All Insights Articles

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.

In a country with some 76 million people and only 138 hospitals, Ethiopia is looking to make the most of limited resources by working with Yale and the Clinton Foundation to train hospital administrators.

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.

More than 160 million Americans receive their healthcare coverage through an employer-sponsored program. In recent years, as the costs of healthcare have risen, so have premiums for workers and costs for companies. Is the system sustainable? Does it affect the competitiveness of American companies? Does it prompt innovations in healthcare delivery?

The need for serious — and expensive — dental work forced freelance writer Jeff Schult to get creative. Research led him to a clinic in Costa Rica, which opened Schult to the burgeoning world of medical tourism. Two years ago he published Beauty from Afar: A Medical Tourist’s Guide to Affordable and Quality Cosmetic Care Outside the U.S. Schult describes how this international market is changing healthcare.

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.

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.

"Markets are a special set of rules of the game that define institutions to enable mass exchange of resources at a low cost." This is Martin Shubik's one-sentence definition of what a market is. Embedded in its few words are all the complexity and variation in how rules and institutions affect a market's functioning.

For almost 40 years, Professor Michael C. Jensen has been a leader in elucidating the complex system of incentives and limitations that underlies business trends. Dean Joel Podolny spoke with Jensen about the market for corporate control, agency theory, and the benefits of integrity.