DDBA 8560 Week 3 Management Evidence Memo Example

Course	DDBA 8560 Seminar in Healthcare Managerial Decision Making
Week	Week 3
Paper type	Evidence memo
Length	About 570 words, 4 pages
Format	Memo, APA 7 citations
School	Walden University
Program	Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)
Updated	October 2026

Free sample paper for DDBA 8560 Week 3

Memorandum

To: DDBA 8560 seminar

From: Doctoral student

Date: October 5, 2026

Re: Evidence on centralizing appointment scheduling for twelve specialty clinics

The Decision

The decision is whether Lakeview Specialty Group, a composite multi-specialty practice with twelve clinics and about 140 physicians in suburban Indianapolis, should take booking away from the twelve clinic reception desks and give it to one central team.

What this page is doingThe memo states in one sentence the decision the evidence is meant to inform, so every row can be judged for relevance.

The Evidence, Sorted by Origin

Barends et al. (2014) described four sources of evidence for management decisions: scientific research, organizational data, the judgment of experienced practitioners and the values and concerns of stakeholders affected. The table sorts what is known by those four origins.

[after]

Table 1

Evidence on Centralized Scheduling by Origin

Origin	Claim	Setting	Resemblance to Lakeview \|
Published research	Central units can shorten call answer times and standardize booking rules	Mostly large academic and integrated systems	Moderate; larger and more centralized than Lakeview \|
Organizational data	Lakeview's clinics abandon 14 percent of calls; booking errors cause 6 percent of reschedules	Lakeview, 2025	Direct \|
Practitioner judgment	Clinic managers say front desk staff know which physicians accept which visit types	Lakeview manager interviews	Direct, but from those whose roles would change \|
Stakeholder concerns	Patients in a survey valued reaching a person who knew their clinic	Lakeview patient survey, 2025	Direct \|

How Current the Evidence Must Be

The memo excludes published evidence on patient scheduling preferences from before 2020. The reason is specific to Lakeview: in 2020 the group introduced online self-scheduling, and about 38 percent of appointments are now booked online. Studies of scheduling before widespread self-scheduling describe a different task, in which nearly every booking went through a person. Research on call handling and booking accuracy has no such break and is kept regardless of date.

What this page is doingThe memo argues its age limit from a change in the practice, not from convenience.

The Hierarchy Question

Rousseau (2006) argued that managers, like physicians, should base decisions on the best available evidence, and Walshe and Rundall (2001) argued that health care managers could learn from evidence-based medicine but noted that management research differs in method, with fewer controlled studies and more context-dependent findings. Learmonth and Harding (2006) criticized evidence-based management for importing medicine's hierarchy, which ranks randomized trials above other designs, into a field where the questions are often about values, power and local context that such designs cannot address.

For this decision, I side with the critics, with reservations. No trial could tell Lakeview whether its patients prefer reaching a person who knows their clinic, and the organizational data and stakeholder evidence carry more weight here than published research from very different settings. The reservation is that rejecting the hierarchy entirely would leave the decision open to whichever claim is voiced most loudly; the published research still sets a useful expectation about call handling.

What the Evidence Does Not Settle

None of the four origins tells Lakeview how physicians would respond to losing control of their own templates, a concern two clinic managers raised. That question needs a pilot in one or two clinics before any group-wide change.

What the Evidence Supports

The evidence supports a central unit for call answering and routine bookings, where Lakeview's abandoned calls are the clearest problem, but not a full transfer of complex bookings, where clinic knowledge matters.

Limits

The patient survey had a 22 percent response rate, and clinic managers have a stake in the outcome.

References

Barends, E., Rousseau, D. M., & Briner, R. B. (2014). Evidence-based management: The basic principles. Center for Evidence-Based Management.

Learmonth, M., & Harding, N. (2006). Evidence-based management: The very idea. Public Administration, 84(2), 245-266. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2006.00001.x

Rousseau, D. M. (2006). Is there such a thing as "evidence-based management"? Academy of Management Review, 31(2), 256-269. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2006.20208679

Walshe, K., & Rundall, T. G. (2001). Evidence-based management: From theory to practice in health care. Milbank Quarterly, 79(3), 429-457. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.00214

DDBA 8560 Week 3 instructions, in plain terms

Week 3 asks for a memo sorting the evidence relevant to one management decision. State the decision in one sentence. Build a table placing each claim under its origin, with its setting and how closely that setting resembles yours. Set a currency limit for sources and argue it from a change in your organization's practice rather than from convenience. Engage the debate over evidence hierarchies, presenting both proponents and critics, and take a side with stated reservations. Close by naming the conclusions your sources justify, the questions they leave unanswered and their weaknesses. Write to the seminar, not to an executive; the audience expects argument about evidence, not a briefing.

How this DDBA 8560 Week 3 example is built

The sample's table has four rows: published studies from larger academic and integrated systems, Lakeview's call abandonment and booking error data, clinic managers' judgment about which physicians accept which visits and a patient survey valuing contact with someone who knows the clinic. The currency section excludes pre-2020 preference studies because online self-scheduling changed the task, while keeping older call-handling research. The hierarchy section sets the proponents against the critics and sides with the latter for this decision. The memo supports central call answering but not full transfer of complex bookings, and recommends a pilot. Limits note the patient survey's 22 percent response rate and the stake clinic managers hold in the outcome, both of which temper the conclusions.

DDBA 8560 Week 3 rubric: what earns full marks

Most marks sit on judgment, not retrieval. A memo listing relevant studies with a summary under each has gathered evidence without weighing it. The hierarchy section earns marks by engaging the disagreement; citing only one side leaves the argument incomplete. The currency rule earns points only when tied to something that changed in practice, since a cutoff chosen for convenience looks arbitrary. Resemblance between each source's setting and yours should be assessed explicitly. Separating the conclusions the sources can bear from the questions still unanswered signals a memo ready to guide a choice. Describing each source's setting and its resemblance to your organization earns credit, since relevance is a judgment, not a given.

Common DDBA 8560 Week 3 mistakes, and how to avoid them

Start with your organization's own data, since it is often the most relevant evidence and the easiest to overlook. Then look for published research and note where it was done. Interview two or three experienced staff and survey those affected if you can. Sort everything by origin before drawing conclusions. For a currency limit, ask when the task itself changed. Read both a proponent and a critic of evidence-based management before taking a side. Be honest about who has a stake in the outcome, including the people you interviewed. Organizational data counts as evidence at the doctoral level if you explain how it was gathered and what it can show.

Get a DDBA 8560 Week 3 example written to your instructions

Tell the desk the decision your evidence has to serve and pass along the rubric with the Week 3 prompt; a sorted, dated memo comes back inside 24 to 48 hours, and the first one costs nothing. Any internal report you mention is treated as a category of source and never quoted.

More DDBA 8560 papers and DBA samples

DDBA 8560 Week 3 questions, answered

Where can I find a free DDBA 8560 Week 3 sample paper?

You can read Lakeview's complete scheduling memo, origin table and all, without paying anything.

What decision does the DDBA 8560 Week 3 memo inform?

Whether a twelve-clinic specialty group should move scheduling from front desks to a central unit.

What are the four origins of evidence?

Scientific research, organizational data, practitioner judgment and the concerns of affected stakeholders.

Why exclude preference studies before 2020?

Online self-scheduling, now 38 percent of bookings, changed the scheduling task that year.

Which side does the memo take on the hierarchy?

The critics', with the reservation that published research still sets useful expectations.