Managing Health Care

15 Results

 

Attention Medical Shoppers: What Health Care Can Learn from Walmart and Amazon

At a Harvard Business School panel discussion on health care management, experts looked to the retail industry as a possible model for delivering medical services more effectively. Participants included Harvard's Robert Huckman, Raffaella Sadun, David Cutler, and Atul Gawande. Open for comment; 7 Comments posted.

Turning Employees Into Problem Solvers

To improve patient safety, hospitals hope their staff will use error-reporting systems. Question is, how can managers encourage employees to take the next step and ensure their constructive use? New research by Julia Adler-Milstein, Sara J. Singer, and HBS professor Michael W. Toffel. Read More

Managerial Practices That Promote Voice and Taking Charge among Frontline Workers

Julia Rose Adler-Milstein, Sara J. Singer, and Michael W. Toffel

How can front-line workers be encouraged to speak up when they know how to improve an organization's operation processes? This question is particularly urgent in the US health- care industry, where problems occur often and consequences range from minor inconveniences to serious patient harm. In this paper, HBS doctoral student Julia Adler-Milstein, Harvard School of Public Health professor Sara Singer, and HBS professor Michael W. Toffel examine the effectiveness of organizational information campaigns and managerial role modeling in encouraging hospital staff to speak up when they encounter operational problems and, when speaking up, to propose solutions to hospital management. The researchers find that both mechanisms can lead employees to report problems and propose solutions, and that information campaigns are particularly effective in departments whose managers are less engaged in problem solving. Read More

Mental Health in the Aftermath of Conflict

Quy-Toan Do and Lakshmi Iyer

Wars are detrimental to the populations and the economy of affected countries. Over and above the human cost caused by deaths and suffering during a time of conflict, survivors of conflict are often left in poor economic circumstances and mental-health distress even after the conflict ends. How large are these costs? How long does it take for conflict-affected populations to recover from the mental stress of conflict? What policies are appropriate to assist mental health recovery? While considerable attention has been paid to post-war policies with regard to recovery in physical and human capital, mental health has received relatively less attention. The World Bank's Quy-Toan Do and HBS professor Lakshmi Iyer review the nascent literature on mental health in the aftermath of conflict, discuss the potential mechanisms through which conflict might affect mental health, and illustrate the findings from their study of mental health in a specific post-conflict setting: Bosnia and Herzegovina. Read More

Broadening Focus: Spillovers and the Benefits of Specialization in the Hospital Industry

Jonathan R. Clark and Robert S. Huckman

What is the optimal scope of operations for firms? This question has particular relevance for the US 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. Read More

Where is the Pharmacy to the World? International Regulatory Variation and Pharmaceutical Industry Location

Arthur Daemmrich

The era of paternalistic medicine has passed, but the notion that patients can act as consumers and make appropriate decisions concerning medical treatment poses countervailing risks of its own. A better accommodation among key players needs to be struck to foster the safe use of pharmaceuticals, according to HBS professor Arthur Daemmrich. The "pharmacy to the world," once located at the intersection of Germany, Switzerland, and France, today is found in the United States. Studies of the industry have attributed this sustained competitive advantage to a variety of factors, including U.S. intellectual property policies, funding for biomedical research through the National Institutes of Health, the absence of government controls on drug prices, and the availability of venture capital and other factors that fostered the growth of the biotechnology industry. The data and analysis presented in this working paper, however speculative, are an initial step toward deepening the understanding of interrelationships between government regulation, patients' mobilization both as regulators and as consumers, and the functioning of the pharmaceutical industry. Read More

How Do Managers Think?

"Uncertainty sometimes is essential for success" asserts a new book, How Doctors Think. The work of doctors raises intriguing questions about managing, says Jim Heskett, since diagnostics are an important part of managerial decision-making, too. Jim sums up nearly 60 responses from readers around the world, including practicing physicians. Closed for comment; 59 Comments posted.

Entrepreneurial Hospital Pioneers New Model

A "Robin Hood" cardiac hospital in India—which charges wealthy patients, yet equally welcomes the destitute—is an exciting example of entrepreneurship in the subcontinent, says HBS professor Tarun Khanna. Read More

Side Effects: The Case of Propecia

Selling Propecia was a difficult marketing task for Merck & Co., and was recently the subject of a case study debated by Harvard Business School alumni. Read More

Bypass Marketing: Are Docs Influenced?

Alvin J. Silk

Although they are prescription drugs, Viagra, Prozac, Allegra and many others are pitched directly to consumers. Do physicians take notice? HBS professor Alvin Silk and Harvard's Joel Weissman discuss a recent study. Read More

Health Care Research and Prospects

Gary P. Pisano and Marta Wosinska

A groundbreaking project at Harvard Business School is bringing together faculty, researchers, and students to probe issues in health care management. An interview with Professor Gary P. Pisano. Read More

Making Biotech Work as a Business

What will it take for biotechnology to fulfill its economic potential? Participants need to think twice about the strategies and assumptions that are driving the industry, says HBS professor Gary P. Pisano. Read More

Healthcare Conference Looks At Ailing Industry

What's plaguing healthcare? Experts including HBS professor Clayton Christensen make the diagnosis on future trends for biology and medicine—and the business opportunities within—at the 2nd HBS Alumni Healthcare Conference. Read More

The Business of Biotech

On the cusp of what most analysts agree will be the age of biotechology, Professor Gary P. Pisano and four HBS alums on the front lines of the biotech revolution offer their views of the challenges, issues and opportunities facing the industry in the laboratory, the boardroom and the marketplace. Read More

What’s an Internet Business Model? Ask a Health Care Professional

Health care and the Internet are well-matched for each other, quipped one panelist at the IS2K conference, "because no one wants to pay for either." Quips aside, the health care field is emerging as one of the busiest laboratories for exciting new business models—and the stakes are high indeed. In a discussion moderated by HBS Professor Lynda Applegate, experts in this burgeoning realm of Internet activity talked about what their businesses are doing to change the rules, all while trying to fulfill their primary goal of earning patients' trust. Read More