Publications

October 2009 (Revised November 2016)
Case

Generation Health: A Pioneer in Genetics Benefit Management (A)

By: Robert F. Higgins, Jeffrey D. Marrazzo and Rachel Gordon

Generation Health, a pioneer in the new field of genetics benefit management and a newly formed company, faces many strategic issues. CEO Per Lofberg is in the midst of negotiating a partnership with a major pharmacy benefit management company. As part of these... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Genetics; Health Industry; Health Industry

27 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 27

healthcare spending in 2015 and 2020, especially for expenditures on prescription drugs in nominal terms and as a percentage of overall health spending. The article concludes with a discussion of the political economy of View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2010 (Revised September 2010)
Case

athenahealth: Innovating in Response to a Crisis in Healthcare

When Jonathan Bush and his partner, Todd Park, realized that their revolutionary approach to delivering clinical care was being stymied by the inefficiencies in the healthcare system and insurance red tape, they turned their proprietary technology, athenaNet, to a new... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Information Management; Innovation and Invention; Brands and Branding; Product Development; Health Industry; United States

November 2007
Case

Antegren: A Beacon of Hope

By: Joshua D. Margolis, Thomas J. DeLong and Terence Heymann

The CEO of Biogen Idec faces a set of difficult decisions regarding a promising drug for Multiple Sclerosis that is headed for early approval by the FDA. The first in a series focuses on operational decisions triggered by the drive for early approval. Sparks discussion... View Details

Keywords: Demand and Consumers; Leadership; Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Decision Choices and Conditions; Crisis Management; Health Testing and Trials; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

January 2015 (Revised July 2019)
Case

CVS Health: Promoting Drug Adherence

By: Leslie John, John Quelch and Robert Huckman

Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.

The case describes a program that CVS Health recently implemented to improve medication adherence, an important problem from a societal, public policy, and firm... View Details

August 2010 (Revised March 2012)
Case

The UCLA Medical Center: Kidney Transplantation

By: Michael E. Porter, Jennifer F Baron, Jacob Mathew Chacko and Robin Jian Tang

In 2010, organ transplantation remained among the few sets of medical conditions in the U.S. for which bundled payments were a dominant reimbursement model, and for which patient health outcomes were universally measured and reported. In 1986, UCLA Medical Center was... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Health Disorders; Measurement and Metrics; Outcome or Result; Competitive Strategy; Integration; Health Industry; California

30 Jul 2013
First Look

First Look: July 30

Participation of Disability Insurance Applicants By: Shu, Pian Abstract—Using panel data from the RAND Health and Retirement Study, I show that rejected applicants for Social Security Disability View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

2021
Book

Management as a Calling: Leading Business, Serving Society

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Business leaders have tremendous power to influence our society, how it operates, whether it is fair, and the extent to which it impacts the environment. And yet, we do not recognize or call out the responsibility that comes with that power. This book is meant to... View Details

Keywords: Business Education; Power and Influence; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Leadership

December 2016
Article

Selective Regulator Decoupling and Organizations' Strategic Responses

By: Jonas Heese, Ranjani Krishnan and Frank Moers

Organizations often respond to institutional pressures by symbolically adopting policies and procedures but decoupling them from actual practice. Literature has examined why organizations decouple from regulatory pressures. In this study, we argue that decoupling... View Details

Keywords: Regulator Leniency; Beneficence; Mispricing; Upcoding; Nonprofit Organizations; Health Care and Treatment; Revenue; Health Industry

SSRN

Find at Harvard

15 Mar 2024
HBS Case

Let's Talk: Why It's Time to Stop Avoiding Taboo Topics at Work

place, discussing one’s next step (or departure) wouldn’t feel abrupt or discriminatory. Health Wing works with a company that saw almost a million dollars in unexpected health care costs last year because... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

30 May 2024
Research & Ideas

Racial Bias Might Be Infecting Patient Portals. Can AI Help?

system and the patients they care for.” The study’s analyses carefully accounted for the recipient practice of the messages and patient characteristics such as age, ZIP code of residence, health status, View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Health

18 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 18

https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/715411-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 715-423 Discovery Limited Discovery Limited is a South-African based insurance company. Started in the early 1990s, Discovery used behavioral economics... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Nov 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, November 21, 2017

others. Our results can help explain a variety of behavioral phenomena including the structure of social insurance programs, patterns of public good provision, and why transactions that turn money into time are often deemed repugnant.... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Jan 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, January 3, 2018

Sources of Inefficiency in Health Care By: Chandra, Amitabh, and Douglas O. Staiger Abstract—In medicine, the reasons for variation in treatment rates across hospitals serving similar patients are not well understood. Some interpret this... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2022
Case

The Battle Among Channels for Marketing Pharmaceuticals: UpScript, Pharmacy Benefit Managers, and Direct-to-Consumer Sales

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Tiffany Farrell

Can an online, direct-to-consumer pharmacy both improve the quality and speed of care for patients who need branded drugs and stabilize profits for pharmaceutical manufacturers? UpScript, after years spent achieving legal and regulatory compliance and simultaneous... View Details

Keywords: DTC; Internet and the Web; Marketing Channels; Customer Value and Value Chain; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Competitive Strategy; Service Delivery; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; Health Industry; Health Industry