Description
Below is a reminder of the key tasks involved in the Organizational Analysis assignment:
Identify an organization (or unit within an organization) that you believe excels in high-quality relationships and enabling conditions for team performance. This organization can be from any industry.
Develop a scorecard for evaluating the organization or unit. At a minimum, you should include information on the mission and philosophy of the organization or unit, strategic projects, and analysis and implementation of findings. Building & Implementing a Balanced Scorecard.
Make your case based on available first-hand or second-hand data about how the organization scores in terms of relational capability and enabling conditions for team performance. You will need to submit your scorecard as well as the evidence you utilized to your instructor.
Based on your analysis, prepare a 8- to 10-page paper and a 20- to 30-slide presentation based on this paper.
The presentation should: (rough draft due this week)
Include a cover slide with your information.
Cover all salient points from the paper.
Describe the programs or processes that make the chosen organization or unit successful in team building and high-quality relationships.
Include an analysis of the programs or processes.
Include a summary explaining how lessons learned could be applied to another organization.
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Organizational Analysis: High-Quality Relations and Teamwork at Mayo Clinic
Sabina Thomas, MSN, ARNP, FNP-C
South University
NSG 7000
Dr. Mary
9/11/2023
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Organizational Analysis: High-Quality Relations and Teamwork at Mayo Clinic
Developing and maintaining high-quality relationships and team performance is essential
for a high-performing organization. Regardless of the industry, high-quality relationships and
teams help in driving the organization’s mission and vision. In the healthcare industry,
collaboration and team performance promote care quality and safety outcomes. Organizations
that are great in promoting high-quality relationships and team performance also have better
performance outcomes due to the power of teamwork and collaboration. Learning from these
organizations and translating evidence to practice in other organizations is an effective way of
improving organizational performance. This paper discusses Mayo Clinic and its effectiveness in
creating and maintaining high-quality relationships in healthcare, the processes and programs
that sustain these relationships and team performance, attributes, and means of translating these
findings to other organizations.
Description: Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a large medical group practice with locations in Florida, Arizona, and
Minnesota in the US and internationally in London and Abu Dhabi. The organization has many
facilities ranging from small primary care clinics and mobile clinics to large regional medical
centers. Mayo Clinic has been ranked the top hospital in the country many times and has
consistently made the list of top-ranking hospitals. The organization’s mission is “to inspire hope
and contribute to health and well-being by providing the best care to every patient through
integrated clinical practice, education and research” (Mayo Clinic, n.d.). Mayo’s commitment to
high quality care and performance are partly driven by the high-quality relationships maintained
among stakeholders and high-performance teams providing care in the organization.
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The success of Mayo in building and maintaining relationships can be associated with the
organization’s philosophy as a non-profit organization with work conducted in peer-reviewed
and team-based approaches. The CEO, Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., upholds the attribute of a
servant leader (Farrugia & Lee, 2020). This attribute is associated with democratic leadership
style which encourages team-based approach and philosophy. The philosophy of the organization
is based on team-based care. As a non-profit organization, Mayo has built its services based on
centralizing patients’ needs rather than accruing a profit. The organization has focused on
integrated care across all locations to provide care continuity and high-quality services (Markel,
2018). The focus of care provision through team collaboration and care integration is a crucial
determinant of high quality-relationships and teamwork in the health system. The
multidisciplinary practice and collaboration across facilities drives team-based work and care
approaches.
The healthcare organization, from its inception, has remained focused on highly
coordinated patient care and hence fostered teamwork and high-quality relationships. The
healthcare organization was started by the collaborative efforts of two brothers, Charles, and
Will Mayo, two surgeons who took after their father and established the clinic in Rochester in
early 20th century (Markel, 2018). From its inception and throughout the more than 100 years of
service, the organization has been focused on providing coordinated care to patients who mostly
needed but could not afford or access health care (Markel, 2018). The organization has gone
ahead to maintain close working relationships among physicians across its facilities and close
coordination of care across all branches.
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Processes and Programs behind Mayo’s Success
The success of any healthcare organization can be attributed to its leadership. The leaders
at Mayo Clinic are visionaries in that they support futuristic developments and innovation. All
leaders in the organization are physicians or other clinicians and this has ensured that people who
are genuinely interested in medicine and medical innovation are leaders. The use of servant
leadership style and collaborative approaches enhances innovation (Nauman et al., 2022). This
style and leadership attributes have promoted team building and developing amiable employee
relationships. The leaders promote team building and relationships by creating an enabling
environment for staff to interact positively and collaboratively.
Several processes and programs are behind Mayo’s success and among those is physician
leadership. The healthcare organization is led by physicians on all levels through governance
committees. The advantage of physician leadership is that in collaboration with administrative
staff, physicians are able to prioritize patients’ needs (Farrugia & Lee, 2020). Broad participation
is promoted by rotating physicians on assignment and leadership roles in the organization in a
shared governance philosophy (Mayo Clinic, n.d.). Power in the organization is shared and this
allows for communication, collaboration, and focus on the core aspects of patient care. This
model of leadership requires high level of quality relationships and teamwork and hence is partly
to thank for the success of the organization.
Secondly, the organization has processes that mandate care coordination for all patients
hence driving collaboration and high-quality care. Patients are assigned a care coordinating
physician when they present to any of the facilities. The role of these physicians is to ensure all
services are integrated, a care plan is in place, and patients receive appropriate communication
(Farrugia & Lee, 2020). This process allows for care coordination within and outside the
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organization. One of the programs created to this end is a diabetes care coordination initiative
which the health system has created to reach out to patients with diabetes remotely and ensure
ongoing care and health improvement (Manzaneque et al., 2019). The care coordination
processes and programs are geared towards maintaining care continuity. This has helped in
creating strong relationships with patients and partners in care provision.
