Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation
Encyclopedia
The Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation (CFI), an internal consultancy of the Mayo Clinic
, is the United States’s largest health care delivery innovation group working within a major academic medical center
.
The CFI uses design thinking
, an innovation
discipline used by many U.S. corporation
s, to rapidly develop patient-focused health care delivery models that increase the quality and access to health care
and decrease its cost.
The CFI’s projects cover the full spectrum of modern clinical and hospital
practice while focusing on three main areas – redesigning outpatient practice, transforming community health
, and care-at-a-distance medicine.
Based in the Mayo Clinic’s main facility in Rochester, MN
, the CFI has more than 50 full-time staff including service design
ers, project manager
s and others working to develop health care delivery solutions for Mayo’s Clinic’s 57,000 employees and half a million patients annually in Rochester as well at Mayo Clinic’s branch facilities in Jacksonville, FL
and Phoenix
/Scottsdale, AZ
.
and Charles Mayo
founded their medical practice
around an innovative concept — the integrated team practice. The Mayo brothers
established the approach that is still followed by Mayo Clinic and the CFI today, which is that innovation doesn’t happen by chance but rather requires systematic process, discipline and focus.
Formally established as the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation in 2008, the 50+ member multidisciplinary team is now the largest among a growing number of research and testing centers for new health care delivery concepts at U.S. academic and non-profit medical centers.
A precursor to the Center for Innovation, the SPARC Lab, was created in the Department of Medicine with a staff of two. By 2008, the SPARC Lab had grown to 24 full-time staff and was rechristened as the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation.
In its first three years, the CFI completed more than 100 innovation projects within the Mayo system, ranging from redesigning Mayo’s traditional clinical exam room; to streamlining job descriptions and protocols in a dermatology
clinic; to analyzing how hospital care teams hand off patients from one team to another; to supporting a project with a “stroke robot” that enables Mayo physicians to consult with patients from a remote location within seconds of the first possible signs of a stroke
.
, the president and CEO of Mayo Clinic, describes the CFI as a “lab for creative thinking” at Mayo. The director of the CFI, Dr. Nicholas LaRusso, says the CFI’s mission is “to transform the experience and delivery of health care. We need a more patient-focused delivery system that creates greater value and better health for the patient. For meaningful change, the medical community must step outside its comfort zone.”
and to invent new paradigms of value. The CFI is testing the hypothesis that design thinking, a proven successful innovation discipline in U.S. business and industry, can be successfully applied to health care innovation.
The CFI’s staff is built around a core of graduates from design schools and designers recruited from design firms and service-oriented companies.
s of newly-designed examination rooms that were altered in size, shape and configuration. These Outpatient Lab studies resulted in a redesign of Mayo Clinic’s basic examination room. In the old room, the exam table was placed in the center of the room, with doctor-patient conversations held at a desk adjacent to the exam table. In the new configuration, doctors and patients chat with each other at a round table in a carpeted room that feels much like a living room, with the examination table, clothes-changing area and medical instruments located in an adjoining room.
s, nurses and care team members to brainstorm and prototype solutions to health care delivery problems.
, cost and quality control
, and defined scope of work.
, GE Healthcare
, IBM
, IDEO
, Microsoft
, Steelcase
, Cisco
, Carnegie Mellon University
, the University of Minnesota
, Purdue University
, Doblin, Ascension Health
, Vital Health and Imaginatik
.
Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a not-for-profit medical practice and medical research group specializing in treating difficult patients . Patients are referred to Mayo Clinic from across the U.S. and the world, and it is known for innovative and effective treatments. Mayo Clinic is known for being at the top of...
, is the United States’s largest health care delivery innovation group working within a major academic medical center
Academic Medical Center
The Academic Medical Center , or AMC, is the university hospital affiliated with the Universiteit van Amsterdam ....
.
The CFI uses design thinking
Design thinking
Design Thinking refers to the methods and processes for investigating ill-defined problems, acquiring information, analyzing knowledge, and positing solutions in the design and planning fields...
, an innovation
Innovation
Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...
discipline used by many U.S. corporation
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
s, to rapidly develop patient-focused health care delivery models that increase the quality and access to health care
Health care
Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...
and decrease its cost.
The CFI’s projects cover the full spectrum of modern clinical and hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
practice while focusing on three main areas – redesigning outpatient practice, transforming community health
Community health
Community health, a field of public health, is a discipline that concerns itself with the study and betterment of the health characteristics of biological communities. While the term community can be broadly defined, community health tends to focus on geographic areas rather than people with shared...
