation at the American Red Cross

Author

Listed:
  • Kalyan S. Pasupathy

    (Department of Health Management and Informatics, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211)

  • Alexandra Medina-Borja

    (Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico 00681)

Abstract

The American Red Cross (ARC) is one of the world's largest nonprofit social service organizations. ARC has a network of approximately 1,000 chapters in the United States and its territories; each is responsible for a specific geographic jurisdiction in which ARC provides an array of social services. ARC is under pressure to demonstrate to the public how it is responsible and accountable for the resources it uses to deliver these services and the outcomes it achieves. Its decision makers are challenged to make accurate decisions to improve resource utilization and service-delivery processes. We designed and developed a system that uses data envelopment analysis to make resource-allocation recommendations that help ARC managers evaluate the performance of chapters at various levels. We used Microsoft Excel for the model formulation and reporting. This paper describes its use, in conjunction with Premium Solver, Visual Basic for Applications, and Microsoft Access, to formulate 4,000 linear-programming models. The system performs the analysis and uses Excel to display the results visually. We also discuss the benefits to ARC, lessons learned, and potential future improvements.

Suggested Citation

  • Kalyan S. Pasupathy & Alexandra Medina-Borja, 2008. "Integrating Excel, Access, and Visual Basic to Deploy Performance Measurement and Evaluation at the American Red Cross," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 38(4), pages 324-337, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:38:y:2008:i:4:p:324-337
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.1080.0366
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.1080.0366
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/inte.1080.0366?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. R. D. Banker & A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper, 1984. "Some Models for Estimating Technical and Scale Inefficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(9), pages 1078-1092, September.
    2. Boussofiane, A. & Dyson, R. G. & Thanassoulis, E., 1991. "Applied data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 1-15, May.
    3. Chalos, Peter & Cherian, Joseph, 1995. "An application of data envelopment analysis to public sector performance measurement and accountability," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 143-160.
    4. Kris Siddharthan & Melissa Ahern & Robert Rosenman, 2000. "Data Envelopment Analysis to determine efficiencies of health maintenance organizations," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 23-29, January.
    5. Paradi, Joseph C. & Schaffnit, Claire, 2004. "Commercial branch performance evaluation and results communication in a Canadian bank--a DEA application," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(3), pages 719-735, August.
    6. A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper & E. Rhodes, 1981. "Evaluating Program and Managerial Efficiency: An Application of Data Envelopment Analysis to Program Follow Through," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(6), pages 668-697, June.
    7. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    8. A Medina-Borja & K S Pasupathy & K Triantis, 2007. "Large-scale data envelopment analysis (DEA) implementation: a strategic performance management approach," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 58(8), pages 1084-1098, August.
    9. Yasar Ozcan, 1998. "Physician benchmarking: measuring variation in practice behavior in treatment of otitis media," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 5-17, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mauro Falasca & Christopher Zobel & Cliff Ragsdale, 2011. "Helping a Small Development Organization Manage Volunteers More Efficiently," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 41(3), pages 254-262, June.
    2. Bruno P. Bruck & Filippo Castegini & Jean-François Cordeau & Manuel Iori & Tommaso Poncemi & Dario Vezzali, 2020. "A Decision Support System for Attended Home Services," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 50(2), pages 137-152, March.
    3. Michael F. Gorman, 2016. "From Magnum Opus to Mea Culpa: A Cautionary Tale of Lessons Learned from a Failed Decision Support System," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 46(2), pages 183-195, April.
    4. Özdamar, Linet & Ertem, Mustafa Alp, 2015. "Models, solutions and enabling technologies in humanitarian logistics," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 244(1), pages 55-65.
    5. Alexandra Medina-Borja & Konstantinos Triantis, 2014. "Modeling social services performance: a four-stage DEA approach to evaluate fundraising efficiency, capacity building, service quality, and effectiveness in the nonprofit sector," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 221(1), pages 285-307, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. A Medina-Borja & K S Pasupathy & K Triantis, 2007. "Large-scale data envelopment analysis (DEA) implementation: a strategic performance management approach," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 58(8), pages 1084-1098, August.
    2. Reuben Elan & Verma Bharat Bhushan & Bhat Ramesh, 2001. "Hospital Efficiency: An Empirical Analysis of District and Grant-in-Aid Hospitals in Gujarat," IIMA Working Papers WP2001-07-05, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    3. Andrew Worthington, 2001. "An Empirical Survey of Frontier Efficiency Measurement Techniques in Education," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 245-268.
    4. Soteriou, Andreas C. & Zenios, Stavros A., 1999. "Using data envelopment analysis for costing bank products," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 234-248, April.
    5. Avkiran, Necmi K., 2001. "Investigating technical and scale efficiencies of Australian Universities through data envelopment analysis," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 57-80, March.
    6. Le, Minh Hanh & Afsharian, Mohsen & Ahn, Heinz, 2021. "Inverse Frontier-based Benchmarking for Investigating the Efficiency and Achieving the Targets in the Vietnamese Education System," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    7. Emmanuel Thanassoulis & Maria Da Conceicao & A. Silva Portela, 2002. "School Outcomes: Sharing the Responsibility Between Pupil and School1," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 183-207.
    8. Verspagen, Bart & Werker, Claudia, 2003. "The Invisible College of The Economics of Innovation and Technological Change," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 21, pages 393-419, December.
    9. Giokas, Dimitris I., 2008. "Assessing the efficiency in operations of a large Greek bank branch network adopting different economic behaviors," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 559-574, May.
    10. Changhee Kim & Hyun Jung Kim, 2019. "A study on healthcare supply chain management efficiency: using bootstrap data envelopment analysis," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 534-548, September.
    11. Topcu, Taylan G. & Triantis, Konstantinos & Roets, Bart, 2019. "Estimation of the workload boundary in socio-technical infrastructure management systems: The case of Belgian railroads," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 278(1), pages 314-329.
    12. Eskelinen, Juha & Halme, Merja & Kallio, Markku, 2014. "Bank branch sales evaluation using extended value efficiency analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 232(3), pages 654-663.
    13. Lampe, Hannes W. & Hilgers, Dennis, 2015. "Trajectories of efficiency measurement: A bibliometric analysis of DEA and SFA," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 240(1), pages 1-21.
    14. Silva Portela, Maria Conceicao A. & Thanassoulis, Emmanuel, 2001. "Decomposing school and school-type efficiency," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 357-373, July.
    15. Dyson, R. G. & Allen, R. & Camanho, A. S. & Podinovski, V. V. & Sarrico, C. S. & Shale, E. A., 2001. "Pitfalls and protocols in DEA," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 245-259, July.
    16. Magdalena Kapelko & Alfons Oude Lansink, 2020. "Dynamic Cost Inefficiency of the European Union Meat Processing Firms," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(3), pages 760-777, September.
    17. Franz R. Hahn, 2007. "Determinants of Bank Efficiency in Europe. Assessing Bank Performance Across Markets," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 31499, April.
    18. Sebastian Kohl & Jan Schoenfelder & Andreas Fügener & Jens O. Brunner, 2019. "The use of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in healthcare with a focus on hospitals," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 245-286, June.
    19. Büschken, Joachim, 2009. "When does data envelopment analysis outperform a naïve efficiency measurement model?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 192(2), pages 647-657, January.
    20. Suhyeon Han & Shinyoung Park & Sejin An & Wonjun Choi & Mina Lee, 2023. "Research on Analyzing the Efficiency of R&D Projects for Climate Change Response Using DEA–Malmquist," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-23, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:38:y:2008:i:4:p:324-337. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.