A Market for Human Cadavers in All but Name?
| Published: | November 5, 2009 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
A shortage of cadavers has hampered medical education and training, a market that entrepreneurs are stepping forward to address. HBS professor Michel Anteby argues that scholars must learn more about the market dynamics of this uncomfortable subject in order to inform political debate.
Operational Failures and Problem Solving: An Empirical Study of Incident Reporting
| Authors: | Julia Adler-Milstein, Sara J. Singer, and Michael W. Toffel |
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| Published: | September 23, 2009 |
| Paper Release Date: | August 2009 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Operational failures occur within organizations across all industries, with consequences ranging from minor inconveniences to major catastrophes. How can managers encourage frontline workers to solve problems in response to operational failures? In the health-care industry, the setting for this study, operational failures occur often, and some are reported to voluntary incident reporting systems that are meant to help organizations learn from experience. Using data on nearly 7,500 reported incidents from a single hospital, the researchers found that problem-solving in response to operational failures is influenced by both the risk posed by the incident and the extent to which management demonstrates a commitment to problem-solving. Findings can be used by organizations to increase the contribution of incident reporting systems to operational performance improvement.
Input Constraints and the Efficiency of Entry: Lessons from Cardiac Surgery
| Authors: | David M. Cutler, Robert S. Huckman, and Jonathan T. Kolstad |
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| Published: | September 17, 2009 |
| Paper Release Date: | August 2009 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Many professions rely on highly and variably skilled individuals. If a new firm is looking to enter a specific market, in addition to setting up a physical facility the company needs to hire or contract with specialized labor. In the short term, the supply of these specialists is relatively inelastic. From the point of view of economics, there remains a well-known potential for free entry to be inefficient when firms make entry decisions without internalizing the costs associated with the business they "steal" from incumbent firms. In 1996 Pennsylvania eliminated its certificate-of-need (CON) policy that had restricted entry by hospitals into expensive clinical programs, such as coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) programs—leading to an increase from 43 to 63 in the number of hospitals providing this service. HBS professor Robert Huckman and coauthors examine the welfare implications of entry in the market for cardiac surgery.
Why Can't Americans Get Health Care Right?
| Published: | August 7, 2009 |
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| Feature: | What Do YOU Think? |
| Forum: | closed | 103 Comments posted |
Change is desperately needed, agreed readers of Professor Jim Heskett's online forum. But how to make that change remains in doubt. What can Americans learn from solutions implemented by other countries? (Forum now closed; next forum begins September 4.)
Diagnosing the Public Health Care Alternative
| Published: | July 13, 2009 |
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| Feature: | Op-Ed |
With deep experience in health insurance reform, HBS faculty describe how improved competition in insurance plans could improve value for patients. Professors Regina E. Herzlinger, Robert Huckman, and Michael E. Porter take the pulse of a debate.
Broadening Focus: Spillovers and the Benefits of Specialization in the Hospital Industry
| Authors: | Jonathan R. Clark and Robert S. Huckman |
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| Published: | May 7, 2009 |
| Paper Release Date: | April 2009 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
What is the optimal scope of operations for firms? This question has particular relevance for the U.S. hospital industry, because understanding the effects of focus and spillovers might help hospitals determine how they should balance focusing in a single clinical area with building expertise in related areas. While some scholars argue that narrowing an organization's set of activities improves its operational efficiency, others have noted that seemingly unfocused operations perform at a high level and that a broader range of activities may in fact increase firm value. This study by HBS doctoral student Jonathan Clark and professor Robert Huckman highlights the potential role of spillovers—specifically complementary spillovers—in generating benefits from focus at the operating unit level.
Clay Christensen on Disrupting Health Care
| Q&A with: | Clayton M. Christensen |
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| Published: | April 8, 2009 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
In The Innovator's Prescription, professor Clayton Christensen and his coauthors target disruptive innovations that will make health care both more affordable and more effective in the future. Q&A with Christensen. From the HBS Alumni Bulletin.
Applying the Care Delivery Value Chain: HIV/AIDS Care in Resource Poor Settings
| Authors: | Joseph Rhatigan, Sachin Jain, Joia S. Mukherjee, and Michael E. Porter |
|---|---|
| Published: | April 3, 2009 |
| Paper Release Date: | February 2009 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
The prevention and treatment of a complex disease such as HIV/AIDS in resource‐poor settings presents enormous challenges. Many of the social and economic factors that make populations living in these settings vulnerable to HIV/AIDS such as poverty, malnutrition, and political instability conspire to create barriers to effective care delivery. Understanding how interventions are related to each other and how local socioeconomic factors influence them is critical to effective program design. The Care Delivery Value Chain (CDVC) looks at care as an overall system, not as a series of discrete interventions, and describes the activities required to deliver care, illustrating their sequence and organization. Government agencies, philanthropic organizations, and non‐governmental organizations can use the framework to improve HIV/AIDS care delivery.
