Robert S. Huckman

Robert Huckman is the Albert J. Weatherhead III Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, the Howard Cox Faculty Chair of the HBS Healthcare Initiative, and the Unit Head for Technology and Operations Management. He currently teaches the required MBA course, Technology and Operations Management, and has previously taught several elective MBA courses, including Transforming Health Care Delivery and Operations Strategy. Professor Huckman is the Faculty Chair of HBS' executive education program entitled Managing Health Care Delivery.  He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Co-Chair of the management track of Harvard's doctoral program in health policy.

Professor Huckman's research focuses on the linkages between organizational characteristics and operating performance, with an emphasis on the health care industry. He is an associate editor of Management Science and has published articles in journals including the American Economic Review, Harvard Business Review, Health Affairs, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Management Science, and the New England Journal of Medicine. Professor Huckman also serves as a Trustee of the Brigham and Women's Physicians Organization and Brigham Health as well as an advisory board member for several private companies in the health care industry.

Professor Huckman received a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University and an A.B. in Public Policy, summa cum laude, from Princeton University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Prior to his graduate studies, Professor Huckman was a Principal and Founding Equity Member of Stamos Associates, Inc., a strategy and operations consulting firm serving clients in the health care industry. In 1997, Stamos Associates was acquired by Perot Systems, Inc. Professor Huckman has also worked at Booz Allen & Hamilton, Inc.

Featured Work

What Will U.S. Health Care Look Like After the Pandemic?

Even the most vocal critic of the American health care system cannot watch coverage of the current Covid-19 crisis without appreciating the heroism of each caregiver and patient fighting its most-severe consequences. Hospitals are being built in parks and convention centers, new approaches to sterilizing personal protective equipment (PPE) for reuse are being implemented, and new protocols for placing multiple patients on a single ventilator have been developed. Most dramatically, caregivers have routinely become the only people who can hold the hand of a sick or dying patient since family members are forced to remain separate from their loved ones at their time of greatest need. Amidst the immediacy of this crisis, it is important to begin to consider the less-urgent-but-still-critical question of what the American health care system might look like once the current rush has passed. In particular, what can the system learn from the existential challenges it faces due to the spread of Covid-19? A few broad lessons are already emerging.

What Could Amazon's Approach to Health Care Look Like?

While Amazon’s collaboration with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase would obviously leverage the purchasing power of three massive employers and could lead to innovative insurance models, it seems that the bigger opportunity would be in improving how care is delivered to patients. At its root, health care is a service that needs to be delivered to a customer. For existing health care companies, the operative words in that mandate have been “health care”; for Amazon, the operative words likely are “service that needs to be delivered to a customer.”

The IT Tranformation Health Care Needs

Our research on the ways health care could apply the experiences of other industries suggests that instead of viewing IT as a transactional tool for billing, monitoring, and error checking, organizations should embrace it as an instrument to help transform the way they deliver medical care. This will entail prioritizing quality improvement over cost cutting, making data collection easier and better, turning the data into actionable information for clinicians, and forging new operating and business models.

Why Apps for Managing Chronic Disease Haven't Been Widely Used, and How to Fix It

While chronic disease management (CDM) apps have had some initial success, they have not yet lived up to their potential. This shortcoming is not due to the technologies, which are quite impressive; the problem is the incentives and institutions of the delivery system into which the technologies are being introduced.

Broadening Focus: Spillovers, Complementarities and Specialization in the Hospital Industry

The long-standing argument that focused operations outperform others stands in contrast to claims about the benefits of broader operational scope. Within the literature on corporate strategy, this tension between focus and breadth is reconciled by the concept of related diversification (i.e., a firm with multiple operating units, each specializing in distinct but related activities). We consider whether there are similar benefits to related diversification within an operating unit and examine the mechanism that generates these benefits. Using the empirical context of cardiovascular care within hospitals, we first examine the relationship between a hospital's level of specialization in cardiovascular care and the quality of its clinical performance on cardiovascular patients, finding that, on average, focus has a positive effect on quality performance.

Learning from Customers: Individual and Organizational Effects in Outsourced Radiological Services

The ongoing fragmentation of work has resulted in a narrowing of tasks into smaller pieces that can be sent outside the organization and, in many instances, around the world. This trend is shifting the boundaries of organizations and leading to increased outsourcing. Though the consolidation of volume may lead to productivity improvement, little is known about how this shift toward outsourcing influences learning by providers of outsourced services. We examine more than 2.7 million cases read by 97 radiologists for 1,431 customers and find evidence supporting the benefits of customer-specific experience accumulated by individual radiologists.

