Publications

August 2023
Case

Vanderbilt: Transforming an Academic Health Care Delivery System, 2020

By: Michael E. Porter, Robert S. Kaplan, Mary L. Witkowski and David N. Bernstein

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care Industry; Academic Medicine; Value-based Health Care; Value-based Healthcare; Health Care Delivery; Service Delivery; Transformation; Health Care and Treatment; Corporate Strategy; Leadership; Health Industry; Tennessee; United States

January–February 2013
Article

Fairness, Efficiency and Flexibility in Organ Allocation for Kidney Transplantation

By: Dimitris Bertsimas, Vivek F. Farias and Nikolaos Trichakis

We propose a scalable, data-driven method for designing national policies for the allocation of deceased donor kidneys to patients on a waiting list, in a fair and efficient way. We focus on policies that have the same form as the one currently used in the United... View Details

Keywords: Health Care Policy; Healthcare; Fairness; Resource Allocation; Policy; Health Care and Treatment; Medical Specialties; Health Industry; United States

December 2017
Article

Is There a Doctor in the House? Expert Product Users, Organizational Roles, and Innovation

By: Riitta Katila, Sruthi Thatchenkery, Michael Christensen and Stefanos A. Zenios

We explore the impact on innovation that professional end-users of a product have as inventors, executives, and board members in a young firm. In contrast to prior literature, which has emphasized technology roles, we put the spotlight on the executive and governance... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; User Innovation; Healthcare; Innovation and Management; Entrepreneurship; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

January 2014 (Revised January 2014)
Case

Henry Schein: Doing Well by Doing Good?

By: Rebecca Henderson, Raffaella Sadun, Aldo Sesia and Russell Eisenstat

Henry Schein Inc., a distributor of supplies to dentist, physician, and veterinary practices, had sales approaching $9 billion and employed nearly 16,000 people. The company had experienced impressive growth under the leadership of Stanley Bergman and his executive... View Details

May 2024
Case

SofMedica Group: Managing Growth

By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott

SofMedica Group had expanded from its origins as a medical equipment distributor in Romania to a holding company with four business lines operating in six countries. This expansion had been driven by SofMedica’s mission: to make cutting edge medical technology... View Details

January 2021 (Revised March 2021)
Case

Serum Institute of India (SII): Racing to Save Lives During a Pandemic

By: Rohit Deshpandé, Anjali Raina and Rachna Chawla

The CEO of Serum Institute of India (SII), a $12.8 billion Indian Family business is faced with a risky choice between principles and profit. SII is the largest manufacturer of vaccines in the world and Adar Poonawalla, the CEO and son of the founder has to decide how... View Details

Keywords: Business Ethics; Healthcare; COVID-19; Vaccines; Family Business; Ethics; Health Care and Treatment; Health Pandemics; Leadership; Corporate Accountability; Fairness; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; India; South Asia

October 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Hospital 57357: Aligning Performance Towards a Vision of a Cancer-Free Childhood

By: Susanna Gallani and Youssef Abdel Aal

The case follows the Children Cancer Hospital in Egypt, also known as Hospital 57357, as it goes through the roll-out of a new performance management system, which Dr. Sherif Abouel Naga, founder and CEO of the hospital, had championed. This was a critical juncture as... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Performance Management; Performance Incentives; Strategic Alignment; Health Care and Treatment; Nonprofit Organizations; Strategy; Alignment; Performance Evaluation; Mission and Purpose; Change Management; Health Industry; Egypt; Middle East

2013
Working Paper

An Empirical Study of the Spillover Effects of Workload on Patient Length of Stay

By: Jillian Berry Jaeker and Anita Tucker

We use two years of inpatient data from 243 California hospitals to quantify the relationship between hospital-level workload and patient length of stay (LOS), and its "spillover" effects across patient types. Patients are categorized as medical or surgical, and the... View Details

Keywords: Workload; Processing Times; Healthcare; Working Conditions; Performance Productivity; Time Management; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; California

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February 2022 (Revised April 2022)
Case

