Product Overview

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.