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Patient questionnaires are popular tools for assessing and improving service quality, especially as administrators are increasingly expected to consider the patient's voice in their decision making. Despite web‐based questionnaire advantages, they have not been previously compared to telephone questionnaires for assessing quality. The purpose of this paper is to compare telephone questionnaire administration with a web‐based version.

Day surgery patients from a tertiary pediatric hospital completed a telephone interview and a web‐based questionnaire with identical questions. The appropriateness of the web version as a telephone version substitute was ascertained by comparing the number of changes in responses, non‐responses, differences in means, the number of non‐substantive responses and reliability.

The web‐based questionnaire tended towards more negative responses. The mean number of missing responses did not differ between versions, although the web‐questionnaire had more “not sure” responses. Inter‐rater reliability was acceptable.

Parents without internet access were unable to participate.

The web‐based questionnaire is a good substitute for telephone‐administered questionnaires.

The paper shows that parents were able to rate items more candidly owing to the increase in privacy and lack of interviewer bias, which is crucial for improving health service quality.

Despite being a widely used management technique, cumulative sum (CUSUM) analysis remains almost unheard of in professional sport. To address this, CUSUM analysis of soccer match data from the English Premier League (EPL) was performed. The primary objective of the study was to evaluate CUSUM as a tool for assessing “on-field” team performance. As a secondary objective, the association between managerial change and team performance was evaluated.

CUSUM was applied retrospectively to goal difference data for six EPL teams (Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham) over 23 consecutive seasons from 1995 to 2018. This was supplemented with change point analysis to identify structural changes in mean goal difference. Succession was evaluated by mapping historical managerial changes onto the CUSUM plots for the respective clubs.

CUSUM analysis revealed the presence of structural changes in four clubs. Two structural change points were identified for both Chelsea and Everton, one for Manchester United and Tottenham and none for Arsenal and Liverpool. Relatively few managerial changes coincided temporally with structural changes in “on-field” performance, with most appointments having minimal impact on long-term team performance. Other factors (e.g. changes in ownership) appear to have been influential.

The study was limited by the fact that only successful teams were investigated.

CUSUM analysis appears to have potential as a tool for executive decision-makers to evaluate performance outcomes in professional soccer.

The study is the first of its kind to use CUSUM analysis to evaluate team performance in professional soccer.