Health Care Systems Lecture Series

The Innovator's Prescription: A Disruptive Solution to the Healthcare Crisis

By Professor Clayton M. Christensen
Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

Abstract:
The process of making products and services more affordable and accessible begins when historically expensive expertise is commoditized. This has happened in every industry we have studied, and healthcare is no different.

In healthcare, this process is heavily dependent upon the ability to make a precise diagnosis, which is driven by molecular and imaging diagnostics. These technologies need to be coupled with business model innovation, and one reason why healthcare is so in need of reform is because today's hospitals and physician practices are actually a conflated set of business models.

About the Speaker:
Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, with a joint appointment in the Technology & Operations Management and General Management faculty groups. His research and teaching interests center on the management issues related to the development and commercialization of technological and business model innovation. Specific areas of focus include developing organizational capabilities and finding new markets for new technologies.

Professor Christensen holds a B.A. with highest honors in economics from Brigham Young University (1975), and an M.Phil. in applied econometrics and the economics of less-developed countries from Oxford University (1977), where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He received an MBA with High Distinction from the Harvard Business School in 1979, graduating as a George F. Baker Scholar. He was awarded his DBA from the Harvard Business School in 1992.

Professor Christensen became a faculty member at the Harvard Business School in 1992. He is author or co-author of five books: The Innovator’s Dilemma (1997), which received the Global Business Book Award for the best business book published in 1997; The Innovator's Solution (2003), also a New York Times best seller; and Seeing What’s Next (2004). In addition, he has edited two case books on innovation: Innovation and the General Manager (1999) and Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation, 4th edition (2004). He presently is completing two books that examine the problems of our healthcare and public education systems through the lenses of his theories. These also will show how the problems in these industries can be resolved.