Management in Practice

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

Nature abhors a vacuum. Air invades emptiness. Water floods open space. What happens when a wall is breached and markets are allowed to enter countries where they’d previously been banned? In the 1990s, Rosemary Ripley participated in the infusion of private enterprise into former command economies.

Creating a new market is different from developing a new product or service — it requires convincing an array of customers, partners, and other constituencies to see the world differently. And the effects can be far reaching, as markets are capable of taking on a life of their own. A media and technological innovator, a leader in the use of finance to address social problems, and a creator of housing futures discuss the risks and rewards of attempting the trick.