Publications

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04 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

Attention Medical Shoppers: What Health Care Can Learn from Walmart and Amazon

that the system isn't set up to incentivize health care workers to do that. "The reason it's never done is that nobody gets paid to do it .there's no incentive to do anything," Cutler said. View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Health

14 Nov 2019
News

Can Non-traditional Health Care Companies Impact the Health Sector?

Keywords: Ambulatory Health Care Services; Ambulatory Health Care Services

20 Jul 2015
News

Harvard Professor Has a Big Idea for the Future of Health Care Shopping

July 2014 (Revised November 2017)
Course Overview Note

Entrepreneurship in Healthcare IT and Services (EHITS) Spring Term 2018: Course Outline and Syllabus

By: Robert F. Higgins

This is the syllabus and course outline for "Entrepreneurship in Healthcare IT and Services (EHITS)" taught by Prof. Bob Higgins in the spring of 2018. Contains the course overview, objectives, goals and themes. View Details

Keywords: Healthcare Technology; Health Services; Healthcare Ventures; Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Information Technology; Health Industry; Health Industry; United States

April 2003
Module Note

Design and Management of Health Care Delivery Processes, The

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer

Discusses the design and management of clinical processes in health care. Presents a framing of the clinical process as a problem-solving process that fundamentally involves learning along two dimensions and at least two levels. The two dimensions are: 1) learning in... View Details

Keywords: Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Service Delivery; Management Practices and Processes; Learning; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

December 2014 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Discovery Limited

By: Michael E. Porter, Mark R. Kramer and Aldo Sesia

Discovery Ltd. is a South Africa-based insurance company. Started in the early 1990s, Discovery used behavioral economics and data collection to innovate in the health care insurance industry. Its founder Adrian Gore believed that the company's products needed to not... View Details

Keywords: Shared Value; Health Care; Financial Services; Strategy; Value Creation; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; South Africa

Educators

26 Jun 2000
Research & Ideas

What’s an Internet Business Model? Ask a Health Care Professional

by panelist Andy Slavitt (HBS MBA '93), Founder, President and CEO of Healthallies.com, is an exchange that links patients with local health care providers who offer preferred rates. View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Health

08 Dec 2016
News

A Simple Way to Measure Health Care Outcomes

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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October–December 2005
Article

Medicine's Service Challenge: Blending Custom and Standard Care

By: Richard Bohmer

Keywords: Health; Problems and Challenges; Health Industry

2016
Teaching Note

Advanced Leadership Pathways: General Gale Pollock and Services for the Vision Impaired

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Tessa Natanay Hamilton and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

Teaching note for case 314029. Following a successful military career as an Army Nurse, achieving rank as Major General, becoming the first female Acting Surgeon General of the Army, and the 22nd Chief of the Army Nurse Corps, Pollock developed a vested interest in... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care Education; Insurance Companies; Military; Leadership Skills; Health Care and Treatment; Education; Insurance; Business Startups; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Change Management; Health Industry; Health Industry

01 Mar 2010
News

A Helping Hand for Health Care

The HBS Buffalo Club continued its tradition of sponsoring community leaders for HBS Executive Education courses by sending senior management teams from two of the area’s health-care providers to the School’s new Managing Health- care... View Details

Keywords: Educational Services; Educational Services; Educational Services; Educational Services; Educational Services

12 Jul 2004
Research & Ideas

Michael Porter’s Prescription For the High Cost of Health Care

the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program). Health plans could choose to cover more services and treatments for competitive reasons, but they could not be forced to do so... View Details

Keywords: by Michael E. Porter; Health

01 Feb 2000
News

Executives Convene to Discuss Consumer-Driven Health Care

A mid-November conference on consumer-driven health care attracted nearly two hundred providers of health-care services, technology, and information; government professionals; and insurance executives to the... View Details

January 1978
Case

Zero-Base Budgeting in the Public Health Service

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Budgets and Budgeting

January 2000 (Revised October 2002)
Case

Cambridge Hospital Community Health Network - The Primary Care Unit

By: V.G. Narayanan, Lisa Brem and Ryan Moore

The Cambridge Hospital Community Health Network needed to gain a better understanding of its unit-of-service costs, which had been rising at a rate of 10% per year. The network's step-down costing system gave only aggregate costing information, and there was some... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Cost Accounting; Cost; Network Effects; Health Industry; Health Industry; Massachusetts

Educators

September 2003 (Revised January 2005)
Case

Bridges to Excellence: Bringing Quality Health Care to Life

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer, Ingrid Marie Nembhard and Robert Galvin

General Electric launched Bridges to Excellence Diabetes Care Link, a program through which enrolled physicians receive bonuses of up to 10% of their salary for delivering quality care to diabetic patients covered by a participating employer or health plan. A day... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Motivation and Incentives; Programs; Ethics; Quality; Moral Sensibility; Service Delivery; Compensation and Benefits; Health Industry

Educators

2009
Book

Designing Care: Aligning the Nature and Management of Health Care

By: Richard Bohmer

Today's health-care providers face growing criticism - from policy makers and patients alike. As costs continue to spiral upward and concerns about quality of care escalate, the debate has focused on how to finance health care. Yet funding solutions can't... View Details

Keywords: Cost Management; Health Care and Treatment; Service Delivery; Business Processes; Organizational Culture