Publications
Publications
- September 2016
- HBS Case Collection
Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (A)
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby
Abstract
Explores strategies to achieve system-level impact for a nonprofit focused on addressing patients' basic social needs through healthcare institutions. Founded in 1996 with a volunteer-staffed help desk at Boston Medical Center connecting low-income patients with basic resources like heating assistance, job training, and childcare programs, the nonprofit had grown to 6 cities and 1,000 volunteers serving over 11,000 patients annually by 2013. At the end of a successful “proof plan” period, Health Leads Co-Founder and CEO Rebecca Onie and her team faced the question of how to make meeting patients’ social needs a standard part of health care in the United States: replicate Health Leads’ proven model or instigate a social care movement?
Keywords
Scaling Social Impact; Nonprofit; Healthcare; Health Care Outcomes; Health Care Reform; Health Care Delivery; Scaling Social Enterprise; Social Enterprise; Health; Nonprofit Organizations; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; United States
Citation
Rangan, V. Kasturi, and Sarah Appleby. "Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (A)." Harvard Business School Case 517-022, September 2016.