Alumni
To Make Greener Buildings, Try Innovating around the Edges
The building industry is slow to change. But three Yale alumni are finding ways to make changes on the margins and in the process offer solutions that aren’t easy to ignore.
Can a double bottom line bring better returns?
Why is a venture capital firm encouraging the employees in a company it funds to give free music lessons? They’re trying to prove the thesis that companies that engage with their communities also reap a business advantage.
Can health be a retail business?
MinuteClinic was founded in 2000 to provide retail healthcare — walk-in care for common illnesses. There are more than 500 MinuteClinics across 26 states and they have seen more than two million patients. CVS bought MinuteClinic in 2006 and most clinics are located in CVS pharmacies. Q3 talked with Cris Ross, MinuteClinic’s chief information officer, and Dr. James Hartert, the company’s chief medical officer, about how their business could change healthcare.
Can an international perspective help create a value-based health system?
International comparative healthcare is a largely untapped field. Health policy researcher Jennifer Baron '05, describes programs that suggest steps toward aligning incentives for all participants around value judged on health results. Even looking at countries that provide near-universal access to care, she finds that a comprehensive value-based system doesn’t yet exist.
How do we manage disasters?
Healthcare is a field known for its complexity and fragmentation. Managing a massive cross-sectoral healthcare project is always a challenge. Coordinating the healthcare response to a disaster puts a strained system under even more pressure. John Piescik ’81 looked into the way the healthcare system responds to disaster for MITRE a not-for-profit company that operates three federally funded research and development centers. His findings may have implications well beyond healthcare, providing a means to manage solutions to some of the complex problems facing society.
How can technological innovation help healthcare?
A recurring theme in discussions of how to improve the U.S. healthcare system is the hope that technological innovation will provoke leaps in the quality and efficiency of care. Thomas Enders is a managing director for the $1.2 billion Global Health Solutions group of CSC. He provides an insider's perspective on what technological change can accomplish.
Does universal healthcare make everyone's life better?
Kathy Lavidge argues that access to healthcare affects aspects of life far beyond the medical.
Can good health be good business?
Business and health could be said to coexist uneasily; many see the quest to increase profits and control costs as antithetical to quality care. But business is also a driver of innovation and efficiency in healthcare. Four leaders of healthcare organizations discuss the challenges in trying to deliver both good business and good health.
How can we fund innovation?
In searching for opportunities to invest in healthcare, venture capitalists must consider not only which new technologies and ideas are likely to develop into successful businesses, but which are poised to transform medicine — and which can make a difference in people’s lives.
What is the return on a life saved?
Ed Kaplan and David Paltiel have known each other for 20 years, sometimes collaborating on research projects or coauthoring papers. They argue that when the tools of a business education are applied to the problems of healthcare, such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the result can be better decisions about how to use scarce resources.
Eliminating medical errors
Michael Apkon is using techniques from manufacturing to improve the efficiency and safety of medication delivery at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and he’s finding some solutions can be very simple.