CVS Health: Prescription for Transformation

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Tuna Cem Hayirli

In 2021, new CEO Karen Lynch (named the most powerful woman in business) considered the next transformation phase for CVS Health (a Fortune 5 corporate giant. The 2018 acquisition of Aetna insurance brought her to the company as part of its long evolution from a... View Details

Keywords: COVID; Caregiving; Healthcare; Access; Change; Retail; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Transformation; Health Industry; Health Industry

01 Mar 2014
News

Clubs Hopping: A Healthy Dialogue

This past November, the HBS Healthcare Alumni Association held its 14th annual conference at the Charles Hotel in Boston, with more than 300 alumni coming to connect and hear from industry leaders. We asked... View Details

Keywords: Morrell, Daniel; healthcare; HBSAAA

September 2022
Article

The Impact of Financial Assistance Programs on Health Care Utilization: Evidence from Kaiser Permanente

By: Alyce S. Adams, Raymond Kluender, Neale Mahoney, Jinglin Wang, Francis Wong and Wesley Yin

Most hospitals have financial assistance programs for low-income patients. We use administrative data from Kaiser Permanente to study the effects of financial assistance on health care utilization. Using a regression discontinuity design based on an income threshold... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Utilization; Financial Assistance; Health Care and Treatment; Social Issues; Poverty; Health Industry

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January 2014 (Revised January 2014)
Supplement

GlaxoSmithKline in China (C)

By: John Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez

Keywords: China; Healthcare; Pharmaceutical Sales; Ethics; Multinational Firms and Management; Pharmaceutical Industry; China

January 2017 (Revised March 2017)
Case

SIN Capital and the Fullerton Health IPO

By: Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

In early 2016, David Sin, founder of the Singapore-based private equity group SIN Capital and chairman of its primary holding, Fullerton Health, was deeply involved in preparations for taking Fullerton public on the Singapore stock exchange. Three years after SIN... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Asia; IPO; Financing; Singapore; Growth; Health Care and Treatment; Private Equity; Initial Public Offering; Financing and Loans; Strategy; Value Creation; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry; Singapore

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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November 2016
Case

QuintilesIMS: Biosimilar Marketing in England

By: John A. Quelch and Emily C. Boudreau

QuintilesIMS was a leading healthcare consulting firm best known for its data and information offerings as well as its market research and management consulting services for life science companies. By 2015, the company was expanding beyond the biopharmaceutical... View Details

Keywords: Health; Pharmaceutical Industry; Biotech; Marketing; Health Care and Treatment; Biotechnology Industry; England

July 1, 2022
Editorial

New Transparency Rule Helps Rein in Health Care Costs

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Cynthia A. Fisher

Over the last year, consumer prices have grown 60% faster than wages. Employers can help their employees contend with this high inflation by addressing a long-running source: health care costs. View Details

Keywords: Healthcare Costs; Consumer Prices; Inflation and Deflation; Wages; Health Industry

February 2016 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Neurotrack and the Alzheimer's Puzzle

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Liz Kind and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Elli Kaplan founded Neurotrack in 2012 with a breakthrough noninvasive cognitive diagnostics test that will detect Alzheimer's disease in its earliest pre-symptomatic stages. While the company has gained great traction in the three years since it was started, with no... View Details

Keywords: Alzheimer's Disease; Diagnostics; Healthcare; Entrepreneurship; Health Disorders; Science-Based Business; Business Model; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States

August 2013
Course Overview Note

Building Life Science Businesses Fall 2013: Course Outline and Syllabus

By: Richard G. Hamermesh

This Course Outline and Syllabus gives an overview of the Fall 2013 class Building Life Science Businesses. View Details

Keywords: Healthcare Ventures; Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurs; Health Care and Treatment; Health Testing and Trials; Medical Specialties; Health Industry; Health Industry; Health Industry; Asia; North America; Europe

July 2019
Article

Challenges and Opportunities in Software-Driven Medical Devices

By: William J. Gordon and Ariel Dora Stern

The safety and security of medical devices driven by software, the software-development processes, and the need for data collection and privacy, all offer challenges and opportunities for device regulation and clinical care. View Details

Keywords: Medical Devices; Healthcare; Health Care; Health Care and Treatment; Applications and Software; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry