Publications

2015
Working Paper

How Should We Pay for Health Care?

By: Michael E. Porter and Robert S. Kaplan

Improving the way we pay for health care must be a central component in health care reform. Payment reform must link provider reimbursement and accountability to improving patient value: better health outcomes delivered at lower cost. Today’s deeply flawed... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Value; Health Industry

December 2017 (Revised April 2018)
Case

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy 2016

By: Michael E. Porter, Thomas W. Feeley and Toyin J. Okanlawon

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) began as a stand-alone hospital in the heart of downtown Philadelphia in 1855. By 2016 the CHOP Care Network stretched across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the New York metropolitan area, providing a wide range of services... View Details

Keywords: Communication; Health Care and Treatment; Service Delivery; Organizational Structure; Networks; Integration; Strategy; Health Industry; Philadelphia

22 Aug 2022
Research & Ideas

Can Amazon Remake Health Care?

deploy to buy another company. So, this is actually a very small acquisition for Amazon—very, very small. This aside, the idea behind the business model of One Medical is twofold: to make health care easier to access, and through... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Health

2016
Blog

Building A Culture of Health - John A. Quelch: The Marketing of Prevention

By: John A. Quelch

The US will devote 17.5% of GDP to health care this year, around $3 trillion. Yet only 3 percent of that will be spent on prevention, including both primary prevention (preventing illness in the first place) and secondary prevention (preventing sick people getting... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Healthcare Marketing; Prevention; Wellbeing; Health; Marketing; Health Industry; Insurance Industry; Public Administration Industry; Europe; North and Central America

12 Aug 2020
Video

Community Health Workers on the Front Lines of Disease Control

September 2020
Case

Walmart Health: Scaling During a Pandemic

By: Robert S. Huckman, Yoonjin Min and Marissa Thiel

Amidst the onset of COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Marcus Obsborne, Vice President for Health and Wellness Transformation at Walmart was planning to scale its new health care clinic business, Walmart Health, to additional locations in Georgia and beyond.... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Health Pandemics; Health; Service Delivery; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; United States; Arkansas; Georgia (state, US); Texas

13 Mar 2023
Research & Ideas

The Power of Personal Connections: How Shared Experiences Boost Performance

Do relationships between colleagues raise the bar? A new analysis of how physicians who know each other provide better patient care could impart wide-ranging lessons for the business world. Specialists who received referrals from View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Health

Teaching

Overview

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

Course Requirements

Students are required to prepare a business plan, which employs the framework of this course, to explore an entrepreneurial opportunity in health care, and to evaluate their classmates' plans.

Career Focus

For... View Details

October 2022
Article

It’s Not Just the Prices: Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing for Initiation of Veno-Venous Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation at Three International Sites—A Case Review

By: Michael Nurok, Vin Pellegrino, Marc Pineton de Chambrun, Jonathan Warsh, Meredith Young, Erik Dong, Neil Parrish, Syed Shehab, Alain Combes and Robert S. Kaplan

The United States spends more for intensive care units (ICUs) than do other high-income countries. We used time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) to analyze ICU costs for initiation of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) for respiratory failure to estimate... View Details

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

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March 2015
Case

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp: Redefining Success in the U.S. (A)

By: Gautam Mukunda, Thomas DeLong and Aldo Sesia

Over the course of a tumultuous weekend in April 2010, André Wyss was put in charge of Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (NPC), the U.S. sales and marketing subsidiary of Novartis Pharma AG. He was brought in at a critical point in the organization's evolution with... View Details

Keywords: LEAD; Talent Management; Leadership And Change Management; Change Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Restructuring; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

2019
Book

Patient Capital: The Challenges and Promises of Long-Term Investing

By: Victoria Ivashina and Josh Lerner

There has never been a greater need for long-term investments. And it is increasingly unlikely that the public sector will be willing or able to fill the gap. Those best positioned to address the long-run needs are likely to be the pools of capital in the hands of... View Details

Keywords: Long-term Investing; Large Investors; Capital; Investment; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Opportunities; Society

Find at Harvard

Joey (Won Jung) Ryu is a doctoral student in the Strategy unit at Harvard Business School. Her primary interests are strategic management, economics of innovation and entrepreneurship. Prior to joining HBS, Joey received her master's degree from Cornell University... View Details

Keywords: health care; health care; health care; health care; health care

February 1985 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Health Stop (A): What Type of Innovation Is It? And Six Factors Alignment

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Joyce Lallman, Nancy Kane, Jefferson C. Grahling and James Wallace

How can we evaluate if innovative health care ventures can do good—benefit society—and do well—become financially viable? This question is the topic of the first module in the Innovating In Health Care course book. This note and case series enables readers to conduct... View Details

Keywords: For-Profit Firms; Business Model; Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Strategy; Valuation; Health Industry; Retail Industry

Research Summary

Overview of Research

My research examines approaches to improving the performance of our health care delivery system with a primary focus on health information technology. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of my program, my dissertation draws upon theories and insights from... View Details

May 2009 (Revised October 2009)
Case

Newton-Wellesley Hospital

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer and Natalie Kindred

How will Newton-Wellesley Hospital (NWH) preserve its private practice tradition while remaining effective and competitive in a healthcare industry demanding increasing integration between physicians and hospitals? This is the decision facing Newton-Wellesley Hospital... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Profit; Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Integration; Health Industry; Massachusetts

25 Jul 2005
Research & Ideas

An Organization Your Customers Understand

identical, and every effort of every man and woman in the company is focused on satisfying those needs."5 Accordingly, the most critical decision in designing any organization is deciding who the primary customer is: the person or... View Details

Keywords: by Robert Simons

Article

Cybersecurity Features of Digital Medical Devices: An Analysis of FDA Product Summaries

By: Ariel Dora Stern, William J. Gordon, Adam B. Landman and Daniel B. Kramer

Objectives:
To more clearly define the landscape of digital medical devices subject to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversight, this analysis leverages publicly available regulatory documents to characterise the prevalence and trends of software and... View Details

Keywords: Digital; Medicine; FDA; Health Care and Treatment; Applications and Software; Safety; Cybersecurity; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

28 Jun 2014
News

Utah hospitals try the unthinkable: Get a grip on costs

June 2016
Article

When Doctors Go to Business School: Career Choices of Physician-MBAs

By: Damir Ljuboja, Brian W. Powers, Benjamin Robbins, Robert S. Huckman, Krishna Yeshwant and Sachin Jain

There has been substantial growth in the number of physicians pursuing Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees over the past decade, but there is continuing debate over the utility of these programs and the career outcomes of their graduates. The authors... View Details

Keywords: Medical Education; MD; MBA; Physicians; Executive Education; Training; Personal Development and Career; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; United States