Prof. Regina Herzlinger Harvard Business School, United States, USA

Regina Herzlinger has been named the "Godmother of consumer-driven health care," because of her groundbreaking scholarly articles and books on this subject. She differed from conventional views of health care consumers, who were derogatorily described as non–compliant, illiterate, or patients, as in, “you need to be patient.” Instead, she portrayed... read morethem as busy people who are eager and capable of participating in managing their health, with appropriate, relevant, and respectful support. Professor Herzlinger’s work focuses on the research and pedagogical activities that can help to create the public and business innovations that will reshape health care systems worldwide so they are increasingly accessible, cost-controlled, and technologically enabled. Because the components of the status quo health care systems—hospitals, pharmaceutical firms, insurers, for example—are oligopolized and uncompetitive and the employers and governments that should act as agents for their constituents have been notably ineffective, innovation must be consumer-driven She is also a teacher and scholar of innovation in health care. She highlights changes in insurance, focused health care delivery and insurance, medical technology, and transparency. She has also been active in U.S. health care public policy. For example, her Wall Street Journal editorial "The IRS Can Save American Health Care," influenced an Executive Order: Promoting Healthcare Choice and Competition across the United States, finalized June 2019, and a Wall Street Journal editorial in October 2018 by three U.S. cabinet secretaries that cited her, "New Health Options for Small-Business Employees." Her 2020 Health Affairs article couples Biden/Trump proposals to create a bipartisan, cost–controlling solution to increasing coverage without raising taxes. Prof. Herzlinger is a successful medical technology entrepreneur with her husband, an MIT Ph.D. Physicist. Their devices, which they design and manufacture in the U.S., have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. They are working on new ideas and have formed a charity to promulgate education in healthcare innovation. Regina E. Herzlinger is the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. She was the first woman to be tenured and chaired at Harvard Business School and serve on many established and start-up corporate health care/medical technology boards. She initiated the courses in non-profit and health care at HBS and was the first faculty member to be selected by the students as their best instructor.