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Management in Practice

  • Does our health system deliver value?

    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.

  • What do the numbers really mean?

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

  • 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.

  • Can empathy help healthcare and business?

    Organizational change can occur at the level of technological innovation or at the level of human interaction. Consulting firm Katzenbach Partners studied customer service across industries and developed a model that proposes creating competitive advantage through a holistic approach to customer service. A recent white paper, “The Empathy Engine: Achieving Breakthroughs in Patient Service,” applies this analysis to the healthcare industry. Q3 talked with Jenny Machida, a leader in Katzenbach Partners’ healthcare practice and one of the authors of the paper, about the personal side of patient service.

  • 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.

  • How far would you go for surgery?

    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.

  • Should employers be responsible for health?

    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?