Practice redesign efforts include the development of patient-centered medical homes in the community-based practices within Mayo Clinic Health System, and the use of technology to drive adherence to evidence-based medicine and guide patient outreach.
Community health transformation encompasses all efforts by the system to improve population health, both among its employees and across its Central Region.
Finally, care at a distance refers to Mayo’s efforts to move care outside its main tertiary centers and into communities, and in some cases, patients’ homes.
“If you have a community service need and you meet that in the community, you’re doing that at a much lower cost for the service than if they go to the destination center,” says Dr. Nesse. “We’re working actively to transfer patients’ ongoing care away from Rochester and back into the community to help decrease costs.”
Mayo’s cost-cutting initiative, which Dr. Nesse refers to as a substantiality effort, will also look for ways to reduce costs around administrative functions. “We have huge opportunities to share our services. For example, instead of having billing operations in 12 hospitals or 20 hospital or four regions, you actually can move towards aligning and implementing shared services for your finance, for your HR, and other things,” he says. “It’s using systems to support the new models of care, rather than just using systems to just cut your organization’s workforce.”
Dr. Nesse is quick to add that any sustainability efforts that involve consolidating services or personnel changes will be evolutionary. “You want to do [approach sustainability] in a way that supports your workforce, because we are still in a person-to-person business. We must be sensitive to the relationships between our patients and our staff. Healthcare isn’t a technology business; the relationships with our patients are key to the future.”