Journal Articles

• Tang, Mitchell, A Jay Holmgren, Erin E. McElrath, Ankeet S. Bhatt, Anubodh S. Varshney, Simin Gharib Lee, Muthiah Vaduganathan, Dale S. Adler, and Robert S. Huckman. "Investigating the Association Between Telemedicine Use and Timely Follow-Up Care After Acute Cardiovascular Hospital Encounters." JACC: Advances 1, no. 5 (2022). View Details
• Holmgren, A Jay, Lance Downing, Mitchell Tang, Christopher Sharp, Christopher Longhurst, and Robert S. Huckman. "Assessing the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Clinician Ambulatory Electronic Health Record Use." Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 29, no. 3 (March 2022): 453–460. View Details
• Pany, Maximilian J., Lucy Chen, Bethany Sheridan, and Robert S. Huckman. "Provider Teams Outperform Solo Providers in Managing Chronic Diseases and Could Improve the Value of Care." Health Affairs 40, no. 3 (March 2021): 435–444. View Details
• Rotenstein, Lisa, Robert S. Huckman, and Christine K. Cassel. "Making Doctors Effective Managers and Leaders: A Matter of Health and Well-Being." Academic Medicine 96, no. 5 (May 2021). View Details
• Holmgren, A Jay, Lance Downing, David W. Bates, Tait D. Shanafelt, Arnold Milstein, Christopher Sharp, David Cutler, Robert S. Huckman, and Kevin A. Schulman. "Assessment of Electronic Health Record Use Between U.S. and Non-U.S. Health Systems." JAMA Internal Medicine 181, no. 2 (February 2021): 251–259. View Details
• Cutler, David M., Sayeh Nikpay, and Robert S. Huckman. "The Business of Medicine in the Era of COVID-19." JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association 323, no. 20 (May 26, 2020): 2003–2004. View Details
• Kyle, Michael Anne, Lumumba Seegars, John M. Benson, Robert J. Blendon, Robert S. Huckman, and Sara J. Singer. "Toward a Corporate Culture of Health: Results of a National Survey." Milbank Quarterly 97, no. 4 (December 2019): 954–977. View Details
• Franklin, Brian, Sharif Vakili, Robert S. Huckman, Sarah Hosein, Nicholas Falk, Katherine Cheng, Maria Murray, Sheila Harris, Charles A. Morris, and Eric Goralnick. "The Inpatient Discharge Lounge as a Potential Mechanism to Mitigate Emergency Department Boarding and Crowding." Annals of Emergency Medicine 75, no. 6 (June 2020): 704–714. View Details
• Ibanez, Maria, Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman, and Bradley R. Staats. "Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services." Management Science 64, no. 9 (September 2018): 4389–4407. (Working paper available here. Winner of the 2017 Best Paper Competition of the POMS College of Healthcare Operations Management. Featured in Forbes, Quartz, and Inc.) View Details
• Sahni, Nikhil R., Robert S. Huckman, Anuraag Chigurupati, and David M. Cutler. "The IT Transformation Health Care Needs." Harvard Business Review 95, no. 6 (November–December 2017): 128–136. View Details
• Rotenstein, Lisa, Robert S. Huckman, and Neil Wagle. "Making Patients and Doctors Happier—The Potential of Patient-Reported Outcomes." New England Journal of Medicine 377, no. 14 (October 5, 2017): 1309–1312. View Details
• Rogg, Jonathan G., Robert S. Huckman, Michael Lev, Ali Raja, Yuchiao Chang, and Benjamin White. "Describing Wait Time Bottlenecks for ED Patients Undergoing Head CT." American Journal of Emergency Medicine 35, no. 10 (October 2017): 1510–1513. View Details
• Ljuboja, Damir, Brian W. Powers, Benjamin Robbins, Robert S. Huckman, Krishna Yeshwant, and Sachin Jain. "When Doctors Go to Business School: Career Choices of Physician-MBAs." American Journal of Managed Care 22, no. 6 (June 2016): e196–e198. View Details
• Burt, Bryan M., Andrew W. ElBardissi, Robert S. Huckman, Lawrence H. Cohn, Marisa W. Cevasco, James D. Rawn, Sary F. Aranki, and John G. Byrne. "Influence of Experience and the Surgical Learning Curve on Long-term Patient Outcomes in Cardiac Surgery." Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery 150, no. 5 (November 2015): 1061–1067. View Details
• Gupta, Budhaditya, Robert S. Huckman, and Tarun Khanna. "Task Shifting in Surgery: Lessons from an Indian Heart Hospital." Healthcare: The Journal of Delivery Science and Innovation 3, no. 4 (December 2015): 245–250. View Details
• Tsai, Thomas C., Ashish K. Jha, Atul A. Gawande, Robert S. Huckman, Nicholas Bloom, and Raffaella Sadun. "Hospital Board and Management Practices Are Strongly Related to Hospital Performance on Clinical Quality Metrics." Health Affairs 34, no. 8 (August 2015): 1304–1311. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Ananth Raman. "Medicine's Continuous Improvement Imperative." JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association 313, no. 18 (May 12, 2015): 1811–1812. View Details
