Health Care Curriculum
Value-Based Health Care Delivery (VBHCD) is a distinctive curriculum developed at Harvard Business School by Professor Michael Porter and a team of colleagues. The VBHCD curriculum, designed to be taught at universities, medical schools, and in professional education programs for health professionals around the world, consists of conceptual frameworks and actual in-depth case studies of numerous health care provider organizations, health plans, and employers offering health benefits. Such leading organizations as The Cleveland Clinic and MD Anderson Cancer Center are the subject of cases, but there are cases on smaller providers and community hospitals as well. Cases include not only U.S. organizations, but also providers in Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and a growing number of other countries.
About Value Based-Health Care Delivery
The curriculum is based on the Value-Based Health Care Delivery framework introduced by Professors Michael Porter and Elizabeth Teisberg in Redefining Health Care (HBS Press, 2006). In the framework, the central goal of health care is to maximize value for patients, defined as health outcomes achieved per unit of cost spent. The current structure, reimbursement, and measurement of health care delivery are misaligned with value. Significant improvements in value will require major strategic and organizational changes in how health care is delivered, measured, and paid for, rather than simply incremental improvement of existing practice. The curriculum is intended to stimulate new thinking by health care providers, health plans, suppliers, employers, and government, with the ultimate aim of motivating and informing changes in actual practice both in the U.S. and abroad.