Publications

20 Nov 2014
News

Finalists Announced in Harvard Business School-Harvard Medical School Health Acceleration Challenge

28 Apr 2016
News

Is good health good for business?

August 2013 (Revised August 2014)
Case

Aon Hewitt's Private Health Insurance Exchange

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Aiden Y. Feng and Meghan D. Oliver

Aon Hewitt, a leading health insurance broker and consultant, is one of the first movers in forming exchanges to sell health insurance. What kinds of products should it offer on this exchange? View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Insurance

October 1999 (Revised November 1999)
Case

VITAS: Innovative Hospice Care

VITAS, a for-profit hospice, has grown through acquisitions and start-ups. The company considers a rollup strategy, and Deirdre Lawe must decide whether to make a particular acquisition. View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; For-Profit Firms; Service Delivery; Health Care and Treatment; Acquisition; Service Industry

June 2011 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Colgate-Palmolive: Staying Ahead in Oral Care

By: Rebecca M. Henderson and Ryan Johnson

In 2011, Colgate-Palmolive (Colgate) was the global leader in oral care, with a dominant market share lead in toothpaste and a growing presence in toothbrushes and mouthwash. However, the firm faced stiff competition with perennial rivals P&G increasing their focus on... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Distribution Channels; Relationships; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Customization and Personalization; Health Industry

November 2013 (Revised September 2015)
Supplement

GlaxoSmithKline in China (B)

By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez

In 2013, Chinese investigators detained four GSK employees for allegedly bribing health care staff to sell GSK pharmaceuticals. A month later, GSK's Asia Pacific regional president, Abbas Hussain, said the company would help identify corrupt practices. Two days later,... View Details

August 2001 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Helios Health (A)

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Alfred Martin

Helios PC system provides personalized drug information to the patients in the doctor's waiting room. It has met with considerable consumer acceptance and a very high return for the drug companies that sponsor it. What price should it charge them for the service? View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Price; Health Care and Treatment; Information Publishing; Innovation and Invention; Product Marketing; Demand and Consumers; Health Industry; Health Industry

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20 Jul 2020
Op-Ed

It's Time for a Bipartisan Health Plan for Employers and Employees

HRA-Public Option combination, employers that are now compelled to continually raise out-of-pocket expenses to employees to control health care costs will no longer be caught in the middle between the... View Details

Keywords: by Regina E. Herzlinger and Richard J. Boxer; Health; Health

Article

Private Enterprise for Public Health

By: Michael Chu and David E. Bloom

By many measures, the world today is a healthier place than ever before, yet a daunting set of deficits and disparities remains to be tackled. For various reasons, it is not clear that the traditional tandem of government and civil society are up to those challenges.... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; Social Enterprise; Public Sector; Private Sector; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

Read Now

Employers’ and employees’ health care costs continue to skyrocket. A solution is to allow employers to give employees pre-tax cash to purchase their own health insurance. This move, enabled by a newly enacted federal rule, would put competitive pressure on insurers,... View Details

April 18, 2022
Article

Will mRNA Technology Companies Spawn Innovation Ecosystems?

By: Christoph Grimpe, Timo Minssen, W. Nicholson Price, II and Ariel Dora Stern

The mRNA technologies that helped rapidly create effective COVID-19 vaccines could become technology platform businesses, which has tremendous implications for players in the world of drug development. These platforms could attract other companies interested in... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Digital Health; Technology; Innovation; Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Digital Transformation; Health Industry; United States

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August 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Icario Health: AI to Drive Health Engagement

By: David C. Edelman

Icario Health has built a market-leading artificial intelligence (AI) engine to help health insurers drive better health behaviors for their members, enabling the insurers to improve their Medicare performance. View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Health Care and Treatment; AI and Machine Learning; Health Industry; United States

July 1991 (Revised July 1993)
Case

Alliant Health System: A Vision of Total Quality

Alliant has been a leader in the health care industry in implementing total quality management. After five years, however, they do not have much to show for their efforts except a "foundation" of quality attitudes and processes. The case discusses their plans to "jump... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Management Practices and Processes; Information Technology; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

Article

Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing in Breast Cancer Care Delivery

By: Navraj S. Nagra, Elena Tsangaris, Jessica Means, Michael J. Hassett, Laura S. Dominici, Jennifer R. Bellon, Justin Broyles, Robert S. Kaplan, Thomas W. Feeley and Andrea L. Pusic

We used time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) to calculate the complete cost of breast cancer care—initial treatment planning, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgical resection and reconstruction, and ancillary services (psychosocial oncology, physical therapy.... View Details

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

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March 2021 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Philips: Redefining Telehealth

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Alec Petersen, Natalie Kindred and Sara M. McKinley

As one of the world’s largest healthcare companies, Philips sought to reach beyond the walls of the hospital and expand its hospital-to-home program to gain future competitive advantage through technology solutions combining predictive analytics with care delivery. By... View Details