Publications

May 2015 (Revised May 2017)
Case

Colgate-Palmolive Company: Marketing Anti-Cavity Toothpaste

By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez

In October 2013, Colgate-Palmolive Company, the world's leading oral care company, was about to launch its new Colgate® Maximum Cavity Protection™ plus Sugar Acid Neutralizer™ toothpaste in Brazil. Oral care category accounted for 46 percent of Colgate's $17.4 billion... View Details

Keywords: New Product Management; Consumer Segmentation; Global Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility; Healthcare; Sustainability; Health Care and Treatment; Environmental Sustainability; Marketing; Segmentation; Product Development; Product Launch; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Product Positioning; Consumer Products Industry; Brazil; United States

April 2015
Case

Carolinas HealthCare System: Consumer Analytics

By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez

In 2014, Dr. Michael Dulin, chief clinical officer for analytics and outcomes research and head of the Dickson Advanced Analytics (DA2) group at Carolinas HealthCare System (CHS), successfully unified all analytics talent and resources into one group over a three year... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Segmentation; Big Data; Management Information Systems; Hospital Management; Health Care and Treatment; Marketing; Segmentation; Analytics and Data Science; Information Management; Information Technology; Health; Health Industry; United States

March 2015 (Revised January 2024)
Case

CV Ingenuity (A): How to Evaluate the Commercial Viability of New Health Care Technologies

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Andrew Otazo

Duke Rohlen (HBS MBA ’01) hoped to win over a prominent venture capital investor for Series B financing of his firm CVI that was creating a drug-eluting balloon (DES) to treat peripheral arterial disease. As a second-mover, Duke felt he was more likely to acquire... View Details

March 2015 (Revised February 2022)
Supplement

CV Ingenuity (B): Epilogue

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Andrew Otazo

Duke Rohlen used a lea-nfunding, iconoclastic strategy for his start up for a drug eluding balloon for peripheral artery disease. His giant competitors were first movers. Did Duke obtain the funding he sought? How did his DEB fare versus that of his competitors? The... View Details

March 2015
Case

Twine Health

By: Robert S. Huckman, Ariel D. Stern and Matthew G. Preble

In late 2014, Dr. John Moore (CEO), Frank Moss (chairman), and Scott Gilroy (CTO) of Twine Health (Twine) had to resolve several challenges that threatened to restrict the widespread dissemination of its sole product, Twine. Twine was a cloud-based platform that... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Chronic Disease; Technology Adoption; Digital Health; Health Acceleration Challenge; Strategy; Disease Management; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Health Industry; United States; Massachusetts

February 2015 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Intrapreneurship at DaVita HealthCare Partners

By: Joseph B. Fuller, David J. Collis and Matthew G. Preble

Josh Golomb, president and general manager of DaVita Rx (Rx), was about to meet with Kent Thiry, CEO of Rx's corporate parent, DaVita Healthcare Partners Inc. (DaVita), in August 2013. The two would discuss whether Golomb should lead a new DaVita venture, Paladina... View Details

Keywords: Intrapreneurship; Entrepreneurial Organizations; Startup Management; Startup; Strategic Positioning; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy; Business Startups; Strategic Planning; Competitive Strategy; Health Industry; United States

Article

Time-driven Activity-based Costing of Multivessel Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting across National Boundaries to Identify Improvement Opportunities: Study Protocol

By: F. Erhun, B. Mistry, T. Platcheck, A. Milstein, V.G. Narayanan and R. S. Kaplan

Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery is a common treatment for coronary artery disease—a disease that affects over 10% of US adults and is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. In 2005, the mean cost for a CABG procedure among Medicare beneficiaries in the... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; United States; India

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Article

How Not to Cut Health Care Costs

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Derek A. Haas

Health care providers in much of the world are trying to respond to the tremendous pressure to reduce costs—but evidence suggests that many of their attempts are counterproductive, raising costs and sometimes decreasing the quality of care. Using evidence from field... View Details

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September 2014 (Revised March 2016)
Case

Mayo Clinic: The 2020 Initiative

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Robert S. Huckman and Jenny Lesser

Describes the challenges facing Dr. John Noseworthy, President and CEO, in implementing a long-term strategy for the growth of the Mayo Clinic—a leading academic medical center with a reputation for excellence in tertiary and quaternary health care. The case highlights... View Details