• Kiatpongsan, Sorapop, Robert S. Huckman, and Mark D. Hornstein. "The Great Recession, Insurance Mandates, and the Use of In Vitro Fertilization Services in the United States." Fertility and Sterility 103, no. 2 (February 2015): 448–454. View Details
• Adler-Milstein, Julia, and Robert S. Huckman. "The Impact of Electronic Health Record Use on Physician Productivity." Special Issue on Health Information Technology. American Journal of Managed Care 19, no. SP10 (2013): SP345–SP352. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Bradley Staats. "The Hidden Benefits of Keeping Teams Intact." Harvard Business Review 91, no. 12 (December 2013): 27–29. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Mark A. Kelley M.D. "Public Reporting, Consumerism, and Patient Empowerment." New England Journal of Medicine 369, no. 20 (November 14, 2013): 1875–1877. View Details
• Clark, Jonathan R., Robert S. Huckman, and Bradley R. Staats. "Learning from Customers: Individual and Organizational Effects in Outsourced Radiological Services." Organization Science 24, no. 5 (September–October 2013): 1539–1557. View Details
• Clark, Jonathan R., and Robert S. Huckman. "Broadening Focus: Spillovers, Complementarities and Specialization in the Hospital Industry." Management Science 58, no. 4 (April 2012): 708–722. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Bradley R. Staats. "Fluid Tasks and Fluid Teams: The Impact of Diversity in Experience and Team Familiarity on Team Performance." Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 13, no. 3 (Summer 2011): 310–328. View Details
• Cutler, David M., Robert S. Huckman, and Jonathan T. Kolstad. "Input Constraints and the Efficiency of Entry: Lessons from Cardiac Surgery." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2, no. 1 (February 2010): 51–76. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "Are You Having Trouble Keeping Your Operations Focused?" Harvard Business Review 87, no. 9 (September 2009): 90–95. View Details
• Carty, Matthew, MD, Rodney Chan, Robert S. Huckman, Daniel C. Snow, and Dennis Orgill. "A Detailed Analysis of the Reduction Mammaplasty Learning Curve: A Statistical Process Model for Approaching Surgical Performance Improvement." Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 124, no. 3 (September 2009): 706–714. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., Bradley R. Staats, and David M. Upton. "Team Familiarity, Role Experience, and Performance: Evidence from Indian Software Services." Management Science 55, no. 1 (January 2009): 85–100. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Darren Zinner. "Does Focus Improve Operational Performance? Lessons from the Management of Clinical Trials." Strategic Management Journal 29, no. 2 (February 2008): 173–193. View Details
• Ton, Zeynep, and Robert S. Huckman. "Managing the Impact of Employee Turnover on Performance: The Role of Process Conformance." Organization Science 19, no. 1 (January–February 2008): 56–68. View Details
• Barro, Jason R., Robert S. Huckman, and Daniel P. Kessler. "The Effects of Cardiac Specialty Hospitals on the Cost and Quality of Medical Care." Journal of Health Economics 25, no. 4 (July 2006): 702–721. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Gary P. Pisano. "The Firm Specificity of Individual Performance: Evidence from Cardiac Surgery." Management Science 52, no. 4 (April 2006): 473–488. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "Hospital Integration and Vertical Consolidation: An Analysis of Acquisitions in New York State." Journal of Health Economics 25, no. 1 (January 2006): 58–80. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Gary P. Pisano. "Adopting New Technologies: Turf Battles in Coronary Revascularization." New England Journal of Medicine 352, no. 9 (March 3, 2005): 857–859. View Details
• Wosinska, Marta, and Robert S. Huckman. "Generic Dispensing and Substitution in Mail and Retail Pharmacies." Health Affairs (July 28, 2004): W4–409 – W4–416. View Details
• Cutler, David, Robert S. Huckman, and Mary Beth Landrum. "The Role of Information in Medical Markets: An Analysis of Publicly Reported Outcomes in Cardiac Surgery." American Economic Review 94, no. 2 (May 2004): 342–346. (Papers and Proceedings.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "The Utilization of Competing Technologies within the Firm: Evidence from Cardiac Procedures." Management Science 49, no. 5 (May 2003): 599–617. View Details
• Cutler, David M., and Robert S. Huckman. "Technological Development and Medical Productivity: The Diffusion of Angioplasty in New York State." Journal of Health Economics 22, no. 2 (March 2003): 187–217. View Details
• Bozic, Kevin J., Aaron G. Rosenberg, Robert S. Huckman, and James H. Herndon. "Economic Evaluation in Orthopaedics." Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery: American Volume 85, no. 1 (January 2003): 129–42. View Details

