A joint program for mid-career professionals that integrates engineering and systems thinking. Earn your master’s degree in engineering and management.
Our H-Lab student teams work on complex problems with organizations in healthcare-related areas, including operations management, analytics, IT and delivery innovation.
15.777 Healthcare Lab: Introduction to Healthcare Delivery in the United States
Our Healthcare Lab students work with host companies to find actionable solutions to real challenges in the healthcare field, and to make improvements in analytics, operations management, IT, marketing, and many other areas, with one ultimate goal: to improve the quality of healthcare and patient outcomes.
H-Lab provides a unique learning opportunity for students, allowing them hands on experience that will prepare them for the very real challenges that face healthcare organizations. And through their experiences, healthcare businesses, employees, and patients ultimately benefit.
H-Lab students work with healthcare organizations in many locations throughout the East Coast. By expanding medical technologies into new markets, improving patient and provider communications, and helping organizations follow best practices with medications, our students are making a difference in the healthcare industry.
2019-2020 Utilizing hospital and insurance data to investigate the challenges that BCH may encounter in the commercialization process for their potential genetic therapy treatment alternative for CPVT.
2019-2020 Evaluating the effectiveness of BMC’s diabetes treatment pathways and their influence on patient outcomes to determine its best path forward.
2019-2020 Conducting a qualitative and quantitative analysis to enhance productivity in two Urology operating rooms at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center.
2020-2021: Develop a testing and implementation process for this algorithm that is both cost effective and practical for use with an at-risk population who have never overdosed, as well as those in recovery who are still at risk.
2019-2020 Creating a pilot to operationalize and test the integration of Mobile Integrated Health (MIH) services with SHHC, a home health provider serving elderly populations in Boston.
Students in the healthcare field not only learn about the challenges they face in the industry; they can also make a direct impact through their learning. H – Lab allows students to make a meaningful difference in the healthcare world through innovative research and educational activities. This interdisciplinary, project-based course is designed to:
Provide insight to the issues facing healthcare organizations
Immerse students in an intensive experience working collaboratively with senior leadership in healthcare organizations
Create a forum where students and healthcare leaders can work together to take action
In the field
A large part of this course involves students working with host companies. Once the H-Lab teaching team assigns students to a host, these groups of four will work with their host organizations on a four-month project designed to tackle a real-world business problem. The teams work with their hosts online and via video and conference calls to determine the project scope, schedule, and deliverables. Throughout the semester, teams conduct extensive research, interviews, and analyses that will help them find potential solutions to their hosts' business challenges. The student teams spend significant time interacting with their host company to collaborate and implement their findings. At the end of January, students present their projects to hosts and each other in an Action Learning Poster Session.
Reflections and deliverables
Though one of the main focuses of H-Lab is creating deliverables for host organizations, reflection is a crucial aspect of Action Learning. Through mentor coaching sessions, updates, and the creation of posters for public presentation, students link theory and practice in order to deepen their learning experiences.
MIT Healthcare Certificate
While H-Lab is open to all students who have completed 15.060 and 15.761, or receive faculty permission, it is required for the MIT Healthcare Certificate.
Class timeline
September - December
Course meets for lectures and guest speakers.
September
Student teams are formed.
Teams are matched to host organizations and projects.
September - October
Teams contact host organizations and develop project work plans.
Teams work on projects and with host organizations.
October-December
Student teams have frequent check-ins with host organizations.
December
Fall classes end, and holiday break begins.
January
Teams work with their hosts, including a final presentation and a poster session.
America's healthcare system is notoriously complex. Our students work with many different types of organizations, including clinics, hospitals, and other healthcare centers, and have a wide of array of experiences that have prepared them to solve some of healthcare's biggest challenges while also applying their H-Lab and other classroom learning.Students and organizations work together to tackle problems in a variety of healthcare areas, including:
Analytics
Delivery innovation
IT
Operations management
Organizational dynamics
Strategic marketing
Interested in becoming a host?
Please contact the Healthcare Lab facultyin order to learn more about becoming a host. Our teams of students can help improve the health of both patients and organizations.
Please note that although there is no fee for becoming a host, when travel is permitted, organizations are responsible for travel expenses if teams are required to leave the MIT area for their onsite experience. This would include:
Team members’ round-trip coach airfare
Reasonable lodging for students while onsite
Host timeline
June
Host application period begins. Invitations are sent out.
July
Project application deadline. Please contact H-Lab faculty for more details.
September
During the first and second weeks of the semester, students are matched with accepted projects.
Toward the end of September, teams begin conversations with hosts about project design and proposal or workplan.
October - December
Student teams actively engage host, usually via phone or video conference, to follow work plan.
January
Teams work with their host, advancing the project and making presentations to senior leaders.
