Journal of Healthcare Management - January/February 2014 - (Page 9)

ImpLEmENTNG hEALThCARE REFORm Team-Based Care at Mayo Clinic: A Model for ACOs Leonard L. Berry, PhD, university distinguished professor of Marketing, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, College Station, and Dan Beckham, president, The Beckham Company, Bluffton, South Carolina I n 2005, a patient we'll call Don was diagnosed with an advanced oral cancer. He received a grim prognosis citing "immediate surgery" as the best option, even though it would have rendered Don unable to speak. Don sought a second opinion at Mayo Clinic, where a team of three cancer specialists met with him. They recommended radiation and chemotherapy but not surgery. Don and his wife temporarily moved 1,000 miles to Rochester, Minnesota, where he endured three tough months of treatment at Mayo. Today, Don is cancer free; he returns to his original Mayo team for annual checkups. Don had access to high-quality, efficient care, the main goal envisioned for accountable care organizations (ACOs). Often lost in discussions of healthcare reform and the ACO concept is the most serious disease afflicting American healthcare: fragmentation. Many intractable problems related to quality, access, and cost result from the walls-physical and otherwise-separating medical organizations, specialties, departments, buildings, and payment systems. The antidote to fragmentation is integration-not the kind born of mergers and acquisitions but the type that results from teamwork that leverages experience, information, and technology to provide value for the patient. M aY o ' S t E a M - B a S E d M o d E l Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit, integrated, multispecialty medical practice with more than 60,000 employees. It operates three main campuses in Minnesota, Arizona, and Florida and a community network of clinics and hospitals called the Mayo Clinic Health System. Mayo performs well on quality measures such as readmissions, complications, infections, resource use, and survival rates (Consumer Reports, 2013; Leapfrog Group, 2012) as well as on affordability. According to the Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare 2008, the cost for the last two years of a patient's life at one leading academic medical center was $93,000; at Mayo it was $53,000 (Wennberg, Fisher, Goodman, & Skinner, 2008). Patients appreciate their overall experience at Mayo, and more than 90% of them voluntarily share favorable word-of-mouth feedback with others (Berry & Seltman, 2008). Mayo Clinic's success derives largely from its commitment to two core values: "The needs of the patient come first" (an aspirational value) and "team-based 9

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Journal of Healthcare Management - January/February 2014

Journal of Healthcare Management - January/February 2014
Contents
Interview With Kenneth R. White, PhD, FACHE, Associate Dean for Strategic Partnerships and Innovation and the University of Virginia Medical Center Professor of Nursing, University of Virginia School of Nursing
Team-Based Care at Mayo Clinic: A Model for ACOs
The Management Springboard: Eight Ways to Launch Your Career as a Healthcare Leader
The Role of a Public–Private Partnership: Translating Science to Improve Cancer Care in the Community Donna M. O’Brien and Arnold D. Kaluzny
The Value of Patients’ Handwritten Comments on HCAHPS Surveys John W. Huppertz and Robert Smith
Can Inbound and Domestic Medical Tourism Improve Your Bottom Line? Identifying the Potential of a U.S. Tourism Market
Success Factors for Strategic Change Initiatives: A Qualitative Study of Healthcare Administrators’ Perspectives

Journal of Healthcare Management - January/February 2014