Kane, N.M., 2017.
Humana’s Bold Goal: 20 Percent Healthier by 2020, Harvard Business Publishing: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health case collection.
Available from Harvard Business PublishingAbstractBeginning in 2013, Humana Inc., headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, pursued a major organizational transformation, from being an insurance company focused on paying claims to becoming a health and well-being company focused on improving the health of its beneficiaries. The company set a “Bold Goal” of improving the health of the communities it served by 20% by 2020. To achieve this new goal, Humana undertook a multiyear redesign and investment of people, processes, and products in order to gain the trust of consumers and providers, and to partner with communities to improve health. The case focuses on community initiatives, where Humana was developing its new role as “convener of conversations,” providing leadership infrastructure and partial funding to spark community planning with a wide range of stakeholders and to design and monitor interventions that were tailored to local health improvement. At the same time, Humana remained a publicly-held corporation accountable to its shareholders for revenue growth and financial return. The case protagonist, Andrew Renda, MD, MPH, Director, Bold Goal Measurement, must design and implement a business plan, including leading and lagging performance metrics, that would measure Humana’s progress toward its Bold Goal in ways that supported continued investment in community health improvement in Humana’s local markets, while satisfying its traditional business constituents.
This case can be used in courses on strategy, community health improvement, the corporate role in public health, and other courses exploring the intersection of business and society. It also offers a rich opportunity to explore the research design and measurement challenges associated with evaluating the impact of public health interventions on local communities.
Kane, N.M., 2017.
Strategic Planning in Lesedi District, South Africa, Harvard Business Publishing: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health case collection.
Available from Harvard Business PublishingAbstractMr. Joseph Nkosi, the Manager of the Lesedi District Health Department, South Africa, was hopeful that he could bring increased resources and better health to the area. Lesedi District, one of about 50 districts in 9 provinces in South Africa, was a largely rural area saddled with high levels of poverty, poor infrastructure, and high mortality rates; medical needs were high but almost half of the positions in the health department were unfilled, and turnover among staff was high. In South Africa, there was a push to improve primary care and to decentralize management to local levels in order to respond to local needs more effectively, but the processes for planning, reporting and budgeting were extremely complex and did not seem to support that goal. Mr. Nkosi wondered what additional skills he needed in order to work the system, and was also thinking about how the system itself could be improved.