Publications

05 Jun 2006
Research & Ideas

Using Competition to Reform Healthcare

consumer. The system needs to be redesigned so that each participant is motivated to increase value, measured by health outcomes per dollar expended. This excerpt discusses how healthcare providers can shift... View Details

Keywords: by Michael E. Porter; Health

January 27, 2010
Article

Leadership with a Small 'l'

By: Richard Bohmer

What exactly do we mean by leadership in health care? Does it mean to take formal positions in senior leadership teams in hospitals, trusts, health boards, ministries of health, and professional societies-what might be termed leadership with a big "L?" Or does it mean... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Leadership; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Organizational Culture; Outcome or Result; Performance Effectiveness; Health Industry

29 Sep 2015
First Look

September 29, 2015

Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=49708 Published first online September 16, 2015 Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association Incorporating Longitudinal Pediatric Patient-centered Outcome... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

13 Aug 2024
Op-Ed

Can AI Save Physicians from Burnout?

use, including updating the associated incentive mechanisms. For example, European countries, particularly the United Kingdom's National Health Service, have gradually adopted bundled payments to prioritize patient View Details

Keywords: by Susanna Gallani, Lidia Moura, and Katie Sonnefeldt; Health

2023
Working Paper

Are Hospital Quality Indicators Causal?

By: Amitabh Chandra, Maurice Dalton and Douglas O. Staiger

Hospitals play a key role in patient outcomes and spending, but efforts to improve their quality are hindered because we do not know whether hospital quality indicators are causal or biased. We evaluate the validity of commonly used quality indicators, such as... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Health Care and Treatment; Measurement and Metrics; Outcome or Result; Health Industry

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February 2024
Article

An Economic Framework for Vaccine Prioritization

By: Mohammad Akbarpour, Eric Budish, Piotr Dworczak and Scott Duke Kominers

We propose an economic framework for determining the optimal allocation of a scarce supply of vaccines that become gradually available during a public health crisis, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Agents differ in observable and unobservable characteristics, and the... View Details

Keywords: Vaccine; Fairness; Public Finance; Public Goods; Allocation Problems; Allocative Efficiency; Allocation Rules; Social Welfare; Pandemics; Inequality; COVID-19; COVID-19 Pandemic; Public Sector; Resource Allocation; Market Design; Marketplace Matching; Public Administration Industry

SSRN

September 21, 2013
Other Article

Redefining Global Health-care Delivery

By: Jim Yong Kim, Paul E. Farmer and Michael E. Porter

Initiatives to address the unmet needs of those facing both poverty and serious illness have expanded significantly over the past decade. But many of them are designed in an ad-hoc manner to address one health problem among many; they are too rarely assessed; best... View Details

Keywords: Health

15 Nov 2019
HBS Seminar

Ashley Nunes (Senior Research Associate, Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School), Harvard Law School

Article

Achieving Value in Highly Complex Acute Care: Lessons from the Delivery of Extra Corporeal Life Support

By: Michael Nurok, Jonathan Warsh, Erik Dong, Jeffrey Lopez, Mayumi Kharabi and Robert S. Kaplan

We applied a value (outcomes and cost) analysis to extracorporeal life support (ECLS), a relatively rare but very expensive ICU therapy with highly variable outcomes. To address the outcome component of the value approach, we created guidelines for ECLS delivery; to... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Cost Management; Value; Analysis

June 2020
Article

How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections

By: Maria Ibanez and Michael W. Toffel

Accuracy and consistency are critical for inspections to be an effective, fair, and useful tool for assessing risks, quality, and suppliers—and for making decisions based on those assessments. We examine how inspector schedules could introduce bias that erodes... View Details

Keywords: Assessment; Bias; Inspection; Scheduling; Econometric Analysis; Empirical Research; Regulation; Health; Food; Safety; Quality; Performance Consistency; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

April 2009
Case

Performance Management at Intermountain Healthcare

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer and Alexander Romney

Intermountain Healthcare is a 21-hospital integrated delivery system serving Utah and southern Idaho that is nationally recognized for its highly structured approach to managing the quality of clinical care. This case describes Intermountain's system for improving... View Details

Keywords: Financial Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Standards; Service Delivery; Outcome or Result; Motivation and Incentives; Health Industry; Idaho; Utah

Educators

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October 2010
Case

The Cleveland Clinic: Improving the Patient Experience (Abridged)

By: Ananth Raman, Anita L. Tucker and Rachel Gordon

Healthcare has traditionally focused on medical outcomes and financial performance. The big question is always, "How much is it going to cost?" What would happen though if healthcare also considered question of "How does the patient feel?" This case looks at the... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Ethics; Health Care and Treatment; Six Sigma; Performance Improvement; Safety; Value Creation

Educators

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16 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 16, 2019

including patients, physicians, employers, insurance companies, and the government need to recognize that value is best defined as “a given health outcome per dollar of cost expended.” In this article, we... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

2025
Working Paper

Crossing the Design-Use Divide: How Process Manipulation Shapes the Design and Use of AI

By: Rebecca Karp

Existing literature often separates research on the design of innovations from their implementation and use, neglecting the role of selection—how organizations choose which innovations to implement. Although scholars suggest scientific approaches for selecting novel... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Technology Adoption; Groups and Teams; Prejudice and Bias

August 21, 2018
Article

Patient–Physician Gender Concordance and Increased Mortality Among Female Heart Attack Patients

By: Brad Greenwood, Seth Carnahan and Laura Huang

We examine patient gender disparities in survival rates following acute myocardial infarctions (i.e., heart attacks) based on the gender of the treating physician. Using a census of heart attack patients admitted to Florida hospitals between 1991 and 2010, we find... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; Gender; Outcome or Result

April 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Supplement

Supply Chain Partners: Virginia Mason and Owens & Minor (B)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem

The epilogue to Supply Chain Partners: Virginia Mason and Owens & Minor (A), the B case details the outcome of the issues discussed in Case A; namely that Virginia Mason and Owens & Minor did implement the TSCC contract. Virginia Mason also kept the suture contract... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Supply Chain Management; Partners and Partnerships; Measurement and Metrics; Contracts; Health Industry; Health Industry