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


Improving Operational Efficiency in a Small Practice


Improving operational efficiency in a small practice: Muthaiga Pediatrics An overview of MIT students’ 2009 project to analyze and refine the daily operations and standard processes of a general pediatrics clinic in Nairobi, Kenya. In the fall of 2009, a team of four MIT students applied to work with Muthaiga Pediatrics. The clinic’s head had […] 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 […] 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