, and care-at-a-distance medicine.
Based in the Mayo Clinic’s main facility in Rochester, MN
Rochester, Minnesota
Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on both banks of the Zumbro River, The city has a population of 106,769 according to the 2010 United States Census, making it Minnesota's third-largest city and the largest outside of the...
, the CFI has more than 50 full-time staff including service design
Service design
Service design is the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service in order to improve its quality and the interaction between service provider and customers....
ers, project manager
Project manager
A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers can have the responsibility of the planning, execution, and closing of any project, typically relating to construction industry, architecture, computer networking, telecommunications or software...
s and others working to develop health care delivery solutions for Mayo’s Clinic’s 57,000 employees and half a million patients annually in Rochester as well at Mayo Clinic’s branch facilities in Jacksonville, FL
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
and Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
/Scottsdale, AZ
Scottsdale, Arizona
Scottsdale is a city in the eastern part of Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, adjacent to Phoenix. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2010 the population of the city was 217,385...
.
History of the CFI
Mayo’s commitment to innovation began in the late 19th century when Drs. WilliamWilliam Mayo
William Mayo is the name of:* William B. Mayo , former chief engineer of the Ford Motor Company* Two co-founders of the Mayo Clinic:** William Worrall Mayo **William James Mayo...
and Charles Mayo
Charles Mayo
Charles Mayo is the name of:*Charles Horace Mayo , American physician*Charles Herbert Mayo , English antiquarian*Charles William Mayo , American surgeon*Charles Mayo , Canadian-born English cricketer...
founded their medical practice
Medical practice
A medical practice or practice of medicine is the practice of medicine, as performed by a medical practitioner—a physician...
around an innovative concept — the integrated team practice. The Mayo brothers
Mayo brothers
The Mayo brothers were Charles Horace Mayo and William James Mayo, who with the help of their partners, co-founded the Mayo Clinic. The original partners in the practice were the Mayo brothers, Drs. Stinchfield, Judd, Graham, Plummer, Millet and Balfour...
established the approach that is still followed by Mayo Clinic and the CFI today, which is that innovation doesn’t happen by chance but rather requires systematic process, discipline and focus.
Formally established as the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation in 2008, the 50+ member multidisciplinary team is now the largest among a growing number of research and testing centers for new health care delivery concepts at U.S. academic and non-profit medical centers.
A precursor to the Center for Innovation, the SPARC Lab, was created in the Department of Medicine with a staff of two. By 2008, the SPARC Lab had grown to 24 full-time staff and was rechristened as the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation.
In its first three years, the CFI completed more than 100 innovation projects within the Mayo system, ranging from redesigning Mayo’s traditional clinical exam room; to streamlining job descriptions and protocols in a dermatology
Dermatology
Dermatology is the branch of medicine dealing with the skin and its diseases, a unique specialty with both medical and surgical aspects. A dermatologist takes care of diseases, in the widest sense, and some cosmetic problems of the skin, scalp, hair, and nails....
clinic; to analyzing how hospital care teams hand off patients from one team to another; to supporting a project with a “stroke robot” that enables Mayo physicians to consult with patients from a remote location within seconds of the first possible signs of a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
.
CFI’s Vision and Mission
Dr. John NoseworthyJohn Noseworthy
John L. Noseworthy is a Canadian accountant and politician who served as Auditor General of Newfoundland and Labrador from April 25, 2002 till July 30, 2011...
, the president and CEO of Mayo Clinic, describes the CFI as a “lab for creative thinking” at Mayo. The director of the CFI, Dr. Nicholas LaRusso, says the CFI’s mission is “to transform the experience and delivery of health care. We need a more patient-focused delivery system that creates greater value and better health for the patient. For meaningful change, the medical community must step outside its comfort zone.”
Design Thinking
The guiding discipline used by the CFI is design thinking, an innovation technique used by many U.S. businesses outside of health care to improve customer serviceCustomer service
Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.According to Turban et al. , “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer...
and to invent new paradigms of value. The CFI is testing the hypothesis that design thinking, a proven successful innovation discipline in U.S. business and industry, can be successfully applied to health care innovation.
The CFI’s staff is built around a core of graduates from design schools and designers recruited from design firms and service-oriented companies.
