Health Organization Case Study: Mayo Clinic Health System

Introduction

Mayo Clinic Health System is a network of clinics and hospitals that serve more than 60 communities across the states of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Georgia. The organization is committed to clinical practice, education, and research, and offering quality healthcare to patients. Mayo Clinic is guided by a mission to “inspire hope and contribute to health and well-being through offering the best care to every patient through integrated clinical practice, education, and research”. Mayo Clinic Health System is comprised of community-based doctors who are supported by highly specialized expertise and resources of Mayo Clinic. This partnership is geared towards making quality healthcare more accessible and closer to patients’ homes. Mayo Clinic Health System is noted to be comprised of more than 900 healthcare providers and caters for over half a million patients annually. This paper seeks to establish Mayo Clinic’s readiness in addressing the healthcare needs of the citizens and assess its strategic plan relating with issues such as network growth, nurse staffing, resource management, and patient satisfaction. 

Healthcare Focused on the Community

Mayo Clinic Health System was started to provide a new form of healthcare to the local communities. The healthcare systems achieve this by developing an integrated team of local practitioners and medical experts. This form of approach has provided a new approach to information sharing, which has facilitated the improvement of health in the community. Mayo Clinic offers patients in their respective communities an access to cutting-edge research, technology, and resources. The organization has held a long tradition of supporting community health and wellness. The Mayo Clinic Health System maintains a community health needs assessment, which is noted to be essential in advancing and strengthening its commitment to community health and wellness. This helps the healthcare system to maintain a focus on high-priority needs and highlight additional needs that deserve more attention.

Focus on Enhancing Patient Care, Research, and Education

As of 2017, Mayo Clinic was noted to provide healthcare services to approximately 1.3 million patients (Lindquist, 2018). The organization was engaged in initiatives to advance medical research and education. This has positioned the healthcare facility as a national leader in offering healthcare to patients with complex healthcare needs. Mayo Clinic has been ranked as a number one hospital in the country and one that has more specialties compared to other healthcare facilities. Mayo Clinic equips its clinic with advanced equipment; a key notable one is the Tesla MRI Scanner that is used in the imaging of the brain and the knee. The imaging technology uses ultrahigh magnetic field technology that facilitates sub-millimeter resolution imaging to get the patient diagnoses that would have been missed using less powerful scanners. Such a form of technology is expected to open opportunities in the areas of research and help in the management of epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, cerebral vascular disease, and cartilage degeneration (Lindquist, 2018). 

Mayo Clinic readiness to address the healthcare needs of the citizens in the future is evident in the investments made on research and education. For instance, in 2017, the funding for research and education was observed to be more than $1 billion with $556.5 being contributed by Mayo Clinic Funding and $512.1 million was sourced from external sources (Lindquist, 2018). Mayo Clinic has also had its grant renewed by the National Institute of Health, which offered $48.8 million in advance to support researchers in translating discoveries to deal with unmet patient needs and support initiatives such as educational programs for researchers and community engagement for research participants (Lindquist, 2018). A key research that Mayo Clinic has had advances in is neurological research. In advancing this research, Mayo Clinic has entered into a partnership with the University of Oxford and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Advancements in Medicine and Sharing Expertise

The Mayo Clinic Health System through an ongoing project for the construction of the Destination Medical Center and a public-private partnership will be able to focus on the biomedical technology, products for regenerative therapies, and advanced diagnostics. Mayo Clinic operates a care network that allows the sharing of knowledge and virtual consultation to providers. Mayo Clinic also operates an app that offers patient online services through which patients make video appointments (Lindquist, 2018). Mayo Clinic operates a Center for Connected Care, which is focused on expanding Mayo’s digital opportunities. This shows how Mayo Clinic Health system is bracing itself to serve the needs of patients who will be more digitally connected in the next decade.

Investment in Capital Projects

It has been noted that Mayo Clinic Health system continues to make capital projects to expand its ability to cater to the healthcare needs of the citizens even in the next decade. Mayo Clinic has made an investment of $714 million in projects among them a single integrated electronic health record and revenue cycle management (Lindquist, 2018). This project is geared towards enhancing service delivery, facilitate innovation, and enable the healthcare organization to offer better care for patients. Another example of a capital project was the construction of a destination center building on the Florida campus, which will improve Mayo’s integrated services for complex cancer, neurologic, and neurosurgical care. The capital projects undertaken by Mayo Clinic represent the organization’s commitment to continue enhancing patients’ care.

Strategic Plan at Mayo Clinic

Among the aspects of the Mayo Clinic Health System is network growth. Mayo Clinic operates a care network model where it works off affiliations with other providers. In doing this, Mayo Clinic seeks to facilitate the provision of healthcare to patients in a way that ensures they receive the right care in the right place. The model adopted by Mayo Clinic integrates clinical practice, education, and research and is founded on knowledge sharing across providers (Baxter, 2018). The network follows a vision to allow all patients a chance to experience Mayo Clinic products and services irrespective of where they live. The care network adopted by Mayo Clinic is a strategy aimed to assist the clinic to remain relevant in the rapidly evolving healthcare landscape.

Among the strategic plan upheld by Mayo Clinic Health System, is its attention on people. The organization seeks to create a healthcare workforce of the future that sustains Mayo’s values. In this, the clinic seeks to improve the staff’s ability to deliver high-value care. This involves initiatives carried out to put in place individual provider scorecards comprised of quality and cost metrics. This assesses the performance of the nursing staff in terms of outcomes, safety, services, cost, competence, and adherence to standardized practice guidelines. The organization seeks to continue increasing diversity of staff and development of diverse staff. 

Mayo Clinic Health Systems seeks to improve patient satisfaction with the care provided by boosting healthcare outcomes. To achieve this Mayo Clinic’s network partners, have access to the hospital’s resources. In carrying out diagnostics, the network partners are provided with the capability to send e-consultations to Mayo Clinic for second opinions (Baxter, 2018). Mayo Clinic holds periodic collaboratives across specialties that allow providers within the network to meet and brainstorm on how to address better the needs of the patients in a manner that improves patient satisfaction. 

References

Baxter, A. (2018). How Mayo Clinic’s Network Strategy Boosts Patient Outcomes. Retrieved from https://www.healthexec.com/topics/care-delivery/mayo-clinic-network-strategy-patient-outcomesLindquist, S. B. (2018). Mayo Clinic is Strong, Well-positioned for Future; Leadership Transition Begins. Retrieved from https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-is-strong-well-positioned-for-future-leadership-transition-begins