Publications

August 6, 2009
Article

The Shifting Mission of Health Care Delivery Organizations

By: Richard Bohmer and Thomas Lee

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Health; Organizations

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Blog Post

Health Care Transparency: The Fox Is Guarding the Chicken Coop in Washington Again

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

Now that more people can shop directly for their own health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, they have been transformed from potential patients to consumers, and like any other consumers of goods or services, they want to know if what they're buying is any... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Health Care; Health Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

August 2012 (Revised December 2023)
Background Note

Note on Health Insurance Coverage, Coding, and Payment

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Jo Ellen Slurzberg

This note explains how health care technology and service innovators receive payment from government insurers, in the U.S. and abroad, and from private insurers. It describes each of the three steps needed to obtain reimbursement: coverage, coding, and payment. It also... View Details

Keywords: Health Care Delivery; Health Care Costs; Health Insurance; Health Insurance Marketplaces; Health Care and Treatment; Cost; Insurance; Innovation and Invention; Private Sector; Public Sector; Decision Making; Information Technology; Health Industry; Health Industry

October 2022 (Revised September 2024)
Case

mPharma: Scaling Access to Affordable Primary Care in Africa

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Ben Creo

mPharma hopes to scale up to create the largest pan-African healthcare company ever to provide much-needed primary care in retail pharmacies; a reliable, fairly priced supply of drugs; and micro-insurance for drugs. They must prioritize launching a telemedicine... View Details

September – October 2008
Article

Care Platforms: A Basic Building Block for Care Delivery

By: Richard Bohmer and David Lawrence

Without significant operational reform within the nation's health care delivery organizations, new financing models, payment systems, or structures are unlikely to realize their promise. Adapting insights from high-performing companies in other high-risk, high-cost,... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Management Systems; Standards; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Business Processes; Organizational Design; Customization and Personalization; Health Industry

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February 2015
Supplement

The Affordable Care Act (D): Making a Decision on the Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Tax Exclusion

By: Joseph L. Bower and Michael Norris

In the summer of 2009, a meeting is called in the White House to discuss the impact of changing the rules on the employer-sponsored health insurance tax exclusion. View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care Policy; Health; Government and Politics; Health Industry; United States

Article

What Could Amazon's Approach to Health Care Look Like?

By: Robert S. Huckman

Keywords: Health Care; Amazon; Health Insurance; Information Technology; United States

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August 2017
Supplement

CareMore Health System (B)

By: Robert S. Huckman and Brian W. Powers

This supplement to “CareMore Health System (A)” discusses the company's early experience introducing its managed Medicaid model in the Des Moines, Iowa, market. It also provides an update on the Memphis program discussed in the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Health Care Delivery; Health Insurance; Medicare; Medicaid; Managed Care; Extensivist; Social Determinants Of Health; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; United States

September 2016
Case

Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (A)

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby

Explores strategies to achieve system-level impact for a nonprofit focused on addressing patients' basic social needs through healthcare institutions. Founded in 1996 with a volunteer-staffed help desk at Boston Medical Center connecting low-income patients with basic... View Details

Keywords: Scaling Social Impact; Nonprofit; Healthcare; Health Care Outcomes; Health Care Reform; Health Care Delivery; Scaling Social Enterprise; Social Enterprise; Health; Nonprofit Organizations; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; United States

May 2014
Case

Health Care Accountability: Examples in Cancer Treatment

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Natalie Kindred

This case is designed to support a discussion of the importance of outcomes evidence in empowering the public to make better health care decisions, the desired level of transparency and accountability for health care providers, and the issues with current measuring and... View Details

Keywords: Accountability; Health Care; Cancer; Cancer Treatment; Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; Cancer Treatment Centers Of America; Vantage Oncology; Radiology; Risk Adjustment; Treatment Outcomes; Health Care Outcomes; Prostate Cancer; Transparency; Health Care and Treatment; Risk Management; Outcome or Result; Health Industry; United States

5 Dec 2007
Other Presentation

Creating a Value-Based Health Care Delivery System: Implications for Japan

By: Michael E. Porter

This presentation draws on Michael E. Porter and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg: Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition on Results, Harvard Business School Press, May 2006, "How Physicians Can Change the Future of Health Care" Journal of the American... View Details

Keywords: Health; Japan

September 2016
Case

Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (Abridged)

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby

A nonprofit in the healthcare arena explores strategies to achieve system-level impact. Founded in 1996 with a volunteer-staffed help desk at Boston Medical Center connecting low-income patients with basic resources like heating assistance, job training, and childcare... View Details

Keywords: Scaling Social Enterprise; Scaling Social Impact; Health Care Delivery; Health Care Outcomes; Health Care Reform; Nonprofit; Nonprofit Scaling; Social Enterprise; Health Care and Treatment; Nonprofit Organizations; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; United States

October 26, 2021
Article

Value Chain Management to Implement Post-COVID-19 Health Care Strategy: The COVID-19 Crisis Has Created Areas of Innovation That Should Be Embraced by Health Care Leaders

By: Michael E. Porter, Junaid Nabi and Thomas H. Lee

Health care organizations must learn from what has worked during the COVID-19 crisis. Leaders have found that while they cannot do everything, they must define and manage the sequence of activities required to deliver high-value care. View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Value-based Health Care; Value Chain; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Management; Strategy

Research Summary

Health Care Management

Samuel S. Chun is studying pricing schemes for various health care services. He focuses on two aspects of the health care delivery problem. First, how do physicians respond to financial incentives and what are the characteristics of a pricing scheme which incents... View Details

Article

Navy Medicine Introduces Value-Based Health Care

By: Alee Hernandez, Robert S. Kaplan, Mary L. Witkowski, C. Forrest Faison III and Michael E. Porter

In 2016 the newly appointed surgeon general of the Navy launched a value-based health care pilot project at Naval Hospital Jacksonville to explore whether multidisciplinary care teams (known as integrated practice units, or IPUs) and measurement of outcomes could... View Details

Keywords: Military Health System; Health Care and Treatment; Cost Management; Projects

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June 2012
Case

Reconfiguring Stroke Care in North Central London

By: Michael E. Porter, James Mountford, Kamalini Ramdas and Samuel Takvorian

In 2006, surgeon Ara Darzi identified several key areas, including acute stroke care, for improving health care across London. In response to his seminal call to action, stroke care was reorganized around eight hyper-acute stroke units covering London's five sectors,... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care and Treatment; Performance Improvement; Performance Efficiency; Integration; Health Industry; London