Working Papers

• Ibanez, Maria, Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman, and Bradley R. Staats. "Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-051, October 2015. (Revised March 2017.) View Details
• Song, Hummy, Robert S. Huckman, and Jason R. Barro. "Cohort Turnover and Operational Performance: The July Phenomenon in Teaching Hospitals." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-039, September 2015. (Revised September 2016. Finalist, 2015 POMS College of Healthcare Operations Management Best Paper Competition.) View Details
• Clark, Jonathan R., Robert S. Huckman, and Ryan W. Thompson. "Comorbidities and the Focused Factory: The Plexus of Medical Conditions and the Scope of Hospital Services." View Details
• Fong, Kyna, and Robert S. Huckman. "Matching and Sub-Specialization by Technical Complexity in Cardiac Surgery." View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Jonathan T. Kolstad. "Fight or Flight? The Threat of Specialty Competition and the Service Offerings of General Hospitals." 2010. Mimeo. View Details
• Adler-Milstein, Julia, and Robert S. Huckman. "Electronic Health Record Use, Delegation, and Physician Productivity." 2012. Mimeo. View Details

Cases and Teaching Materials

• Stern, Ariel Dora, Robert S. Huckman, and Sarah Mehta. "The Brigham and Women’s Hospital Innovation Hub: Driving Internal Innovation." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 623-010, February 2023. View Details
• Stern, Ariel D., Robert S. Huckman, and Sarah Mehta. "Somatus: Value-Based Kidney Care (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 622-045, January 2022. View Details
• Stern, Ariel D., Robert S. Huckman, and Sarah Mehta. "Somatus: Value-Based Kidney Care (A)." Harvard Business School Case 622-009, January 2022. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., Hise Gibson, and Nicole Gilmore. "CommonSpirit Health: Integrating a Merger of Equals." Harvard Business School Case 621-034, November 2020. (Revised February 2022.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., Yoonjin Min, and Marissa Thiel. "Walmart Health: Scaling During a Pandemic." Harvard Business School Case 621-061, September 2020. View Details
• Hamermesh, Richard G., Robert S. Huckman, and Julia Kelley. "Intermountain Healthcare: Pursuing Precision Medicine." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 820-019, July 2019. (Revised July 2019.) View Details
• Stern, Ariel D., and Robert S. Huckman. "The Brigham and Women's Hospital Innovation Hub: Driving Internal Innovation." Harvard Business School Case 619-026, October 2018. (Revised April 2019.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., Karim R. Lakhani, and Kyle R. Myers. "X: The Foghorn Decision." Harvard Business School Case 618-060, March 2018. View Details
• Buell, Ryan W., and Robert S. Huckman. "Improving Access at VA." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 618-052, March 2018. (Revised February 2020.) View Details
• Buell, Ryan W., and Robert S. Huckman. "Improving Access at VA." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Supplement 618-709, March 2018. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Ariel D. Stern. "Twine Health." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 618-055, March 2018. View Details
• Hamermesh, Richard G., Kathy E. Giusti, Robert S. Huckman, and Julia Kelley. "Intermountain Healthcare: Pursuing Precision Medicine." Harvard Business School Case 818-018, September 2017. (Revised February 2023.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Nikolaos Trichakis. "Infection Control at Massachusetts General Hospital (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Case 618-018, August 2017. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Brian W. Powers. "CareMore Health System (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 618-009, August 2017. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Brian W. Powers. "CareMore Health System." Harvard Business School Case 618-008, August 2017. View Details
• Goh, Joel, Robert S. Huckman, and Nikhil Sahni. "University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center: Managing Capacity in Neurology." Harvard Business School Case 618-062, March 2018. View Details
• Buell, Ryan W., Robert S. Huckman, and Sam Travers. "Improving Access at VA." Harvard Business School Case 617-012, November 2016. (Revised August 2020.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Sarah Mehta. "Addicaid: Scaling a Digital Platform for Addiction Wellness and Recovery." Harvard Business School Case 617-018, October 2016. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Sarah Mehta. "Carrum Health: Scaling Bundled Payments." Harvard Business School Case 617-017, October 2016. (Revised March 2019.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., Raffaella Sadun, and Michael Norris. "Weathering the Storm at NYU Langone Medical Center." Harvard Business School Case 616-026, February 2016. (Revised February 2018.) View Details
• John, Leslie, John Quelch, and Robert Huckman. "CVS Health: Promoting Drug Adherence." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 515-086, March 2015. (Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Nikolaos Trichakis. "Infection Control at Massachusetts General Hospital." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 615-056, March 2015. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Michael Norris. "The I-PASS Patient Handoff Program." Harvard Business School Case 615-069, March 2015. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., Ariel D. Stern, and Matthew G. Preble. "Twine Health." Harvard Business School Case 615-068, March 2015. View Details
• John, Leslie, John Quelch, and Robert Huckman. "CVS Health: Promoting Drug Adherence." Harvard Business School Case 515-010, January 2015. (Revised July 2019.) (Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.) View Details
