Publications

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08 Apr 2011
News

Management Matters In Health Care, Too

figure them out,” he said. “We’re going to have a revolution in coordinating care,” observed David Cutler, a Harvard professor of applied economics and a nationally recognized expert in the economics of... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Ambulatory Health Care Services; Ambulatory Health Care Services

May 2020
Article

Identifying Sources of Inefficiency in Health Care

By: Amitabh Chandra and Douglas O. Staiger

In medicine, the reasons for variation in treatment rates across hospitals serving similar patients are not well understood. Some interpret this variation as unwarranted and push standardization of care as a way of reducing allocative inefficiency. However, an... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Performance Efficiency; Performance Productivity; Mathematical Methods

08 Mar 2016
Research & Ideas

Solving an Economic Mystery Surrounding Argentina and Chile

countries side-by-side, exploring them from the 1850s up until the present day, when Chile’s economic strength seems to have surpassed Argentina’s—a reversal of fortune. The Impact of Globalization on Argentina and Chile explores the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

February 2019
Article

Who Benefits Most in Disease Management Programs: Improving Target Efficiency

By: Timothy Simcoe, Maryaline Catillon and Paul Gertler

Disease management programs aim to reduce cost by improving the quality of care for chronic diseases. Evidence of their effectiveness is mixed. Reducing health care spending sufficiently to cover program costs has proved particularly challenging. This study uses a... View Details

Keywords: Health Economics; Target Efficiency; Diabetes; Disease Management; Program Evaluation; Heterogeneity; Economics; Health; Quality; Health Care and Treatment; Cost Management; Health Industry

2017
Working Paper

Identifying Sources of Inefficiency in Health Care

By: Amitabh Chandra and Douglas O. Staiger

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Performance Efficiency; Performance Productivity; Mathematical Methods

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ULI Report Provides Wildfire, Energy, and Economic Resilience Strategies to Sonoma County

Sonoma County, Calif., can enhance its ability to withstand and recover from wildfires by re-envisioning its land use, energy, and housing policies through a cooperative... View Details

January 2001
Case

Merck Global Health Initiatives (B): Botswana

By: James E. Austin, Diana Barrett and James Weber

The case series focuses on Merck's drug donation program and then raises new issues facing management about what to do about HIV/AIDS in Africa given the company's development of a new therapy. Describes collaboration among many parties including the Gates Foundation,... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; Private Sector; Public Sector; Alliances; Problems and Challenges; Africa; Botswana

Educators

Health Care - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

HBS ISC Health Care Health Care Value-Based Health Care Health Care Courses Fast Facts The Health Care Crisis In... View Details

July 2015
Background Note

The State of U.S. Public Health: Challenges and Trends

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Howard Koh and Pamela Yatsko

The World Health Organization defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity." For many Americans, the World Health Organization's definition of true health seems unattainable, given... View Details

Keywords: Public Health; Public Sector; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; United States

Educators

IFC: Saudi Arabia; Economic Diversification - Course Catalog

HBS Course Catalog IFC: Saudi Arabia; Economic Diversification Course Number 6060 Professor Tarun Khanna Senior Lecturer Andy Zelleke January; J; 3.0 credits Fall On-Campus Course Sessions: (5 sessions) Thursdays 3:10 – 5:10 pm: 9/18,... View Details

25 Aug 2020
Blog Post

Hikma Health + HBS MBAs Crowdsource Largest County-Level COVID-19 Dataset

When COVID-19 cases in the US began to spike in March, Hikma Health, a digital health startup from the Harvard i-lab and winner of the 2019 Harvard Business School (HBS) New Venture Competition, asked how they could best help to stop the... View Details

Fostering Innovation in Life Sciences - Health Care

Impact Fostering Innovation in Life Sciences Gaining Ground on ALS Re: Rob Blum (MBA 1991) Health Minute: How Can Technology Improve 21st Century Health Care Health Minute: How... View Details

20 Jul 2020
Op-Ed

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

The recent twin economic and pandemic calamities should cause us to rethink the status quo for health insurance compensation. Must General Motors be a benefits company that happens to make cars? Is it in the... View Details

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

2012
Article

Behavioral Economics and the Psychology of Fruit and Vegetable Consumption

By: Joe Price and Jason Riis

Behavioral economics is an emerging paradigm that challenges the assumptions and predictions of classical economics. This new paradigm emphasizes that consumers do not always make optimal use of available information nor do they always make choices and tradeoffs in a... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Food; Social Marketing; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Behavior; Nutrition

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2020
Chapter

Health Care Markets a Decade After the ACA: Bigger, but Probably Not Better

By: Leemore S. Dafny

Love it or hate it, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) embraced and extended the role of private markets in financing and delivering health care in the United States. Ten years after the ACA’s passage, it is unclear whether health care markets are better (along a range of... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Markets; Laws and Statutes; Outcome or Result; Health Industry; United States

02 Mar 2007
What Do You Think?

What Is the Government’s Role in US Health Care?

government's role in U.S. healthcare? What do you think? To Read More: Robert H. Frank, "A Health Care Plan So Simple, Even Stephen Colbert Couldn't Simplify It," The New York Times, February 18, 2007, p. C3. He is the author of a book,... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Health

21 Nov 2012
Research & Ideas

What Health Care Managers Need to Know--and How to Teach Them

digital platform, and the increased fiscal pressures created by the worldwide economic crisis. Unfortunately, the educational programs for future health care leaders fail to provide many of the needed... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Guttry; Health; Health

03 Apr 2025
HBS Seminar

Ziad Obermeyer, UC Berkeley School of Public Health

February 2009 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Cleveland Clinic: Transformation and Growth 2015

By: Michael E. Porter and Elizabeth O. Teisberg

The Cleveland Clinic's health care services are internationally renowned for quality. In 2008, The Clinic began to restructure the organization into teams defined around patient needs, rather than traditional medical specialties. "Patients First!" takes shape as the... View Details

Keywords: Health; Health Care Operations; Health Care Quality; Health Care; Strategy And Leadership; Strategy Development; Health Care and Treatment; Leading Change; Goals and Objectives; Growth and Development Strategy; Measurement and Metrics; Service Delivery; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Outcome or Result; Health Industry; Cleveland

Educators