Publications

October 2017
Article

Progress In Interoperability: Measuring US Hospitals' Engagement In Sharing Patient Data

By: A Jay Holmgren, Vaishali Patel and Julia Adler-Milstein

Achieving an interoperable health care system remains a top US policy priority. Despite substantial efforts to encourage interoperability, the first set of national data in 2014 suggested that hospitals’ engagement levels were low. With 2015 data now available, we... View Details

Keywords: Health; Technology; Electronic Health Records; Health Care and Treatment; Data and Data Sets; Technology Networks; Policy; United States

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

2021
Working Paper

The Luck of the Draw: The Causal Effect of Physicians on Birth Outcomes

By: Arlen Guarin, Christian Posso, Estefania Saravia and Jorge Tamayo

Identifying the effect of physicians’ skills on health outcomes is a challenging task due to the nonrandom sorting between physicians and hospitals. We overcome this challenge by exploiting a Colombian government program that randomly assigned 2,126 physicians to 618... View Details

Keywords: Physicians' Health Skills; Health Birth Outcomes; Birthing Outcomes; Experimental Evidence; Health Care and Treatment; Competency and Skills; Outcome or Result; Health Industry; Colombia

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09 Mar 2022
News

Russia-Ukraine Conflict's Impact on US Health Supply Chain—Four Expert Takes

August 2015 (Revised August 2015)
Case

Hoag Orthopedic Institute

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Jonathan Warsh

Two groups of orthopedic surgeons form a joint venture with a community hospital to establish Hoag Orthopedic Institute, a for-profit hospital and two ambulatory service centers. By controlling and integrating all aspects of the patients' medical treatment, the... View Details

Keywords: Outcomes Measurement; Bundled Payment; Health Care; Activity-based Costing And Management; Measurement and Metrics; Activity Based Costing and Management; Competitive Strategy; Medical Specialties; Health Care and Treatment; Outcome or Result; Health Industry

February 1996 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Eli Lilly and Company: Innovation in Diabetes Care

By: Clayton M. Christensen

Summarizes Eli Lilly's history of innovation in its business, describing how the dimensions along which innovations have been made in the industry have changed. Lilly's innovation strategy has been to pursue ever higher performance products, while others in the... View Details

Keywords: Change; Product; Service Delivery; Product Development; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Pharmaceutical Industry

September 2, 2020
Article

How to Pay for Public Option Without Tax Hike

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Richard Boxer

A bipartisan combination of the two parties’ most popular initiatives can expand health care coverage, significantly reduce costs, and enable freedom of choice, without raising taxes. Along the way, we can revitalize competition between public and private plans. Our... View Details

Keywords: Health Insurance; Public Option; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Cost Management; United States

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05 Jul 2006
Working Paper Summaries

Implementing New Practices: An Empirical Study of Organizational Learning in Hospital Intensive Care Units

Keywords: by Anita L. Tucker, Ingrid M. Nembhard & Amy C. Edmondson; Health

March 2018
Case

Sandra Brown Goes Digital (A): The Promise and Perils of Social Movements in a Healthcare Company

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

As a middle manager at a biotechnology company, Sandra Brown harnessed digital tools and social media to engage others and build campaigns for change in the company. This case follows her career at the company and describes the challenges she faced as a change agent,... View Details

Keywords: Digital; Engagement; Stakeholder Engagement; Grassroots Movement; Organization Change And Adaptation; Quality; Health Care; Health Care Industry; Career Path; Leading Change; Management; Innovation and Management; Personal Development and Career; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Health Industry; Health Industry

Web

Organize Care Around Medical Conditions - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

their ability to serve the complex and interrelated needs of each patient over the full cycle of care. The greatest improvements in health care outcomes and efficiency will come from sustained, team-based... View Details

Spring 2014
Article

The Market for Blood

By: Robert Slonim, Carmen Wang and Ellen Garbarino

Donating blood, "the gift of life," is among the noblest activities and it is performed worldwide nearly 100 million times annually. The economic perspective presented here shows how the gift of life, albeit noble and often motivated by altruism, is heavily influenced... View Details

Keywords: Altruism; Philanthropy; Analysis Of Health Care Markets; Market Design; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Health

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July 2021 (Revised July 2022)
Case

Brigham & Women's Hospital: Using Patient Reported Outcomes to Improve Breast Cancer Care

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Navraj S. Nagra and Syed S. Shehab

Dr. Andrea Pusic, breast cancer reconstruction surgeon, wants to extend outcomes measurement beyond traditional surgical metrics of infections, complications, and survival rates. The case describes her development of a new mobile phone app, which collects patients’... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Outcome or Result; Cost Management; Activity Based Costing and Management; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Health Testing and Trials; Surveys; Health Industry; Boston

01 Dec 2007
News

Where Are the Innovators in Health Care?

billion of the excessive costs of U.S. health care while all too many quality measures have worsened. Patients learn — sometimes the hard way — to bring along an assertive, intelligent loved one to protect... View Details

Keywords: Regina E. Herzlinger; Health, Social Assistance; Management

March 2014
Editorial

Limits on Use of Health Economic Assessments for Rare Diseases

By: Hanna I. Hyry, Ariel Dora Stern, Jonathan CP Roos and Timothy M. Cox

Funding of expensive treatments for rare ('orphan') diseases is contentious. These agents fare poorly on 'efficiency' or health economic measures, such as the QALY, because of high cost and frequently poor gains in quality of life and survival. We show that... View Details

Keywords: Cost; Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; Pharmaceutical Industry

November 2021
Article

Determining Variable Costs in the Acute Urolithiasis Cycle of Care Through Time-driven Activity-based Costing

By: Tyler R. McClintock, David F. Friedlander, Aiden Y. Feng, Mahek A. Shah, Daniel J. Pallin, Steven L. Chang, Angela M. Bader, Thomas W. Feeley, Robert S. Kaplan and George E. Haleblian

Objective. To characterize full cycle of care costs for managing an acute ureteral stone using time-driven activity-based costing.
Methods. We defined all phases of care for patients presenting with an acute ureteral stone and built an... View Details

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