All Insights Articles

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.

The healthcare debate often turns on numbers, but statistics are easy to distort or misunderstand.

Competitive strategy expert Michael Porter, the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School, has shaken up the thinking around healthcare reform with Redefining Health Care, a book he coauthored with Elizabeth Teisberg, associate professor at the Darden School of Business. Porter talked with Q3 about his ideas on how to bring the right kind of competition to healthcare and developments since the 2006 release of his book.

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.

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.

Kathy Lavidge argues that access to healthcare affects aspects of life far beyond the medical.

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.

Like consumers of other goods and services, healthcare consumers don’t always make decisions that are in their own best interests. Four experts — a psychologist, an organizational behaviorist, a behavioral economist, and a clinician — discuss the challenges of helping people make healthy choices.

Sostena Romano sees herself as responsible for producing results for both stakeholders and shareholders in the Clinton Foundation’s HIV/AIDS initiative.

A large physicians’ group practice in Massachusetts is improving the experience of patients and staff by breaking down the organizational hierarchy and encouraging process improvement from the bottom up.