Keywords: Health; Health Care Industry; Health Care Policy; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; United States

Article

Patterns of Failure after Involved Field Radiation Therapy for Pediatric and Young Adult Hodgkin Lymphoma

By: Minh-Phuong Huynh-Le, Amanda J. Walker, Scott Duke Kominers, Ido Paz-Priel, Moody D. Wharam and Stephanie A. Terezakis

Involved field radiation therapy (IFRT) is integral in curative therapy for Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), although primarily used in patients with intermediate/high‐risk HL. We present failure patterns and clinical outcomes in a cohort of pediatric and young adult patients... View Details

Keywords: Hematology/oncology; Hodgkin Lymphoma; Involved Field Radiation Therapy; Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment

June 2014 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Kathy Giusti and the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Joshua D. Margolis and Matthew G. Preble

What do you do when your rising professional career is cut short by an unexpected cancer diagnosis? Kathy Giusti shifted careers, built a new organization that transformed how cancer research is done, and now faces the challenge of sustaining the organization and its... View Details

Article

Better Accounting Transforms Health Care Delivery

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Mary L. Witkowski

The paper describes the theory and preliminary results for an action research program that explores the implications from better measurements of health care outcomes and costs. After summarizing Porter's outcome taxonomy (Porter 2010), we illustrate how to use process... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Research; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

June 2014
Article

Improving Value with TDABC

By: Robert S. Kaplan

The article discusses the benefits of time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) combined with outcomes measurement for healthcare organizations. Topics covered include improving resource efficiency, optimizing care over the complete care cycle, and planning and... View Details

Keywords: Goals and Objectives; Activity Based Costing and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

June 2014
Article

Informal Peer Interaction and Practice Type as Predictors of Physician Performance on Maintenance of Certification Examinations

By: Melissa A. Valentine, S. Barsade, Amy C. Edmondson, A. Gal and R. Rhodes

Context: Physicians can demonstrate mastery of the knowledge that supports continued clinical competence by passing a Maintenance of Certification exam. Exam performance depends on professional learning and development, which may be enhanced by informal routine... View Details

Keywords: Training; Health Care and Treatment; Performance; Social and Collaborative Networks; Learning; Health Industry

May 2014
Case

Health Care Accountability: Examples in Cancer Treatment

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Natalie Kindred

This case is designed to support a discussion of the importance of outcomes evidence in empowering the public to make better health care decisions, the desired level of transparency and accountability for health care providers, and the issues with current measuring and... View Details

Keywords: Accountability; Health Care; Cancer; Cancer Treatment; Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; Cancer Treatment Centers Of America; Vantage Oncology; Radiology; Risk Adjustment; Treatment Outcomes; Health Care Outcomes; Prostate Cancer; Transparency; Health Care and Treatment; Risk Management; Outcome or Result; Health Industry; United States

November 2013 (Revised November 2014)
Case

Infection Control at Massachusetts General Hospital

By: Robert S. Huckman and Nikolaos Trichakis

The case explores the challenges facing Massachusetts General Hospital concerning the adoption of a new infection control policy, which promises to improve operational performance, patient safety, and profitability. The new policy requires coordination between... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Integration; Health Care and Treatment; Policy; Health Industry; Boston

October 2013
Case

FasterCures: Removing Barriers to Treatments

By: Richard G. Hamermesh and James Weber

In mid-2013, as FasterCures celebrated its 10th anniversary as a center of the Milken Institute, Executive Director Margaret Anderson thought about what the organization should do to ensure it had even more impact in its next 10 years. FasterCures was a non-profit... View Details

October 2013
Article

The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care

By: Michael E. Porter and Thomas H. Lee

In health care, the days of business as usual are over. Around the world, every health care system is struggling with rising costs and uneven quality, despite the hard work of well-intentioned, well-trained clinicians. Health care leaders and policy makers have tried... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategy; Value; Customer Focus and Relationships; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

May 2013
Article

Health Care's Service Fanatics: How the Cleveland Clinic Leaped to the Top of the Patient-satisfaction Surveys

By: James Merlino and Ananth Raman

The Cleveland Clinic has long had a reputation for medical excellence. But in 2009 the CEO acknowledged that patients did not think much of their experience there, and he decided to act. Since then the Clinic has leaped to the top tier of patient-satisfaction surveys,... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Customer Satisfaction; Health Industry; Cleveland