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Healthcare Strategy: In Pursuit of Competitive Advantage
With a focus on the five P's of competitive advantage—power, position, pace, potential, performance—this text selectively applies and adapts the concepts and methods of strategy analysis to the unique constraints and realities of the healthcare industry. It also discusses how to access market structure, an activity that is critically important in today's competitive enviornment. Instructor Chapter-specific teaching tips, study questions, and PowerPoint slides. To see a sample, click the link in the right-hand navigation bar.
286 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2003
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May 10, 2022
This is an ostensibly high end text on strategy for healthcare managers (and analysts, I suppose). It is filled with references to various strategic writings, both the classics of business strategy and the classics of military strategy. There are also numerous allusions to healthcare providers and even a few case references, although such references do not come with much detail regarding the particular cases or the markets in which they are located.
The one potential topic on which the authors have economized is the answer to the question - “What is special about healthcare and merits a separate volume on healthcare strategy?”.They do not have much to say about this, although there are some case references as one moves deeper into the book. That’s too bad, because it leaves me wondering about the value of chugging through this when there are numerous strategy texts that provide a better tour of the field. There are even some quick and convenient tours of the strategy garden that are more informative and more useful - for example see Max McKeown’s “The Strategy Book” (2ed).
It is also too bad, since there is a lot to discuss about the healthcare field and how the field developed into its current state - which was going on strongly at the time of the book. For example, there was a major consolidation movement in metro area health systems around the turn of the millennium the did not lead to better or more efficient medicine but did give most systems significant local pricing power. It was doubtful that anyone really knew about healthcare innovation at the time but lots of people knew about pricing power. We are still suffering from this.
Part of the problem is also that healthcare provides a highly unusual product - extremely complicated but difficult to pin down to specifics. Is it about completed successful procedures? Is it about living a longer life come what may? …and by the way, when do we know that a patient’s problem has been solved or that his/her trip through the healthcare system has been worth the effort and cost? It is not the same as selling cars, iPhone apps, or books online. This is a big topic and if not at least addressed, takes one into the domain of cost shifting and ever rising healthcare costs.
To Professor Luke’s credit, this was very much an open issue at the time and that means it may not be best for a short text. There has been some good work since then, such as by Elizabeth Teisberg, and there are some different approaches to healthcare strategy that are available. A recent effective book is “Big Med” by Dranove and Burns (2021), but there are several others as well..
This book was OK, but these volumes do not tend to age well, especially when a lot is happening in the field. That is what happened here.
The one potential topic on which the authors have economized is the answer to the question - “What is special about healthcare and merits a separate volume on healthcare strategy?”.They do not have much to say about this, although there are some case references as one moves deeper into the book. That’s too bad, because it leaves me wondering about the value of chugging through this when there are numerous strategy texts that provide a better tour of the field. There are even some quick and convenient tours of the strategy garden that are more informative and more useful - for example see Max McKeown’s “The Strategy Book” (2ed).
It is also too bad, since there is a lot to discuss about the healthcare field and how the field developed into its current state - which was going on strongly at the time of the book. For example, there was a major consolidation movement in metro area health systems around the turn of the millennium the did not lead to better or more efficient medicine but did give most systems significant local pricing power. It was doubtful that anyone really knew about healthcare innovation at the time but lots of people knew about pricing power. We are still suffering from this.
Part of the problem is also that healthcare provides a highly unusual product - extremely complicated but difficult to pin down to specifics. Is it about completed successful procedures? Is it about living a longer life come what may? …and by the way, when do we know that a patient’s problem has been solved or that his/her trip through the healthcare system has been worth the effort and cost? It is not the same as selling cars, iPhone apps, or books online. This is a big topic and if not at least addressed, takes one into the domain of cost shifting and ever rising healthcare costs.
To Professor Luke’s credit, this was very much an open issue at the time and that means it may not be best for a short text. There has been some good work since then, such as by Elizabeth Teisberg, and there are some different approaches to healthcare strategy that are available. A recent effective book is “Big Med” by Dranove and Burns (2021), but there are several others as well..
This book was OK, but these volumes do not tend to age well, especially when a lot is happening in the field. That is what happened here.
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