Children's HeartLink: Reducing Health Care Disparities

Abstract

As the country director for Children's HeartLink (CHL), an international medical nongovernmental organization, Adriana Dobrzycka was reviewing the draft of the 2021 annual report—and dreaming big. CHL existed for the sole purpose of providing high-quality surgical care to children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) who suffered from a common, and often deadly, birth defect called congenital heart disease (CHD). CHL successfully paired specialized medical volunteers from high-income countries with health care institutions in LMICs to diagnose and treat CHD. If adequate resources existed in LMICs, millions of children's lives could be saved. Financial donations to CHL had taken a hit during the global pandemic, and donor contributions were its lifeline. As the leadership team prepared for funding pitches to donors and applied for government and private grants, Dobrzycka visualized instead creating new opportunities to grow CHL's model. In allocating resources to its partner hospitals, how could CHL provide the right support to the right partner hospitals in order to treat as many children as possible? As the manager for CHL's partnerships in India and Vietnam, Dobrzycka had to be ready with her own pitch that offered the best opportunity for CHL to scale up its existing operations. This field-based case is used at Darden in a second-year MBA elective on strategic sourcing. It would also be suitable in courses covering operating models to establish global supply chains and/or a unique framework for supply-side and demand-side enablers in the context of underserved communities. The material would also fit well in health care management courses.

Excerpt

UVA-OM-1770

Rev. Oct. 18, 2022

Children's HeartLink: Reducing Health Care Disparities

As the country director for Children's HeartLink (CHL), an international medical nongovernmental organization (NGO), Adriana Dobrzycka was reviewing the draft of the 2021 annual report—and dreaming big. CHL existed for the sole purpose of providing high-quality surgical care to children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) who suffered from a birth defect called congenital heart disease (CHD). A Lancet team of experts and scholars estimated that 1.35million neonates were born with CHD globally, accounting for 250,000 deaths in 2017. (See Exhibit1 for a map.)

Some believed that public health priorities in LMICs should exclude surgical intervention, as it was too complex and costly for consideration. There simply weren't enough surgeons and anesthesiologists worldwide to meet the need. Dobrzycka's belief and experience suggested otherwise—CHL had successfully paired specialized medical volunteers from high-income countries with health care institutions in LMICs to diagnose and treat CHD. If adequate resources existed in LMICs, millions of children's lives could be saved.

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Keywords: supply and demand, knowledge transfer, health care, NGO, nongovernmental organization, LMIC, underserved communities, fundraising, nonprofit, poverty, children, sourcing, scaling, operating model, private and public hospitals, public health, COVID-19, coronavirus, pandemic, female protagonist, international NGO