Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg

Health care is on a collision course with patient needs and economic reality. Without significant changes in health care delivery, the scale of the problem will only get worse. Rising costs, mounting evidence of quality problems, and increasing numbers of Americans without insurance are unacceptable and unsustainable. We can do better.

How do leaders dramatically improve value for patients and families? The most pressing task to achieve value improvement is to create a new and better structure and organization of care delivery. These innovations must create solutions for patients and families that are far more effective and efficient than today's patchwork of services. This improvement in value also enables increased success and professional satisfaction for clinicians, who are now accustomed to working in systems that too often impede efficacy and raise costs. Centering care around solutions for patients will require clinically integrated interdisciplinary teams, meaningful measurement of results, and new partnerships which result in higher quality and lower cost care.


		Elizabeth Teisberg, Ph.D., M.Engineering Elizabeth Teisberg is a tenured professor of business at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, and a Senior Institute Associate at Harvard's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. Her expertise is in Strategy and Innovation. Professor Teisberg speaks and works internationally on innovation for dramatic improvement in health care value, actively implementing Redefining Health Care. She has developed frameworks and cases to enable the implementation of health care delivery transformation. Redefining Health Care received the American College of Healthcare Executives 2007 James A. Hamilton book of the year award. At UVA, Professor Teisberg also received the Frederick S. Morton Leadership Award in 2004 and the Wachovia Award for research excellence in 2006. Prior to joining the faculty at the Darden School of Business, she was an associate professor in the Strategy Group at the Harvard Business School. In addition to Redefining Health Care, Professor Teisberg co-authored with Michael Porter five articles on health care, as well as a Harvard Business Review Special Report 'Fixing Competition in U.S. Health Care'. Professors Teisberg and Porter have also developed courses on Health Care Delivery that they co-teach at Harvard University. At the University of Virginia, Professor Teisberg teaches Innovation and Health Care Management. She also teaches executive education at both Harvard and UVA, as well as on-site for companies and organizations. Professor Teisberg's earlier projects have analyzed strategy in medical device and biotech companies, real options, research and development decisions, medical innovation, and strategic response to uncertainty. Professor Teisberg is the author or co-author of over 50 cases and articles in professional publications such as the Harvard Business Review, Journal of the American Medical Association, Science, Seminars in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Rand Journal of Economics, Management Science, Research-Technology Management, and Interfaces. She is the co-author of The Portable MBA, which has been published in five languages. Professor Teisberg earned a M.S. and a Ph.D. in engineering-economic systems from the Stanford University School of Engineering. She also holds a M. Eng. in systems science from the University of Virginia and an A.B. degree, summa cum laude, in political science and mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Professor Teisberg lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.