Publications

08 Jun 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Physician Beliefs and Patient Preferences: A New Look at Regional Variation in Health Care Spending

Keywords: by David Cutler, Jonathan Skinner, Ariel Dora Stern & David Wennberg; Health

May 2023 (Revised June 2023)
Supplement

Novartis (B): Reimagining Medicine

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Claudio Feser, Karolin Frankenberger and David Redaschi

This case unfolds around the first-ever approved personalized cancer treatment, how Novartis wrapped it into a new business model design, and how Novartis scaled it. Novartis — one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world — is, among other ventures,... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Business Model; Production; Business Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry

Research Summary

Physician vs. Patient Incentives in Prescription Drug Choice

The market for medical care involves interactions among patients, providers, and the insurers who pay for the care of their enrollees. The division of responsibilities creates scope for agency costs and moral hazard in the physician's treatment choice.... View Details

April 2021
Article

Today's Surgeon Compensation Models Fall Short: Aligning Incentives to Create More Equitable and Value-based Compensation Models

By: Susanna Gallani, Mary Witkowski, Lauren Haskins, Haley Jeffcoat, Vinita Mujumdar and Frank Opelka

Modern medicine is undergoing a transformation that involves innovative surgical approaches, increased medical treatment options, clinical care pathways that require collaboration beyond hospital walls, and health data captured by electronic health records and other... View Details

Keywords: Physician Compensation; Surgeons; Health Care and Treatment; Business Model; Compensation and Benefits

2009
Working Paper

Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting

By: Lisa D. Ordonez, Maurice E. Schweitzer, Adam D. Galinsky and Max H. Bazerman

Goal setting is one of the most replicated and influential paradigms in the management literature. Hundreds of studies conducted in numerous countries and contexts have consistently demonstrated that setting specific, challenging goals can powerfully drive behavior and... View Details

Keywords: Goals and Objectives; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives

March 2015
Case

Twine Health

By: Robert S. Huckman, Ariel D. Stern and Matthew G. Preble

In late 2014, Dr. John Moore (CEO), Frank Moss (chairman), and Scott Gilroy (CTO) of Twine Health (Twine) had to resolve several challenges that threatened to restrict the widespread dissemination of its sole product, Twine. Twine was a cloud-based platform that... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Chronic Disease; Technology Adoption; Digital Health; Health Acceleration Challenge; Strategy; Disease Management; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Health Industry; United States; Massachusetts

August 2023
Case

Augmenix: Space to Think Differently

By: Satish Tadikonda and Sidhant Jena

Amar Sawhney, a serial medtech entrepreneur, had founded Augmenix to develop and commercialize a hydrogel-based medical device called SpaceOAR as an adjunctive technology to core radiation therapy. This technology was used to protect organs at risk (OAR) during... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Technology Adoption; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Product Development; Commercialization; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

Article

A Field Experiment on Search Costs and the Formation of Scientific Collaborations

By: Kevin Boudreau, Tom Brady, Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaule, Eva C. Guinan, Anthony Hollenberg and Karim R. Lakhani

We present the results of a field experiment conducted at Harvard Medical School to understand the extent to which search costs affect matching among scientific collaborators. We generated exogenous variation in search costs for pairs of potential collaborators by... View Details

Keywords: Search Costs; Cost; Marketplace Matching; Groups and Teams; Science; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

2019
Chapter

Behavioral Economics and Health-Care Markets

By: Amitabh Chandra, Benjamin Handel and Joshua Schwartzstein

This chapter summarizes research in behavioral health economics, focusing on insurance markets and product markets in health care. We argue that the prevalence of choice difficulties and biases leading to mistakes in these markets establish a special place for them in... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Economics; Consumer Behavior; Economics; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Markets

28 Mar 2023
Research & Ideas

The FDA’s Speedy Drug Approvals Are Safe: A Win-Win for Patients and Pharma Innovation

and effective in preventing severe disease, and their accelerated review will go down in history as having saved millions of lives. But COVID vaccines weren’t the first medical products to be brought to market through an expedited... View Details

