Publications

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May 2010
Article

Managing the New Primary Care: The New Skills That Will Be Needed

By: Richard Bohmer

Developing new models of primary care will demand a level of managerial expertise that few of today's primary care physicians possess. Yet medical schools continue to focus on the basic sciences, to the exclusion of such managerial topics as running effective teams.... View Details

Keywords: Higher Education; Health Care and Treatment; Management Skills; Managerial Roles; Service Delivery; Practice; Health Industry

March 2019
Article

A Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing Analysis of Emergency Department Scribes

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Heather A. Heaton, David M. Nestler, William J. Barry, Richard A. Helmers, Mustafa Y. Sir, Deepi G. Goyal, Derek A. Haas and Annie T. Sadosty

Objectives: To apply time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) methodology to determine emergency medicine physician documentation costs with and without scribes.

Methods: Two research assistants shadowed attending physicians for a total of 64 hours in the... View Details

Keywords: Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Health Care and Treatment; Analysis

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Career Coach

Martin November

Marty (HBS '98) is an MD/MBA and practicing OBGYN physician who has broad expertise in the healthcare sector as the former Medical Director for Patient Safety and Risk Management at Atrius Health, Harvard Medical School teaching faculty... View Details

Keywords: Consulting; Education; Entrepreneurship; Government; Health Care; Insurance; Publishing / Communications / Advertising; Social Enterprise; Startup - Founder; Entrepreneurship; Startup - Joiner; Entrepreneurship

18 Dec 2020
News

Making Doctors Effective Managers and Leaders

October 2002 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Intermountain Health Care

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer, Amy C. Edmondson and Laura Feldman

Intermountain Health Care (IHC), an integrated delivery system based in Utah, has adopted a new strategy for managing health care delivery. The approach focuses management attention not only on the facilities where care takes place but also on physician decision making... View Details

Keywords: Ethnicity; Innovation Strategy; Cost Management; Information Technology; Organizational Structure; Technology Adoption; Performance Improvement; Problems and Challenges; Adoption; Change Management; Cost vs Benefits; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Utah

25 Jul 2007
News

Who Killed U.S. Medicine?

September 2009
Case

The Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions, Inc.

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer, Stephen P. Bradley and Natalie Kindred

Through its uniquely proactive approach to medical malpractice risk management, the Risk Management Foundation (RMF) has decreased claims—and premiums—for the Harvard hospitals it insures. The RMF is the captive medico-legal insurer of the Harvard medical institutions... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Risk Management; Performance Improvement; Safety; Health Industry; Insurance Industry; Boston

31 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

Bypass Marketing: Are Docs Influenced?

Until the close of the last decade, health consumers received much of their knowledge and advice about prescription drugs from their physicians or other health care professionals. Today, pharmaceutical companies are spending several... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

2025
Working Paper

Expert Patients’ Use of Avoidable Health Care

By: Amitabh Chandra, Pragya Kakani and Simone Matecna

We measure whether expert patients – those trained as physicians and nurses – have fewer emergency department visits and the reasons for these differences. Relative to similar patients physicians and nurses had 19.8% and 5.1% fewer ED visits, principally due to fewer... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Service Delivery; Health Industry

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17 Oct 2019
News

How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Health Care Delivery

December 2022
Article

Collaborative Rooming: An Innovative Pilot Project to Overcome Primary Care Challenges

By: Gagandeep Singh, Jill G. Lenhart, Richard A. Helmers, Michele Renee Eberlee, Heather Costley, Joel B. Roberts and Robert S. Kaplan

Primary care physicians are overburdened with growing complexities and increasing expectations for primary care visits. To meet expectations, primary care physicians must multitask during visits and spend extra hours in the office for charting, billing, and... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Groups and Teams; Job Design and Levels; Health Industry

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Article

Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing for Surgical Episodes

By: Peter Najjar, Matt Strickland and Robert S. Kaplan

Health care costs related to surgical care account for 40% of all hospital and physician spending. Payers attempting to contain costs are replacing fee-for-service with value-based payment schemes that can encompass entire episodes of care, including physician services... View Details

Keywords: Surgery; Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Bundled Payments; Health Care and Treatment; Cost Management

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March 2010 (Revised April 2014)
Case

American Well: The Doctor Will E-See You Now

By: Elie Ofek and Ron Laufer

What is next for healthcare IT provider American Well, whose innovative Online Care technology allows physicians to deliver care to patients online in real time? Using American Well's platform, patients with non-emergency health concerns can communicate with physicians... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Service Delivery; Online Technology; Health Industry

13 May 2015
News

Medicine’s Continuous Improvement Imperative

Research Summary

Regulatory negotiations and risk communication

In the pharmaceutical industry a drugs benefits and risks are constantly being weighed by companies, regulators, physicians and drug consumers. While companies and regulators must make decisions based on population statistics about drug outcomes, physicians and drug... View Details

February 2025
Article

Variation in Batch Ordering of Imaging Tests in the Emergency Department and the Impact on Care Delivery

By: Jacob C. Jameson, Soroush Saghafian, Robert S. Huckman and Nicole Hodgson

Objectives: To examine heterogeneity in physician batch ordering practices and measure the impact of a physician's tendency to batch order imaging tests on patient outcomes and resource utilization.
Study Setting and Design: In this retrospective study, we used... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Operations Management; Productivity; Health Care and Treatment; Operations; Outcome or Result; Resource Allocation; Health Industry; United States

April 2009 (Revised November 2012)
Case

Sermo, Inc.

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Lars Peter Christian Nielsen

Sermo operates the leading online professional network for physicians in the United States. Doctors use Sermo free of charge to post surveys regarding diagnostic and treatment concerns and to discuss these concerns, as well as challenges with managing their practices.... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Knowledge Sharing; Two-Sided Platforms; Conflict and Resolution; Social and Collaborative Networks; United States