The Outpatient Lab
In its early years, the CFI (then the SPARC Lab) developed the Outpatient Lab, where consenting patients were observed in prototypePrototype
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
s of newly-designed examination rooms that were altered in size, shape and configuration. These Outpatient Lab studies resulted in a redesign of Mayo Clinic’s basic examination room. In the old room, the exam table was placed in the center of the room, with doctor-patient conversations held at a desk adjacent to the exam table. In the new configuration, doctors and patients chat with each other at a round table in a carpeted room that feels much like a living room, with the examination table, clothes-changing area and medical instruments located in an adjoining room.
The Design Research Studio
At the CFI’s Design Research Studio, designers and project managers collaborate with Mayo physicianPhysician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
s, nurses and care team members to brainstorm and prototype solutions to health care delivery problems.
Project Management
In 2009, project managers were added to the CFI staff, partly in recognition that the creative aspect of design thinking sometimes needs a counterbalancing force to keep projects driving towards deadlinesTime limit
A time limit or deadline is a narrow field of time, or particular point in time, by which an objective or task must be accomplished.In project management, deadlines are most often associated with milestone goals....
, cost and quality control
Quality control
Quality control, or QC for short, is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. This approach places an emphasis on three aspects:...
, and defined scope of work.
Here, There and Everywhere
The Center for Innovation projects cluster around three main platforms reflecting a Mayo Clinic strategic vision of “Here, There and Everywhere”: PLATFORMS are 1) Practice Redesign, aimed at reducing outpatient practice costs by 30 percent while enhancing the patient experience and maintaining or improving quality outcomes; 2) Community Health Transformation, aimed at nurturing scalable community health models based on “Triple Aim” [16] goals; and 3) Care-at-a-Distance, to develop web-based, mobile and other digital communication models to extend specialty care to remote sites including underserved areas, patient homes and affiliated practices.Internal and External Partners
Partnering with people and organizations inside and outside of health care, and inside and outside of Mayo Clinic, is a core principle of the CFI. Among Mayo’s external partners are Best BuyBest Buy
Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American specialty retailer of consumer electronics in the United States, accounting for 19% of the market. It also operates in Mexico, Canada & China. The company's subsidiaries include Geek Squad, CinemaNow, Magnolia Audio Video, Pacific Sales, and, in Canada operates...
, GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare is a division of GE Technology Infrastructure, which is itself a division of General Electric . It employs more than 46,000 people worldwide and is headquartered in Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom. GE Healthcare is the first GE business segment to be headquartered...
, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, IDEO
IDEO
IDEO is an international design and innovation consultancy founded in Palo Alto, California, United States with other locations in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Boston, London, Munich, Shanghai, and Singapore, as well as Mumbai, Seoul, and Tokyo. The company helps design products, services,...
, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, Steelcase
Steelcase
Steelcase is an international office furniture company founded in 1912 in Grand Rapids, Michigan — as The Metal Office Furniture Company. The company at the time specialized in file cabinets and safes. Today, the company sells products related to interior architecture, furniture and technology...
, Cisco
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...
, Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
, the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
, Doblin, Ascension Health
Ascension Health
Ascension Health is a non-profit company that operates a network of hospitals and related health facilities in the United States. It is the nation's largest Catholic and largest non-profit health system.-Sponsors:...
, Vital Health and Imaginatik
Imaginatik
Imaginatik plc is an Innovation Management Solutions provider headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts with offices in the US and London, and more than 35 Global 1,000 clients. It offers software and consulting for managing large-scale innovations at enterprise organizations.-History:The concept for...
.
Other CFI innovation programs
- Transform, an annual two-day health care innovation conference featuring high-profile guest speakers.
- The CoDE Project, an annual award granting funds to Mayo Clinic employees for innovative health care proposals.
- Launchpad, an online collaboration tool allowing employees across the Mayo Clinic system in Rochester, MN; Scottsdale, AZ; and Jacksonville, Florida to share resources and news and join discussion and work groups.
- The Innovation Curriculum, a series of lunch-time seminars teaching innovation skills and mindset to Mayo employees at all levels.
External links
- The Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation
- Transform 2011
- Blog of the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation
- Design Thinking in Health Care, Yale School of Management Case Study on the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation
- Interview with Dr. Nicholas LaRusso, Minnesota Public Radio “Bright Ideas”
- Interview with Dr. Michael Brennan, Yale School of Management Case Study of the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation