Research - Health Care - Harvard Business School

Teaching Interest

Transforming Health Care Delivery - MBA Field Course

At the root of the transformation occurring in the health care industry-both in the United States and internationally-is the fundamental challenge of improving clinical outcomes while controlling costs. Addressing this challenge will require dramatic improvements in...

04 Oct 2018
News

Precision medicine needs a business mindset in order to flourish

By: Kathy Giusti & Richard Hamermesh

                          recision medicine, also known as personalized medicine, has the potential to transform how we treat — or even cure — cancer and a host of other diseases such as cystic fibrosis, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s.

October 2018
Case

Fundraising at St. Camillus Hospital

By: Srikant M. Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler

St. Camillus is a fictional non-profit hospital in rural Maine facing a serious budget deficit. As Director of Marketing, Victoria Stern is building a team to modernize the hospital fundraising efforts. An interview with a promising candidate, who is also a digital...

07 Sep 2018
News

Exercise, Eat Well, Help Others: Altruism's Surprisingly Strong Health Impact

Re: Ashley Whillans

                          More than 10 studies have also demonstrated regular voluntary work predicts longevity. Helping behavior can even buffer against the negative effect that stress typically has on mortality: Among 846 participants around Detroit, stressful events predicted subsequent...

01 Sep 2018
News

Case Study: A Good Fit

By: Jen McFarland Flint

                          Illustration by Matt Chinworth Illustration by Matt Chinworth Every year, millions of Americans resolve to lose weight, but few sustain their loss over time, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. The reason lies in the gap between initiating a...

Article

Assessing the Impact of Health System Organizational Structure on Hospital Electronic Data Sharing

By: A Jay Holmgren and Eric Ford

Horizontal consolidation in the hospital industry has gained momentum in the United States despite concerns over rising costs and lower quality. Hospital systems frequently point to potential gains in interoperability and electronic exchange of patient information as...

September 2018
Article

Discretionary Task Ordering: Queue Management in Radiological Services

By: Maria Ibanez, Jonathan R. Clark, Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats

Work-scheduling research typically prescribes task sequences implemented by managers. Yet employees often have discretion to deviate from their prescribed sequence. Using data from 2.4 million radiological diagnoses, we find that doctors prioritize similar tasks...

21 Aug 2018
News

What Does Knee Surgery Cost? Few Know, and That’s a Problem

Re: Leemore Dafny & Robert Kaplan

                          The rise in hospital prices has outpaced economywide inflation for decades. “When price isn’t tightly linked to cost, that is a sign that the market isn’t competitive,” said Harvard economist Leemore Dafny.

20 Aug 2018
News

Why Work Requirements Hurt the Poor

By: Scott Duke Kominers

                          There’s been a lot of talk recently about adding work requirements for in-kind welfare programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food assistance, and Medicaid, the health-care program for the poor.

August 8, 2018
Article

Hospital-based ACOs Face Challenges in Tracking Performance Indicators

By: Christiana Beveridge, Sofia Warner, Greg Leya and Thomas W. Feeley

Given that accountable care organizations (ACOs) have not achieved the degree of cost reductions and quality improvements initially hoped for, we sought to better understand the underlying reasons for their limited success. Our analysis of American Hospital Association...

13 Aug 2018
News

Women Heart Patients Do Better with Women Doctors

Re: Laura Huang

                          Roughly one in 66 women has a better chance of leaving the hospital alive if their doctor is also a woman, according to research by Laura Huang and colleagues.

09 Aug 2018
News

Women more likely to die of heart attack if treated by male doctor, study finds

Re: Laura Huang

                          In a release from Harvard Business School, where co-author Laura Huang is an associate professor, authors suggested that while male doctors seemed to improve by treating more female patients, the quicker and less deadly solution may be to increase the numbers of female...