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.

Read the Key Concepts

Using the Curriculum

The Value-Based Health Care Delivery curriculum can be used in courses for students, but also executive programs for senior management of health care providers, insurers, employers, and government officials. The curriculum not only builds a cadre of people trained in new health care delivery thinking, but can also serve as a platform for other efforts by universities to contribute to local or national health care reform. It opens the potential for field projects in which students and faculty work with delivery organizations, and faculty can become important leaders in efforts to reorganize health care delivery and engage in meaningful policy reform. The multiplier effects of the curriculum are already evident in our experiences over the past five years.