article thumbnail

Health Systems Need to Completely Reassess How They Manage Costs

Harvard Business Review

hospitals and health systems experienced an average 39% reduction in their operating margins from 2015 to 2017. This was because their expenses grew faster than their revenues, despite cost-cutting initiatives. Here are some examples of what will be required to change the operating culture: Contract rationalization. As the U.S.

Cost 8
article thumbnail

Don’t Compare Virtual Reality to the Smartphone

Harvard Business Review

Unfortunately, Zuckerberg’s “platform” reference has elicited many comparisons of Oculus to Google’s purchase of Android , the company that would provide Google with its own smartphone operating system. While Virtual Reality may one day be pervasive, the disruption of VR is nothing like disruption of mobility.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Tackling the “Hotspotter” Patient Challenge

Harvard Business Review

A fascinating business dynamic will unfold as health care providers in the United States shift from a reimbursement system that has historically paid for procedures performed to one that rewards population health — providing the total care of a community at a fixed cost and improving its members overall health.

article thumbnail

Get a Better Return on Your Business Intelligence

Harvard Business Review

Just like the pilot makes a calm assessment and operates the right levers, leaders need to create a climate and culture where people can make a calm assessment and fine-tune the right set of drivers. Further, sales variation can get widened much more when it comes to financial variation because of fixed costs.

article thumbnail

If Innovation Is Happening, Where Is The Creative Destruction?

The Horizons Tracker

” The Matthew Effect Indeed, far from technology being found to disrupt incumbent operators, the data suggests that investments in digital technology are largely ensuring that dominant incumbents can entrench their strong market position and fight off any upstarts.

article thumbnail

What Could Amazon’s Approach to Health Care Look Like?

Harvard Business Review

For existing health care companies, the operative words in that mandate have been “health care”; for Amazon, the operative words likely are “service that needs to be delivered to a customer.” The absence of fixed costs for customers attracted small and innovative web developers.

article thumbnail

Research: Cloud Computing Is Helping Smaller, Newer Firms Compete

Harvard Business Review

By cutting the fixed costs of computing — avoiding the need to hire IT staff, servers, and hardware — even the smallest firm can satisfy large and unexpected computing needs. This operational agility can be particularly valuable when facing uncertain demand or a fast-evolving competitive environment.