Keywords: by Kasandra Brabaw; Pharmaceutical

February 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Marvin: A Personalized Telehealth Approach to Mental Health

By: Regina E. Herzlinger, Eshani Sharma, Andrew Nguyen, Thomas Arsenault, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Julia Kelley

More than one third of Americans were said to suffer some type of behavioral health ailment at some point in their lifetime, with many people requiring chronic therapy or intervention. Despite significant clinical needs, access to reliable treatment has been difficult... View Details

Keywords: Mental Health; Applications; Startup Management; Telehealth; Health Care Entrepreneurship; Health ＆ Wellness; Health Care; Health Care and Treatment; Customization and Personalization; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Applications and Software

March 2018
Teaching Note

Twine Health

By: Robert S. Huckman and Ariel D. Stern

In late 2014, Dr. John Moore (CEO), Frank Moss (chairman), and Scott Gilroy (CTO) of Twine Health (Twine) had to resolve several challenges that threatened to restrict the widespread dissemination of its sole product, Twine. Twine was a cloud-based platform that... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Chronic Disease; Digital Health; Health Acceleration Challenge; Strategy; Disease Management; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Information Technology; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technology Adoption; Health Industry; United States; Massachusetts

09 Feb 2024
HBS Case

Slim Chance: Drugs Will Reshape the Weight Loss Industry, But Habit Change Might Be Elusive

while Ozempic and Mounjaro have been approved to treat diabetes, but are sometimes used to lose weight. These medications are likely to profoundly alter the $76 billion weight loss industry, largely, Herzlinger says, because people have... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Health; Pharmaceutical

05 Aug 2019
News

Navy saves money, improves patient outcomes through value-based care pilot: study

Article

Affording to Wait: Medicare Initiation and the Use of Health Care

By: Guy David, Philip Saynisch, Victoria Acevado-Perez and Mark D. Neuman

Delays in receipt of necessary diagnostic and therapeutic medical procedures related to the timing of Medicare initiation at age 65 years have potentially broad welfare implications. We use 2005–2007 data from Florida and North Carolina to estimate the effect of... View Details

Keywords: Medicare; Behavior; Insurance; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance Industry; Public Administration Industry; Health Industry; North Carolina; Florida

22 Aug 2022
Research & Ideas

Can Amazon Remake Health Care?

At a time when health care providers have gone all in on telemedicine, Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, surprised Wall Street in late July when it announced it would acquire 1Life Healthcare Inc., which runs the subscription-based One View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Health

October 2009
Case

Medisys Corp.: The IntensCare Product Development Team

By: Anne Donnellon and Joshua D. Margolis

Key topics include designing teams, managing teams, managing conflict, group dynamics, project management, product development, interdepartmental relations, and organizational change. MediSys, a U.S.-based medical equipment maker, has been developing IntensCare, a new... View Details

Keywords: Project Management; Interdepartmental Relations; Organizational Change; Leadership; Conflict Management; Interpersonal Communication; Groups and Teams; Product Design; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Health Care and Treatment; Power and Influence; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States

06 Sep 2019
Blog Post

The Business of Medicine: MD/MBA Students Having an Impact

These Harvard Medical School (HMS) students are already making a difference in the health care community. Now, they are at HBS fine-tuning their leadership skills in preparation of receiving their MD/MBA. Each year, MD/MBA applicants... View Details

Article

Beyond Magic Bullets: True Innovation in Health Care

By: Vaibhav A. Narayan, Marco Mohwinckel, Gary Pisano, Michael Yang and Husseini Manji

The molecular medicine revolution—based on advances in fields such as genomics and network modeling in the decade since the human genome sequence was completed—has changed the way we think about, study, and approach the development of novel therapies. However, these... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Business Model; Organizational Structure; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Pharmaceutical Industry