Mayo Clinic Case
Mayo Clinic Case
Mayo Clinic Case
Note: Write your answer in a word document in following sequence and convert it as PDF
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Although over the last 50 years there had been enormous advances in diagnosing and
treating disease, the systems of delivering health care had changed little. In fact, new tests,
treatments, and procedures meant that the health care experience had become increasingly
complex for provider and patient alike. But what if there were better ways to provide care?
As LaRusso reasoned, “New technology, new diagnostic tests, and new therapeutics will be
most effective if we can improve the ways we deliver these enormous advances to
patients.”
LaRusso had heard that design firms like IDEO were offering consulting services in the area
of human factors design, and he wondered if their work might be applicable in the health
care setting. Mayo had a history of innovation in care delivery, starting with the invention of
the patient medical record in the early 20th century, and the clinic was always looking for
ways to improve both patient outcomes and the health care experience.
In 2002, in consultation with IDEO, LaRusso and colleague Dr. Michael Brennan opened a
skunkworks outpatient lab called SPARC, where physicians and designers could test
hypotheses about ways in which Doctors/providers and patients interact. They dealt with a
number of challenges: recruiting busy physicians to a new and untested type of research,
crossing the cultural divide between physicians and designers, doing experimentation with
real patients, and gaining institutional support for their unusual endeavor.
Within six years, the lab had grown from a small venture to an enterprise-wide Center for
Innovation (CFI), a dedicated research institute that studies the processes of health care
provision, from the initial phone call, to the clinic visit, to the diagnosis and treatment of the
problem, to follow-up and preventive care.
In 2010, the CFI was a respected internal consultancy of Mayo Clinic. It had five platforms
that encompassed various kinds of service redesign, and it had grown from two full-time
employees to 32. It had undertaken projects to reorganize the work flows in a practice, test
new strategies for patient education, use technology to improve physician consultations,
and redesign the traditional exam room.
At the same time, CFI designers and physicians acknowledged that the innovations they had
developed were small, and they spoke of the goal of "transformational" change. But in 2010
there were questions about how the CFI would achieve its stated aspirations. What would a
major change in health care delivery look like?
Discussion Questions:
1. What is original about the Center for Innovation? What is the significance of establishing
an in-house innovation lab versus hiring outside consultants?
2. What are the special risks and benefits of experimenting with service innovations in the
health care environment?
3. What is the role of designers at the CFI? How do they facilitate innovation in health care
delivery? How might their contributions compare to those of a management consultant, an
industrial designer, an organizational psychologist, or a poet?
4. What conflicts, if any, are there between the goal of "small changes for big impact" and
the goal of "transforming the way health care is delivered and experienced?" Do these two
kinds of innovation need to be balanced?
How does the CFI's organization affect the types of innovation that they develop?
5. How would you recommend that the CFI measure its results? How should they present
their work to physicians, to patients, and to outside supporters?