• Herzlinger, Regina E., Robert S. Huckman, and Jenny Lesser. "Mayo Clinic: The 2020 Initiative." Harvard Business School Case 615-027, September 2014. (Revised March 2016.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Nikolaos Trichakis. "Infection Control at Massachusetts General Hospital." Harvard Business School Case 614-044, November 2013. (Revised November 2014.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Phillip Andrews. "JetBlue Airways: Valentine's Day 2007 (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Case 613-074, December 2012. View Details
• Bowen, H. Kent, Robert S. Huckman, Carin-Isabel Knoop, and Matthew Preble. "New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc. (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Case 613-006, November 2012. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., Gary P. Pisano, and Liz Kind. "Amazon Web Services." Harvard Business School Case 609-048, October 2008. (Revised February 2012.) View Details
• Fearing, Douglas, and Robert S. Huckman. "JetBlue Airways: Deicing at Logan Airport." Harvard Business School Case 612-028, August 2011. (Revised August 2012.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Gary P. Pisano. "JetBlue Airways: Managing Growth." Harvard Business School Case 609-046, October 2008. (Revised June 2011.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., Michael E. Porter, Rachel Gordon, and Natalie Kindred. "Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center: Spine Care." Harvard Business School Case 609-016, March 2009. (Revised September 2010.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "JetBlue Airways: Managing Growth (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 610-069, April 2010. (Revised July 2010.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., Gary P. Pisano, and Virginia Fuller. "JetBlue Airways: Valentine's Day 2007 (A)." Harvard Business School Case 608-001, August 2007. (Revised June 2010.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc. (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 610-072, April 2010. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Gary P. Pisano. "Flextronics International, Ltd." Harvard Business School Case 604-063, November 2003. (Revised April 2010.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "Flextronics International, Ltd. (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 605-073, April 2005. (Revised April 2010.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "Wyeth Pharmaceuticals: Spurring Scientific Creativity with Metrics." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 610-071, April 2010. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "BYD Company, Ltd. (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 610-073, April 2010. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Eli Strick. "GlaxoSmithKline: Reorganizing Drug Discovery (A)." Harvard Business School Case 605-074, May 2005. (Revised April 2010.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "GlaxoSmithKline: Reorganizing Drug Discovery (TN) (A) and (B)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 610-044, December 2009. (Revised April 2010.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Richard M.J. Bohmer. "Managing Orthopaedics at Rittenhouse Medical Center (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 610-070, April 2010. (Revised April 2010.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "Balancing Specialization and Diversification in Operations." Harvard Business School Module Note 610-079, April 2010. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., Gary P. Pisano, and Mark Rennella. "Wyeth Pharmaceuticals: Spurring Scientific Creativity with Metrics." Harvard Business School Case 607-008, February 2007. (Revised April 2010.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Michael E. Porter. "Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 610-030, September 2009. (Revised April 2010.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Michael E. Porter. "Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center: Spine Care (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 610-068, April 2010. View Details
• Bohmer, Richard M.J., Robert S. Huckman, James Weber, and Kevin J. Bozic. "Managing Orthopaedics at Rittenhouse Medical Center." Harvard Business School Case 607-152, June 2007. (Revised March 2010.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Alan D. MacCormack. "BYD Company, Ltd." Harvard Business School Case 606-139, April 2006. (Revised September 2009.) View Details
• Bowen, H. Kent, Robert S. Huckman, and Carin-Isabel Knoop. "New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc." Harvard Business School Case 606-094, April 2006. (Revised June 2008.) View Details
• Porter, Michael E., Robert S. Huckman, and Jeremy Lance Friese. "Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center." Harvard Business School Case 608-175, June 2008. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Mark J. Cotteleer. "Procter & Gamble: Electronic Data Capture and Clinical Trial Management." Harvard Business School Case 606-033, August 2005. (Revised December 2006.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Eli Strick. "GlaxoSmithKline: Reorganizing Drug Discovery (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 605-075, May 2005. View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "MedSource Technologies (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 605-014, July 2004. (Revised April 2005.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "MedSource Technologies." Harvard Business School Case 603-081, November 2002. (Revised August 2003.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Jody H. Gittell. "Oxford Health Plans (B): Crisis Strikes." Harvard Business School Case 800-366, April 2000. (Revised July 2001.) View Details

