Mapping processes and value chains to understand strategy in care delivery


Value chain analysis is often applied to businesses. The approach takes the line of business or business unit as its focus–not the firm as a whole. And it looks at the overall industry, not just the slice of activities that a given organization undertakes. The idea is to understand how you go from, say, raw […] Continue Reading


Hello: can primary care deliver profits in Africa?


Hello, healthcare. We were lucky enough to talk to the inspiring York Zucchi, founder and CEO of Hello Healthcare, and his colleague Dr Fanie Hattingh, who called in to MIT today. Catch Zucchi on video here. Students had prepared a case study of the cooperative business that Zucchi and his colleagues operate in South Africa. […] Continue Reading


Reframing rationality: Reflections on human-centered design approaches


Shaped by the interaction of supply and demand, scarcity determines our decisions, as any neoclassical economist will tell you. But economics has gone beyond the neoclassical. Arguing for a more widespread behavioral view, a 2011 paper published by the Center for Global Development adds previously-overlooked psychic factors to better explain how we make decisions. At […] Continue Reading






Further down the road with Riders for Health


We looked at Riders for Health for the third time this year, which we here at MIT always enjoy doing. And this time were lucky enough to get a call into class from Lakshmi Karan, the organization’s Global Strategy Director. What makes the Riders model work? Our past blog posts present some ideas (start with […] Continue Reading


Clean water and surgery: Not “either” but “both”?


Is surgery beyond the reach of the world’s poor? And how do we reconcile the issues involved with increasing access to surgery with the widespread need for water and sanitation? A case example inspired by Dr. Robert Riviello, trauma and acute care general surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, gave us some big questions to […] Continue Reading


Health for the seven billionth child


So, on Halloween 2011, the seven billionth person in the world was born–China or India the most likely birthplace. In a New York Times column this summer, Thomas Friedman laid out his thoughts on the cost us all of living with so many billions of other people: “The Earth is Full”. It makes sobering reading. A recent news story […] Continue Reading


technology: the glamorous and the grinding


Can we make process, management, and systems a bit less dreary and a bit more glam? So, we’re at MIT, where technology is in the air, and I have my own personal obsessions with technology–witness my (often flawed) forays into twitter, delicious, and too many mobile phones, along with plenty of other tech tools.  Source: http://www.ghtcoalition.org/diagnostics.php […] Continue Reading


Can a franchise deliver global health?


Can franchises deliver better and more health care cost-effectively in places where current system fall short, and along the way equip a cadre of microentrepeneurs to spur economic development? We looked at the issues again this year: first, to explore what franchising entails, next, to study one chain of franchise clinic-pharmacies operating in Kenya and Rwanda, […] Continue Reading


Riders, revisited


We looked at Riders for Health last year and were taken with their undeniable coolness as well as the focus and completeness of their operational model. Check out this discussion and related links. Since then, a new study and articles have come out: here’s Fueling Growth by Sonali Rammohan in Stanford Social Innovation Review, Summer 2010: Riders for […] Continue Reading


Health care delivery constraints: Internet access


What have we learned from two years, 100 students, and 25 G-Lab GHD projects in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Zambia, and Malawi? That we are lucky to partner with amazing leaders and organizations to learn first-hand about the needs and opportunities for delivering health care in resource-limited settings.  That in some […] Continue Reading