Publications

02 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

Digital Initiative Summit: Freeing Patient Data to Enable Innovation

Patients are not actually the customers in the United States health care system, a fact largely to blame for the dearth of communication and data sharing between providers, according to experts at a recent... View Details

Keywords: Re: Karim R. Lakhani; Health

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

Educators

Article

Costs Without Value When Treating Pediatric Behavioral Patients in the ED

By: Marcella Jewell, Syed S. Shehab, Robert S. Kaplan, Jack Fanton and Joeli Hettler

Pediatric Emergency Department (ED) visits have greatly increased in recent years. An academic pediatric ED that annually treats about 1,000 behavioral health patients conducted a study to assess the true cost of caring for nonacute behavioral health patients. It... View Details

Keywords: Costs; Value; Healthcare; Health Care and Treatment; Cost Management

15 Feb 2018
News

Does CVS–Aetna Spell the End of Business as Usual?

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

Educators

March 2010 (Revised August 2012)
Supplement

WellSpace Treatment Centers for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (B) - The Marino Center

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

The Marino Center provides complementary traditional and alternative health care services. It wants to grow, but how and where? View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Growth and Development; Health Care and Treatment; Medical Specialties; Growth and Development Strategy; Health Industry

May 11, 2017
Article

Good Riddance to Big Insurance Mergers

By: Leemore S. Dafny

Federal judges issued preliminary injunctions halting mergers of four of the five largest U.S. health insurers. These decisions provide more precedent to support challenges of mergers between competitors in health care markets—whether payers or providers. View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Health Industry

24 Aug 2016
Research & Ideas

Can Obamacare Be Saved?

On August 15th, Aetna announced that it would reduce by 80 percent its participation in the Obama administration’s public exchanges for health insurance policies in 2017, citing significant financial losses.... View Details

Keywords: by John A. Quelch and Emily Boudreau; Health; Health

June 28, 2011
Article

Using Implementation Intentions Prompts to Enhance Influenza Vaccination Rates

By: Katherine L Milkman, John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

We evaluate the results of a field experiment designed to measure the effect of prompts to form implementation intentions on realized behavioral outcomes. The outcome of interest is influenza vaccination receipt at free on-site clinics offered by a large firm to its... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Economics; Nudge; Libertarian Paternalism; Public Health; Flu Shot; Behavior; Consumer Behavior; Health Care and Treatment; Cognition and Thinking

10 Jun 2021
News

Preparing Hospitals for the Next Pandemic

August 2015
Article

Hospital Board and Management Practices Are Strongly Related to Hospital Performance on Clinical Quality Metrics

By: Thomas C Tsai, Ashish K. Jha, Atul A. Gawande, Robert S. Huckman, Nicholas Bloom and Raffaella Sadun

National policies to improve health care quality have largely focused on clinical provider outcomes and, more recently, payment reform. Yet the association between hospital leadership and quality, although crucial to driving quality improvement, has not been explored... View Details

Keywords: Hospitals; Quality; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Practices and Processes; Service Delivery; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry

07 Mar 2019
News

Jim Rooney, Haven, and Cord Cutting

06 Aug 2020
News

Interview with Professor Regina Herzlinger on Balancing Entrepreneurship and Corporate Governance with a Prominent Academic Career

September 2023
Teaching Note

Roche: ESG and Access to Healthcare

By: George Serafeim

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 123-075. In May 2022, Roche Group, one of the largest healthcare companies in the world, hosted its first ESG investor event focused exclusively on its efforts to impact access to healthcare. While Roche had recently set an ambitious goal... View Details

Keywords: ESG; Access To Care; Healthcare; Healthcare Access; Innovation; Social Impact; Affordable; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Product Development; Resource Allocation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Health Industry

March 2010 (Revised April 2014)
Case

American Well: The Doctor Will E-See You Now

By: Elie Ofek and Ron Laufer

What is next for healthcare IT provider American Well, whose innovative Online Care technology allows physicians to deliver care to patients online in real time? Using American Well's platform, patients with non-emergency health concerns can communicate with physicians... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Service Delivery; Online Technology; Health Industry

Educators

22 May 2020
News

What Hospitals Overwhelmed by Covid-19 Can Learn From Startups

11 May 2017
News

New Journal Sponsored by Top MBA Programs Tackles Critical Healthcare Management Issues

14 Jul 2015
First Look

First Look: July 14, 2015

case: https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/215038-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 615-052 Transforming Care at UnityPoint Health-Fort Dodge This case details the transformation of a health View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

Dissecting Costs of CT Study: Application of TDABC (Time-driven Activity-based Costing) in a Tertiary Academic Center

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Yoshimi Anzai, Marta E. Heilbrun, Derek Haas, Luca Boi, Kirk Moshre, Satoshi Minoshima and Vivian S. Lee

The lack of understanding the true costs (not charges) of delivering health care services poses tremendous challenges in the containment of health care costs. In this study, we applied an established cost accounting method, time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC),... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare Costs; Medical Imaging; Computed Tomography; Activity-Based Costing; Cost Accounting; Activity Based Costing and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Performance Efficiency; Health Industry