Other Publications and Materials

• Huckman, Robert S., and Bradley Staats. "How Will Amazon Approach U.S. Primary Care?" Harvard Business Review (website) (August 3, 2022). View Details
• Shih, Willy C., Robert S. Huckman, and James Wyner. "The Challenge of Rebuilding U.S. Domestic Supply Chains." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (May 26, 2021). View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Bradley R. Staats. "Lessons from the U.S.'s Rocky Vaccine Rollout." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (January 28, 2021). View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "What Will U.S. Health Care Look Like After the Pandemic?" Harvard Business Review (website) (April 7, 2020). View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "Can Big-Box Retailers Provide Local Health Care?" Harvard Business Review (website) (October 25, 2019). View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Ariel Dora Stern. "Why Apps for Managing Chronic Disease Haven't Been Widely Used, and How to Fix It." Harvard Business Review (website) (April 4, 2018). View Details
• Huckman, Robert S. "What Could Amazon's Approach to Health Care Look Like?" Harvard Business Review (website) (February 6, 2018). View Details
• Schupbach, John, Amitabh Chandra, and Robert S. Huckman. "A Simple Way to Measure Health Care Outcomes." Harvard Business Review (website) (December 8, 2016). View Details
• Hamermesh, Richard G., Robert S. Huckman, Barbara McNeil, Joseph P. Newhouse, and Cara Sterling. "The Harvard Contest That's Trying to Improve Health Care Delivery." Harvard Business Review (website) (October 2, 2015). (As part of Measuring Costs and Outcomes in Health Care, a collaboration of the editors of Harvard Business Review and the New England Journal of Medicine.) View Details
• Huckman, Robert S., and Maya Uppaluru. "The Untapped Potential of Health Care APIs." Harvard Business Review (website) (December 23, 2015). (As part of Leading Change in Health Care, a collaboration of the editors of Harvard Business Review and NEJM Group.) View Details

Research Summary

Innovation and Performance Improvement in Health Care

This stream of Professor Huckman's work examines how organizations delivering health care can structure and manage their activities to improve operational performance.  It addresses issues including the impact of various forms of familiarity on performance, the impact of organizational specialization on medical productivity, and strategies for addressing the challenges of capacity allocation and coordination in healthcare delivery.