How to Revive Health-Care Innovation
| Published: | March 9, 2009 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Simple solutions to complex problems lead to breakthroughs in industries from retailing to personal computers to printing. So let's try health care, too. According to HBS professor Clayton M. Christensen and coauthors of The Innovator's Prescription, such disruption to an industry might look like a threat, but it "always proves to be an extraordinary growth opportunity." Book excerpt.
Published in 2008
Creating Leaders for Science-Based Businesses
| Published: | August 27, 2008 |
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| Feature: | HBS Centennial Colloquia Reports |
The unique challenges of managing and leading science-based businesses—certain to be a driver of this century's new economy—demand new management paradigms. At Harvard Business School, the opportunities start just across the street. From HBS Alumni Bulletin.
What Should Employers Do about Health Care?
| Published: | July 16, 2008 |
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| Feature: | Op-Ed |
Companies that cut health care costs without improving the overall value of care eventually pay a price in terms of employee absenteeism and chronic ailments. According to Harvard University professor and strategy expert Michael E. Porter and coauthors, the best way to truly reduce health care costs is to improve quality.
Pursuing a Deadly Opportunity
| Published: | January 7, 2008 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Cadavers are a necessity for medical students and researchers, but the business of supplying this market is a touchy moral and ethical issue. Harvard Business School professor Michel Anteby and research associate Mikell Hyman explore strategies used by both academic and entrepreneurial organizations that deal in the dead.
Published in 2007
The Rise of Medical Tourism
| Q&A with: | Tarun Khanna |
|---|---|
| Published: | December 17, 2007 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Medical tourism—traveling far and wide for health care that is often better and certainly cheaper than at home—appeals to patients with complaints ranging from heart ailments to knee pain. Why is India leading in the globalization of medical services? Q&A with Harvard Business School's Tarun Khanna.
The FDA: What Will the Next 100 Years Bring?
| Q&A with: | Arthur A. Daemmrich |
|---|---|
| Published: | September 24, 2007 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
With the possible exception of the Internal Revenue Service, no other governmental agency touches the lives of more Americans than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which ensures the safety of $1.5 trillion worth of consumer goods and medicines. Harvard Business School professor Arthur A. Daemmrich discusses the impact and challenges of the agency and his new book, Perspectives on Risk and Regulation: The FDA at 100.
Improving Patient Outcomes: The Effects of Staff Participation and Collaboration in Healthcare Delivery
| Authors: | Ingrid M. Nembhard, Anita L. Tucker, Jeffrey D. Horbar, and Joseph H. Carpenter |
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| Published: | August 14, 2007 |
| Paper Release Date: | July 2007 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Health-care organizations have a well-documented, industry-wide need to improve their processes. To that aim, the Institute of Medicine has made at least 2 recommendations that focus on front-line staff—physicians, nurses, and respiratory therapists. The first recommendation states that front-line staff should be involved in unit decision-making and the design of work processes and workflow (participation). The second emphasizes respectful interactions among front-line staff, including information-sharing and coordinating activities to achieve organizational goals (collaboration). This study provides preliminary supporting evidence for the Institute of Medicine's recommendations to use a dual, front-line strategy of participation and collaboration to improve patient outcomes.
Is Health Care Making You Better—or Dead?
| Published: | June 4, 2007 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Professor Regina Herzlinger has been studying the U.S. health care system for decades, advocating for consumer-driven reform as the best remedy. But the slow pace of change, which she attributes to a fat-cat network of insurers, policymakers, hospitals, and even employers, has her fed up. Her new book, Who Killed Health Care? adopts the emotional language of a manifesto in demanding change to make health care more responsive to customers, affordable to those in need, and a hotbed of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Health Care Under a Research Microscope
| Published: | May 30, 2007 |
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| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Perhaps no industry has caught the research attention of Harvard Business School faculty as much as health care. Researchers are investigating business-focused solutions on everything from improving team work among surgical teams to developing market motivations that increase the use of water purification in poor villages.
What Is the Government's Role in U.S. Healthcare?
| Published: | March 2, 2007 |
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| Feature: | What Do YOU Think? |
| Forum: | closed | 66 Comments posted |
Healthcare will grab ever more headlines in the U.S. in the coming months, says Jim Heskett. Any service that is on track to consume 40 percent of the gross national product of the world's largest economy by the year 2050 will be hard to ignore. But are we addressing healthcare cost issues with the creativity they deserve? What do you think?
Published in 2006
Improving Public Health for the Poor
| Q&A with: | Michael Chu |
|---|---|
| Published: | December 13, 2006 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Microfinance may offer a window on new methods for widening access to healthcare for the poor, says Harvard Business School's Michael Chu. He and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health have embarked on a new project to serve this critical sector. Bringing together public healthcare and market forces "could have huge impact," he says.
Competition the Cure for Healthcare
| Q&A with: | Michael E. Porter |
|---|---|
| Published: | July 12, 2006 |
| Feature: | Research & Ideas |
Michael Porter is considered by many the world's foremost authority on competition and strategy. He discusses the need for fundamental reform in the way the United States delivers healthcare. Q&A.
