Publications

Register to Read

August 1986 (Revised February 1991)
Supplement

Population Services International: The Social Marketing Project in Bangladesh, Video

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Population Services International, a not-for-profit agency founded to promote family planning information and to market birth control products, had an agreement with the government of Bangladesh to conduct a social marketing program using modern marketing techniques to... View Details

Keywords: Social Marketing; Health; Advertising; Marketing; Nonprofit Organizations; Government and Politics; Agreements and Arrangements; Health Industry; Bangladesh

02 Mar 2007
What Do You Think?

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

Butler believes that it could come in the form of a two-tiered system of private treatment at personal expense layered on a service free to all with protections for healthcare givers and the elimination of third party insurance. Are these... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Health

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

03 Sep 2020
Op-Ed

Why American Health Care Needs Its Own SEC

services of unknown quality. The lack of transparency protects providers and insurers from needing to compete on the price and quality of their services. Lack of competition, in turn, inflates the cost and probably also diminishes the... View Details

Keywords: by Regina E. Herzlinger; Health

20 Aug 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Can Shared Service Delivery Increase Customer Engagement? A Study of Shared Medical Appointments

Keywords: by Ryan W. Buell, Kamalini Ramdas, and Nazlı Sönmez; Health

September 1985 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Population Services International: The Social Marketing Project in Bangladesh

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Population Services International (PSI) was a not-for-profit agency founded to disseminate family planning information and to market birth control products, primarily in less developed countries seeking to curb their population explosions. In 1976, PSI concluded an... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Health; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Business and Government Relations; Nonprofit Organizations; Bangladesh

07 Mar 2000
Research & Ideas

Putting Health Care Consumers in the Driver’s Seat

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 HBS campus for a two-day... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Health

15 Feb 2000
Research & Ideas

Growing Pains: Prescriptions for U.S. Health Care

We know the symptoms all too well. We wait months to see a doctor. Office visits end, it seems, just moments after they begin. Managed care firms hold sway over doctors' treatment plans, and health insurance premiums are heading for the... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Health

March 2014 (Revised September 2017)
Case

salaUno: Eliminating Needless Blindness in Mexico

By: Richard Hamermesh, Regina Garcia Cueller and Valeria Moy

In May 2013 the co-founders and co-CEOs of salaUno, Javier Okhuysen and Carlos Orellana, were encouraged by the results of their fledgling start-up. salaUno was founded as a for-profit enterprise in order to have the capital needed for rapid growth and to fulfill its... View Details

Keywords: Medical Services; Developing Countries; Developing Markets; Health Care Industry; Health Services; Healthcare Ventures; Healthcare Startups; Health Care and Treatment; Health; Business Startups; Developing Countries and Economies; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; Mexico; Mexico City

September 2014 (Revised March 2016)
Case

Mayo Clinic: The 2020 Initiative

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Robert S. Huckman and Jenny Lesser

Describes the challenges facing Dr. John Noseworthy, President and CEO, in implementing a long-term strategy for the growth of the Mayo Clinic—a leading academic medical center with a reputation for excellence in tertiary and quaternary health care. The case highlights... View Details

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

2015
Working Paper

Do-gooders and Go-getters: Career Incentives, Selection, and Performance in Public Service Delivery

By: Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and Scott S. Lee

We study how career incentives affect who selects into public health jobs and, through selection, their performance while in service. We collaborate with the Government of Zambia to experimentally vary the salience of career incentives in a newly created health worker... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Health Industry; Zambia

Read Now

April 1993 (Revised May 2009)
Case

Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, India: In Service for Sight, The

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Starting as a modest 20-bed hospital, Aravind had grown into a 1,400-bed hospital complex by 1992. It had by then screened 3.65 million patients and performed 335,000 cataract surgeries, nearly 70% of them free of cost for the poorest of India's blind population.... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Social Marketing; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Welfare; Expansion; Health Industry; India

June 1992
Teaching Note

Visiting Nurse Service of New York, Teaching Note

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

September 2018
Article

Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services

By: Maria Ibanez, Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats

Work-scheduling research typically prescribes task sequences implemented by managers. Yet employees often have discretion to deviate from their prescribed sequence. Using data from 2.4 million radiological diagnoses, we find that doctors prioritize similar tasks... View Details

Keywords: Discretion; Scheduling; Queue; Healthcare; Learning; Experience; Decentralization; Operations; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Performance; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Efficiency; Performance Improvement; Performance Productivity; Decisions; Time Management; Cost vs Benefits; Health Industry

SSRN

Find at Harvard

2017
Working Paper

Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services

By: Maria Ibanez, Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats

Work scheduling research typically prescribes task sequences implemented by managers. Yet employees often have discretion to deviate from their prescribed sequence. Using data from 2.4 million radiological diagnoses, we find that doctors prioritize similar tasks... View Details

SSRN

October–December 2005
Article

Medicine's Service Challenge: Blending Custom and Standard Care

By: Richard Bohmer

Keywords: Health; Problems and Challenges; Health Industry

Find at Harvard

05 May 2016
Cold Call Podcast

The Real Cost of Ignoring Mental Health in the Workplace

Keywords: Re: John A. Quelch

22 May 2020
In Practice

Post-COVID Health Care: More Screens, Less Red Tape?

high-paying ones. Wherever possible, health care professionals have shifted from their normal service lines to serve COVID patients. Primary care provider offices and outpatient View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

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