Publications

06 Sep 2019
Blog Post

The Business of Medicine: MD/MBA Students Having an Impact

These Harvard Medical School (HMS) students are already making a difference in the health care community. Now, they are at HBS fine-tuning their leadership skills in preparation of receiving their MD/MBA. Each year, MD/MBA applicants... View Details

22 Dec 2008
Research & Ideas

10 Reasons to Design a Better Corporate Culture

behaviors that other employees embrace. Others accomplish the same objective more positively. At Baptist Health Care, for example, managers constantly reinforce the culture by recognizing those whose actions exemplify its values, its... View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser & Joe Wheeler

May 2025
Case

Dell Med: Transforming Care Delivery & Payment

By: Robert S. Kaplan, David N. Bernstein and Mary L. Witkowski

Health care in the U.S. and globally continues to undergo massive transformation, surging towards a system that rewards value for patients. However, widespread adoption of value-based health care remains a challenge. This case study focuses on the care delivery... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Practice Units; Outcomes Measurement; Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Health Care and Treatment; Business Strategy; Leading Change; Decisions; Transformation; Service Delivery; Adoption; Value; Health Industry; United States; Texas

August 2021
Case

Livongo: Scaling a Purpose-Driven Organization in Healthcare

By: Ranjay Gulati, Aseem Shukla and Reva Nohria

When seasoned entrepreneur Glen Tullman founded the chronic health care startup Livongo in 2014, it was personal. His son lived with diabetes, and Tullman knew firsthand how taxing it could be to manage such an unrelenting disease. Livongo set out to empower people... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare Industry; Scaling; Telehealth; Health Care and Treatment; Small Business; Internet and the Web; Customer Focus and Relationships; Growth and Development Strategy; Opportunities; Mergers and Acquisitions; Health Industry

17 Aug 2021
Research & Ideas

Can Autonomous Vehicles Drive with Common Sense?

Julian De Freitas. “We expect that they will make roads truly much safer.” In fact, De Freitas and colleagues recently argued in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that adopting driverless vehicles on a broad scale could improve global View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Auto

Profile

Luc Sirois

The health care industry needs so much improvement, it will take a whole movement to fix it. “The more leaders, the better,” says Luc Sirois (MBA 1997), who sees progress coming not through a single organization, but rather from groups of... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care; Health Care

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

2013
Working Paper

Increased Speed Equals Increased Wait: The Impact of a Reduction in Emergency Department Ultrasound Order Processing Time

By: Jillian Berry Jaeker, Anita L. Tucker and Michael H. Lee

We exploit an exogenous process change at two emergency departments (EDs) within a health system to test the theory that increasing capacity in a discretionary work setting increases wait times due to additional services being provided to customers as a consequence of... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Demand and Consumers; Service Delivery; Health Care and Treatment; Business Processes; Health Industry

Read Now

April 2009 (Revised May 2010)
Case

Partners In Health: HIV Care in Rwanda

By: Michael E. Porter, Scott S. Lee, Joseph Rhatigan and Jim Yong Kim

In 2005, Partners in Health (PIH) was invited by the Rwandan Ministry of Health to assume responsibility for the management of public health care in two rural districts in Eastern Rwanda and create an HIV treatment program at these sites. PIH successfully implemented a... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials; Medical Specialties; Service Delivery; Nonprofit Organizations; Expansion; Health Industry; Rwanda

At Harvard, Rosabeth Moss Kanter is chair and director of the Advanced Leadership Initiative, a University-wide faculty group aimed at deploying a leadership force of experienced leaders who... View Details

Forthcoming
Article

Mitigating the Negative Effects of Customer Anxiety Through Access to Human Contact

By: Michelle A. Kinch and Ryan W. Buell

Prior research in social psychology has shown that when people feel anxious, they seek advice from others. However, companies that operate in high-anxiety settings (like financial services, health care, and education) are increasingly deploying self-service... View Details

Keywords: Anxiety; Self-service; Empirical Operations; Behavioral Operations; Communication Technology; Behavior; Customer Focus and Relationships; Trust; Satisfaction; Financial Services Industry

Find at Harvard

December 2017 (Revised April 2018)
Case

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy 2016

By: Michael E. Porter, Thomas W. Feeley and Toyin J. Okanlawon

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) began as a stand-alone hospital in the heart of downtown Philadelphia in 1855. By 2016 the CHOP Care Network stretched across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the New York metropolitan area, providing a wide range of services... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Health Care and Treatment; Service Delivery; Organizational Structure; Networks; Integration; Strategy; Health Industry; Philadelphia

December 2023
Article

Association of Hospital System Affiliation with COVID-19 Capacity Burden

By: Zachary Levin, Pinar Karaca-Mandic, Richard J. Boxer and Regina E. Herzlinger

What is the message? The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the highly variable and uncoordinated responses by hospitals. The authors found that while the non-top ten system affiliated hospitals had a larger COVID-19 share index relative to independent hospitals, top-ten system... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Resource Allocation; Health Pandemics; Demographics; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

Read Now

December 1994 (Revised December 1994)
Case

Physician Sales and Service, Inc. (A): June 1992

A medical products distribution company faces strategic opportunities and challenges in a rapidly changing market. Physician Sales and Service (PSS), founded by Patrick Kelly in 1983, operates in 20 states in the United States and intends to expand to 50 states by... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Distribution Industry