Harvard Business School spends a significant amount of research funds each year on the health care industry, answering questions such as: How can the business of health care be made more efficient? What can a business do to motivate employees to take better care of themselves? What does financial accounting have to do with improving patient outcomes in Haiti?
HBS faculty members discuss their research and what it means for patients, providers, and industries.
A Good Place to Start
Clayton Christensen on Disrupting Health Care
In a 2009 interview, the late Clayton Christensen examined the health care landscape through a lens of disruptive innovation.
How Electronic Patient Records Can Slow Doctor Productivity
Instead of making health care delivery more efficient, electronic health records may be doing just the opposite.
Women Heart Patients Have Better Survival Odds with Women Doctors
Roughly one in 66 women has a better chance of leaving the hospital alive if their doctor is also a woman.
Behavioral Economists Can Make You a Healthier Consumer and Smarter Marketer
Psychological "interventions" companies can take to help employees make healthier decisions.
Distressed Employees? Try Resilience Training
Depressed employees are up to five times more likely to experience work-related problems than employees with chronic physical illnesses. So why aren't employers helping them?
What Hospitals Must Learn to Compete
Why is it so difficult for American health care providers to compete for customers?
Consumers Blame Business for Global Health Problems. Can Business Become the Solution?
Millions of people have been harmed by cigarettes, defective merchandise, pollution, addiction and other business by-products. now, pioneering companies are exploring healthier ways to operate.
Why Business Should Support Employees Who Are Caregivers
Shifting demographics are causing an increasing number of people to act as caregivers for family and friends—but employers seem hardly to notice the trend.
The Economic Cost of Physician Burnout
Doctor burnout takes a toll on physicians and patient care, but there is another cost to be accounted for.
Germany May Have the Answer for Reducing Drug Prices
In Germany, drugmakers must prove that a new medication’s benefits merit a higher price than existing drugs.
Making Health Insurance That Consumers Actually Like
Health insurance that consumers like? Doesn’t sound possible, but South African company Vitality is doing just that.
How Cost Accounting is Improving Healthcare in Rural Haiti
What happened when a pioneering cost accounting system examined wide variances in Haiti's health delivery costs.
Medicare for All or Public Option: Can Either Heal Health Care?
A public insurance option could use its scale to hold prices down, but only if the approach avoids the financing gimmicks that are undermining Medicare.
Research Papers
Cohort Turnover and Operational Performance: The July Phenomenon in Teaching Hospitals
Quality of care may drop for a period as medical residents turn over in teaching hospitals.
Who Drives Digital Innovation? Evidence from the US Medical Device Industry
Does large-scale technological change characteristic of an industrywide digital transformation entrench industry leaders or enable the rise of new entrants? What the medical device industry teaches us.
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