FALL 2011 OVERVIEW: OUR VISION OF THE VALUE OF ghdLAB

Learn about why ghdLAB blends classroom learning and action-based field projects. MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer Anjali Sastry, students, and field partners explain what they've gained from taking on practical health care management and delivery challenges in Africa and India.

By Fall 2011, the experience of the first three years of ghdLAB had borne out our initial idea: that we could generate an amazing learning experience for MIT students while aiming to deliver practical help to partners on the front lines of health care delivery. We set our sights on continuing to develop both teaching and impact, while asking: can we build a base of experience and ideas for the emerging study of innovation, implementation, and improvement in healthcare delivery and management?

In this MIT Sloan class, teams of four students each partner with an organization on the front lines of care delivery. Together, they design an action learning project to address factors that limit their delivery of health care. Over the course of several months, including an intensive period on site, students work with MIT faculty, domain experts, and the leaders and staff in the partner enterprise and bring to bear the best of their MIT toolkit to help generate value for all.

Since 2008, over 150 experienced MIT graduate students have conducted around 40 unpaid projects in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Malawi, and India, each involving around 1,000 person-hours of student work. Partner organizations set their own project’s focus and offset some costs. Support from MIT Sloan School of Management’s generous alumni and friends makes up the rest.