Harvard Business Review

The healthcare industry has long relied on traditional, linear models of innovation – basic and applied research followed by development and commercialization. While this “lab-bench to bedside” approach has improved healthcare globally, it can take years, even decades, for an innovation to get to market, often with limited input from patients themselves. The results can be technically sound, but sub-optimal from the patient’s standpoint (as any woman who has endured a painful mammogram understands).

The Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation (CFI) was established in 2008, becoming the first healthcare innovation center to employ a team of in-house designers. Under the banner of the Mayo Clinic motto, “the needs of the patient come first,” it utilises human-centered design to transform the experience and delivery of healthcare. Interdisciplinary teams of service designers, clinicians, project managers, information technology specialists, innovation coordinators, hospital staff members and patients have undertaken projects including redesigning the clinical exam room, unchanged for 100 years, and creating flagship offerings for connected care including e-consults, video visits and patient applications.

Reach: Harvard Business Review readers have power, influence, and potential. They are senior business strategists who have achieved success and continue to strive for more. Independent thinkers who embrace new ideas. Rising stars who are aiming for the top. They reach about 304, 679 readers.

Context: Dr. Douglas Wood (Medical Director, Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation), and Dr. Barbara Barry (Design Strategist, Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation) are thanked in the article for their contributions to the article.

Contact: Duska Anastasijevic

Tags: Dr. Barbara Barry, Dr. Douglas Wood, Harvard Business Review, Innovation (Center of), Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation, Mayo Clinic Rochester