Academics
The first-year required curriculum incorporates healthcare cases and topics in many courses ranging from Marketing and Finance to Entrepreneurship and Strategy. This ensures that all students will understand the industry from various functional perspectives.
During the second-year elective curriculum, you may choose courses and field-based research specific to your particular healthcare interests. Some students also choose to cross-register for healthcare courses at other schools within the University.
Elective courses will vary from year to year. Typical HBS course offerings may include:
- Commercializing Science: Biomedical and Life Science Focus
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This unique elective course has evolved over several years. Students are selected from Harvard's schools of business, medicine, science, engineering, law, public health, government, and teaching hospitals. The focus is on inventing breakthroughs and moving research from the lab to the marketplace.
Course Catalog Listing
- Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital in Healthcare
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This course examines a wide range of healthcare ventures and examines licensing, joint venturing, and financing agreements that form the basis of these ventures. The course is intended primarily for students who have a career interest in either leading or investing in healthcare ventures (biotechnology, medical devices, and healthcare services). It will also be of interest to students who plan to work in Business Development functions either in or outside the healthcare sector.
Course Catalog Listing
- Entrepreneurship in the Private and Social Sectors
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This course seeks to prepare students for future work and leadership in and with entrepreneurial ventures and to provide an informed perspective to those who may someday promote or regulate such ventures. In addition, the course looks at the increasingly common relationships among the private, public, and social sectors in healthcare, housing, education, and other industries.
Course Catalog Listing
- Field Course in Healthcare
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The Field Study Seminar in Healthcare provides an opportunity for students, working in teams, to gain first-hand experience with a health care organization. This seminar will be especially helpful to students who are interested in deepening their understanding of the healthcare industry entrepreneurship, venture capital, and early stage technologies.
Course Catalog Listing
- Healthcare Computer Assisted Innovations
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In this field course, students will prepare a business plan and/or a prototype for a device or IT application. Prof. Herzlinger will lecture on the creation of a business plan and evaluations of new technologies and Prof. Seltzer will lecture on a variety of technologies and approaches to technological innovation. The remaining sessions will be devoted to individual weekly meetings between the faculty and student groups.
Course Catalog Listing
- India/Singapore: Assembling Global Innovation Strategies
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This course is intended for future general managers in science and technology intensive businesses who seek first hand exposure to companies constructing global R&D strategies. The primary focus of this course will be conducting part of a firm's R&D in Asia. Students with an ambition to move into a science-based or technology intensive business will benefit most from this course.
Course Catalog Listing
- Innovating in Healthcare
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This course has a global focus with cases studies set in Brazil, India, Spain, the U.K and the U.S. among other countries. For students interested in careers in entrepreneurial health care management, consulting and investing, this course will discuss how to successfully create entrepreneurial health care ventures. Students will be required to create a business plan that appropriately responds to the six forces that shape healthcare.
Course Catalog Listing
- Managing Global Health: Design, Delivery, and Evaluation of Global Health Programs
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This course is designed for students who seek entrepreneurial or management roles in global development, particularly in global health. Students learn to creatively and skillfully bridge the worlds of research and action to make an impact in global health.
Course Catalog Listing
- Managing Medicine
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Many healthcare innovations ultimately fail because they neither integrate with existing clinical processes nor successfully create new ones. This course examines the unique characteristics of the care delivery process to help students identify opportunities for innovation—and develop the management skills to design and drive operational and technological change in healthcare.
Course Catalog Listing
- Independent Studies
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Students may earn academic credit by working independently or in teams as they conduct research and complete projects for healthcare organizations. This student-initiated learning enables students to choose their faculty sponsor and the organization where they will work. Recent projects include:
- Quantifying the size of the medical tourism market
- Identifying applications for multiplex protein analysis techniques
- Evaluating IT strategies for a startup healthcare organization
- Redesigning urgent care triage for a major academic hospital
- Developing a China business model for a large pharmaceutical company
Course Catalog Listing
Immersion Experience Program Offerings
Several unique learning opportunities are offered to second-year students to complement their fall and spring semester coursework. Taught by leading HBS faculty, these programs delve into specific industry areas. Past healthcare topics include:
- Healthcare: Science, Delivery, and Regulation
- India Immersion: Creating Opportunities in Healthcare Delivery
- Innovations in Consumer-Driven Healthcare
- Value-Based Healthcare Delivery
Healthcare: Science, Delivery, and Regulation
Jan. 8, 2009
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Healthcare: Science, Delivery, & Regulation. Jerry Avorn, MD, Chief of Pharmacoepiemiology & Pharmacoeconomics, Brigham & Women's Hospital. January 2009
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Healthcare: Science, Delivery, & Regulation. Mark McClellan, MD, Director, Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform. January 2009
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Healthcare: Science, Delivery, & Regulation. Alan Moses, Chief Medical Officer, Novo Nordisk. January 2009
Cross Registration
HBS students may take graduate-level courses at several other schools within Harvard University. Courses at the Harvard School of Public Health, the Law School, and the Kennedy School of Government are popular. A partial listing of healthcare courses at Harvard may be found here.
