At the root of the transformation occurring in the health care industry—both in the United States and internationally—is the fundamental challenge of improving clinical outcomes while controlling costs. Addressing this challenge will require dramatic improvements in the processes by which care is delivered to patients. This, in turn, will involve novel technologies, fundamentally different approaches to care delivery, a rethinking of incentives, and new roles for individuals and organizations throughout the health care sector. This course will equip students with strategies and tools to help navigate the ever-changing landscape of the health care industry.

Career Focus

This course is appropriate for students interested in understanding the fundamental improvement challenges facing the health care sector and developing strategies for addressing them. Students may have career interests in organizations that provide health care (e.g., hospitals, medical groups, retail clinics) or in firms that partner with, supply, consult to, or invest in such organizations (e.g., payers, biopharmaceutical and device companies, health information technology, venture capital and private equity).

Educational Objectives

This course will help students develop the managerial skills required to identify and implement transformational change. It will draw upon a range of approaches for improving value in health care delivery, including continuous improvement, organizational redesign, population health management, precision medicine, patient engagement, digital health, payment reform, and the creation of appropriate incentives for value delivery and innovation. For each of these approaches, the course will emphasize the importance of identifying improvement opportunities, implementing relevant changes, and measuring their effects on performance.

Course Faculty

The course will be co-taught by Susanna Gallani and Robert Huckman.

Susanna Gallani is the Tai Family Associate Professor of Business Administration. Her research focuses on performance management systems in health care organizations and how these systems operate to align behaviors, measure, and reward performance. Themes that are central to her interests include the role that performance management systems play in improving health care value, enhancing health equity, and reducing workplace burnout.

Robert Huckman is Albert J. Weatherhead III Professor of Business Administration, the Howard Cox Faculty Chair of the HBS Health Care Initiative, and the Unit Head for Technology and Operations Management. He studies topics related to performance improvement, digital innovation, and consumer engagement in health care. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and serves as an advisor to several private health care companies.

Course Format and Grading

Transforming Health Care Delivery is composed of two half-courses: (1) a case-based course in Q3 and (2) a field course built around strategic projects with local Boston-area hospitals in Q4. The Q3 course is a prerequisite for the Q4 course. For additional information about the Q3 course, please see the description for 2195—Transforming Health Care Delivery.

Students will work in teams of 4-5 students on a field project with a local health care organization in the Boston area. Projects will be sourced by the faculty. Students will be assigned to projects based on preferences they submit early in the semester. Students will prepare a brief write-up summarizing their key learnings and reflections from the field project. Teams will present their projects at the end of the semester to their classmates and representatives of the sponsoring organizations. Evaluations will be based on the write-up, presentation, and participation during other teams’ presentations.

The Q4 course will meet for occasional check-ins during designated class time; for the most part, the course’s scheduled class time can thus be used at the team’s discretion for meetings or interviews with project sponsors. A required project poster session will be scheduled during one class session in the middle of Q4. In this session, teams will exchange feedback on outlines of their projects. The final 2-3 scheduled class sessions of the term will be required and reserved for team presentations.

Copyright © 2024 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.