Consumerism and the Distributed Delivery of Health Care

This stream of Professor Huckman's work examines the growing tendency for health care to be delivered in a more distributed manner. Examples of this phenomenon include health IT, teleradiology, medical travel, remote monitoring of chronic medical conditions, and retail clinics.  This “de-localization” has been facilitated by rapid advances in healthcare information technology (HIT) and by the parallel trend of increased consumer involvement in medical decisionmaking and care provision.  Traditionally, consumers have delegated a significant portion of medical decisionmaking to the physicians who serve as their agents. With greater cost sharing and transparency about the quality of care, however, consumers have begun to play a larger role in both medical decisionmaking and actual care delivery. This shift has created both opportunities and challenges for patients, health care providers, policymakers, insurers, and employers.

Building a Corporate Culture of Health

This stream of Professor Huckman's work involves developing and implementing a survey of U.S. corporations regarding their commitments to developing a “culture of health” aimed at improving well-being for employees, consumers, communities, and the environment. This work is part of the broader Culture of Health initiative involving researchers from HBS, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Stanford University.

Teaching

Technology and Operations Management - MBA Required Curriculum

This course enables students to develop the skills and concepts needed to ensure the ongoing contribution of a firm's operations to its competitive position. It helps them to understand the complex processes underlying the development and manufacture of products as well as the creation and delivery of services.

Related Link: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/units/tom/Pages/curriculum.aspx

Managing Health Care Delivery - Executive Education

While delivering patient care has always been a primary goal of health care organizations, financial outcomes have long been the metric by which success is measured. Increasingly, however, health care leaders are being held accountable for both medical and financial outcomes. As a result, health care executives and providers must understand the determinants of organizational effectiveness—strategy, finance, operations, and leadership.

This leadership development program provides a transformational learning experience that goes far beyond the traditional debate over health care costs. In this global offering, you will examine the critical processes required to develop and implement a superior health care delivery system.

Related Link: http://www.exed.hbs.edu/programs/mhcd/Pages/default.aspx

Awards & Honors

Winner of the 2021 Wyss Award for Excellence in Doctoral Student Mentoring.

Received the 2021 Robert F. Greenhill Award.

Winner of the 2017 Best Paper Competition from the College of Healthcare Operations Management at the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) for “Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services” (Management Science, September 2018) with Maria Ibanez, Jonathan Clark, and Bradley Staats.

Received the 2016 Robert F. Greenhill Award.

Finalist in the 2015 POMS College of Healthcare Operations Management Best Paper Competition, for “Cohort Turnover and Productivity: The July Phenomenon in Teaching Hospitals” with Hummy Song and Jason R. Barro.

Additional Information

• Curriculum Vitae
• Robert Huckman in HBS Working Knowledge
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Affiliations

• HBS Healthcare Initiative
• HBS Doctoral Program in Health Policy Management
• National Bureau of Economic Research

Editorial Affiliations

• Management Science
• Organization Science
• Production and Operations Management

Areas of Interest

• health care quality
• operations strategy
• organizational strategy
• organizational structure
Additional Topics
• economics
• human resource management
• life sciences
• organizational learning
• performance measurement
• technological change
Industries
• biotechnology
• health care
• manufacturing
• pharmaceuticals
Geographies
• Asia
• North America

In The News

In The News

• • 18 Dec 2020
  • American Medicine

  Making Doctors Effective Managers and Leaders
• • 01 Jun 2020
  • HBS Alumni Bulletin

  Prognosis
• • 01 May 2020
  • Journal of the American Medical Association

  The Business of Medicine in the Era of COVID-19
• • 07 Apr 2020
  • Harvard Business Review

  What Will U.S. Health Care Look Like After the Pandemic?
• • 03 Mar 2020
  • CNN

  Welcome to Walmart. Your doctor will see you now

→More News for Robert S. Huckman

Robert S. Huckman In the News

18 Dec 2020
American Medicine
Making Doctors Effective Managers and Leaders

01 Jun 2020
HBS Alumni Bulletin
Prognosis

01 May 2020
Journal of the American Medical Association
The Business of Medicine in the Era of COVID-19

07 Apr 2020
Harvard Business Review
What Will U.S. Health Care Look Like After the Pandemic?

03 Mar 2020
CNN
Welcome to Walmart. Your doctor will see you now

12 Feb 2020
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23 Jan 2020
AARP
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