Publications

24 Apr 2014
News

Running faster to compete

number of lobsters caught and has improved the lobster trap-making industry. It is used in about 99 percent of the traps fished in New England. Knott also manufactured WireWall, a leading security fencing... View Details

Article

Why Hospitals Don't Learn from Failures: Organizational and Psychological Dynamics That Inhibit System Change

By: A. Tucker and A. Edmondson

The importance of hospitals learning from their failures hardly needs to be stated. Not only are matters of life and death at stake on a daily basis, but also an increasing number of U.S. hospitals are operating in the red. This article reports on in-depth qualitative... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

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

Register to Read

06 Oct 2016
News

“You Could Be Dead Any Second”

the end for Quin. Four of her fellow travelers were killed that day. She quit her job at Xerox, and returned to Yemen to interview the terrorists in prison and published a book about her experience. Then, in... View Details

April 5, 2023
Article

We Need an Operation Warp Speed for Long COVID

By: Esther K. Choo and Scott Duke Kominers

With millions of people affected and at least $1 trillion of economic value at stake, long COVID is our next national health emergency. View Details

Keywords: COVID; COVID-19; COVID-19 Pandemic; Scientific Research; Policy; Health Policy; Innovation; Science; Public Finance; Public Health; Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; Human Capital

May 2021
Article

Preparing for a Pandemic: Accelerating Vaccine Availability

By: Amrita Ahuja, Susan Athey, Arthur Baker, Eric Budish, Juan Camilo Castillo, Rachel Glennerster, Scott Duke Kominers, Michael Kremer, Jean Lee, Canice Prendergast, Christopher M. Snyder, Alex Tabarrok, Brandon Joel Tan and Witold Wiecek

Vaccinating the world’s population quickly in a pandemic has enormous health and economic benefits. We analyze the problem faced by governments in determining the scale and structure of procurement for vaccines. We analyze alternative approaches to procurement, arguing... View Details

Keywords: Vaccines; Procurement; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Acquisition; Cooperation

September 2022
Article

How Emerging Telehealth Models Challenge Policymaking

By: Mitchell Tang, Michael E Chernew and Ateev Mehrotra

Policy Points

Current telehealth policy discussions are focused on synchronous video and audio telehealth visits delivered by traditional providers and have neglected the growing number of alternative telehealth offerings.

These alternative... View Details

Keywords: Telehealth; Health Care and Treatment; Technology Adoption; Policy; Health Industry

01 Dec 2013
News

Your Own Medicine

WILLIAMS CHARLEY SECKLER in the midst of the first-ever trial for a DMD treatment at Johns Hopkins University. Photo courtesy the Seckler Family by Dan Morrell There's this picture View Details

Keywords: Morrell, Daniel; biomedicine; biopharmaceutical company; Ambulatory Health Care Services; Health, Social Assistance

June 2014 (Revised November 2016)
Case

Access Health CT: Marketing Affordable Care (A)

By: John A. Quelch and Michael Norris

At the close of open-enrollment in March of 2014, Kevin Counihan, CEO of Access Health CT, Connecticut's state health insurance exchange, stops to consider the success it has experienced so far and think about how to ensure its long-term sustainability. View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care Industry; Health Care Policy; Public Health Insurance Exchange; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Connecticut

Educators

June 2023
Teaching Note

From Cradle to Heaven: Taikang Insurance Group

By: William C. Kirby and Noah B. Truwit

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 320-088. The case explores the rise of Taikang Insurance Group and its quest to be a leader of one of China's fastest-growing industries. Due to China's underdeveloped social welfare state, Taikang saw an opportunity for the private... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Government and Politics; Health Industry; China

November 2014
Teaching Note

Claritas Genomics

By: Robert F. Higgins and Matthew G. Preble

Dr. Patrice Milos is the first CEO of Claritas Genomics (Claritas) and she faces a number of challenges in scaling the young company. Claritas was formed around a lab spun out from Boston Children's Hospital (BCH) which had performed genomic tests for the hospital. Now... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Healthcare Startups; Genetic Testing; Genetics Diagnostics; Spinning Out Hospital Services; Spin-out; Health Care and Treatment; Genetics; Entrepreneurship; Biotechnology Industry; Health Industry; United States

05 Oct 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Don't More People Get Flu Shots at Work?

With a yearly price tag of roughly $87 billion in lost productivity and adverse health consequences, the flu is nothing to sneeze at. It’s no surprise that workplace flu vaccination clinics have gained popularity as employers try to keep... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Health

15 Dec 2024
News

After Ozempic

Back before Ozempic, when Kate Mulroney (MBA 1984) spoke at technical conferences about her work at Novo Nordisk, people often assumed she was talking about Novartis. “I’d have to explain that’s a Swiss company; we’re Danish,” says Mulroney, now head of advanced... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Illustrations by Pete Ryan; Ambulatory Health Care Services; Health, Social Assistance

August 2003 (Revised August 2006)
Case

HealthSouth Corporation

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Ivan Cheung

Delineates how a for-profit health services business was created. Focuses on sources of financing, the impact of Medicare reimbursement, and Stark laws against fraud and abuse. View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Finance; Health Care and Treatment; Law; Rights; Health Industry

Educators

13 Mar 2007
First Look

First Look: March 13, 2007

Describes the challenges of using the Balanced Scorecard to implement a triple-bottom-line strategy for delivering excellent economic, environmental, and social performance. The owners and senior executive team View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

30 Mar 2021
Working Paper Summaries

Kidney Exchange: An Operations Perspective

Keywords: by Itai Ashlagi and Alvin E. Roth; Health; Biotechnology

Blog Post

Innovation in Health Care Education: A Call to Action

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Vasant Kumar, Kevin Schulman and Karen Staman

Health care administration educators are at a crossroads: the health care sector is rife with inefficiencies, erratic quality, unequal access, and sky-high costs, complex problems which call for innovative solutions, and yet, according to our content analysis of top... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care Education; Education; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Education Industry

February 2015
Background Note

A Note on the Affordable Care Act and the U.S. Health Care System

By: Joseph L. Bower and Michael Norris

This note provides an overview of the U.S. health care system as it stood in 2014, including an overview of hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and other health care providers. It also discusses the major political actions on health care in the 20th century,... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care Policy; Political Process; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; United States

Educators

27 Sep 2010
Other Presentation

Value-Based Health Care Delivery

By: Michael E. Porter

This presentation draws on Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition on Results (with Elizabeth O. Teisberg), Harvard Business School Press, May 2006; "A Strategy for Health Care Reform—Toward a Value-Based System," New England Journal of... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; United States