In addition to care coordination, the health system provides full multispecialty integration
with shared electronic medical records (EMR). The processes and model of care determine the
success of a healthcare organization. In Mayo Clinic, the organization uses a collegial
multispecialty integration model and has shared health information and data resources across
different facilities (Comfere et al., 2020). This means that when a patient is receiving care in any
of the clinics or hospitals, the care access and services are integrated. This coordination and
integration promote communication, a healthy relationship among providers and patients, and
high-quality care in all branches. The care coordination model and integration allow for
efficiency and accessibility of care for all in line with the organization’s philosophy of doing
what is best for the patients.
Mayo Clinic’s peer-review programs also promote success through accountability and
continuous quality promotion. Staff across all sites are responsible and accountable to each other
and review each other’s work in a collaborative environment. The organization has clinical
practice committees at each site and their role is to collaborate in evaluating care quality and
providing expert protocols to promote care quality (Didehban et al., 2020). The EMR is open to
all authorized providers and requests physicians to provide comments and collaborate remotely.
Internal and external methods of reporting quality and safety in the organization maintain
continuous quality improvement. The peer review program promotes accountability and
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continuous quality, accounting for the success of the organization in not only managing quality
but also promoting peer collaboration.
The compensation model for Mayo Clinic is another pillar for its success as the
organization has succeeded in promoting focus on patient care quality rather than volumes. All
physicians and permanent employees at Mayo are salaried, eliminating incentives to increase
volume of care (Hayes et al., 2020). This model is beneficial but has also faced criticism.
Healthcare in the US has largely been driven by independent or collaborative physician practices
that seek to turn a profit through reimbursement for care provided or out-of-pocket payments (ee,
2022). This model of care often pushes physicians to strive to provide care to a large number of
patients with the aim being to maximize their profits. In Mayo, however, salaried physicians do
not work to turn a profit. Instead, one must have a certain mentality for serving patients rather
than financial benefits to work at the organization. Providers employed at Mayo focus on the
patients’ needs and care quality and hence provide optimal care rather than striving to make a
profit.
Attributes Making the Success
The identified processes and programs are supported by specific attributes and
characteristics of the staff and care provision at Mayo Clinic, starting with a culture of
teamwork. Since its first days, Mayo has based its care provision in teamwork and collaboration.
This has become a tradition which the organization upholds through hiring processes and
onboarding new staff through enculturation (Hayes et al., 2020). In this culture, professionals are
free to ask for assistance, collaborate with others, and use technologies to support their care
processes. The team-based care has ensured the building of trust among providers, fostering
positive relationships in the staff, and enhancing care outcomes.
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In addition to the culture of teamwork and trust, Mayo Clinic upholds the principles of
patient-centered care, an attribute that promotes focus on the quality of services and hence has
supported the success of the organization. The follow-up and care coordination programs such as
the stated diabetes initiative are based in this philosophy. In patient-centered care, the focus of
the care team is in meeting all complex needs of the patient with the patient being a member of
the care team (Didehban et al., 2020). The mission and vision of the organization specifies that
care provision is patient-centered, and this translates to focus on patient issues and how to meet
their needs. A culture of patient-centered care has enabled Mayo to succeed in providing high
quality care to its patients.
Moreover, the health system has focused on continuous innovation, an attribute that is
instrumental in promoting continuous quality and success. Innovation is important for every
organization to adapt to changing organizational and industry environment and address any
emerging issues. Mayo Clinic is known for its innovation, especially in the application of
systems engineering to pursue continuous quality improvement projects (Comfere et al., 2020).
The organization’s leadership focus on continuous innovation allows for ongoing measurement
and review of current processes and relations. Focus on continuous innovation is a desirable
attribute because it builds a culture of self-improvement and adoption of the most effective
methods and technologies to improve the organization’s functioning.
Mayo Clinic also supports high quality relationships and teamwork through consensusdriven decision-making. Most of the strategic and key decisions of the organization are reached
through a consensus-driven committee process. On the one hand, committee processes in the
organization take longer than traditional top-down management to reach decisions and hence
management may be slow to make strategic decisions. On the other hand, the attribute engenders
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teamwork, acceptance of decisions from different stakeholders, and collaboration across
specialties in making important decisions with the patients being in the forefront of such
decisions (Didehban et al., 2020). The consensus-driven decision-making process is based on the
attributes of good teamwork and promotion of shared responsibility and decision-making as
opposed to highly hierarchical systems. The shared clinical and managerial decision-making
creates a culture of collaboration and teamwork.
The other attribute that drives the processes and programs responsible for Mayo’s success
is the people recruited at Mayo. The organization has a deep focus on scholarly care through
research and education conducted in the different clinics and centers. The work environment is
enabling through the provision of adequate resources for providers and other staff in the hospital.
When hiring people, Mayo Clinic looks for physicians that are oriented towards collaboration
and teamwork. Due to the salaried model of compensation, a clinician has no motivation to hang
on to a patient for financial value and neither does the physician lose income by helping another
clinician. The attributes and culture cultivated at Mayo is self-selecting in that it attracts
clinicians with a certain attitude and attributes focused on collaboration and care quality. In the
long-term, physicians who are motivated by the economic reasons cannot survive in Mayo. Only
those who are truly interested in offering high-quality and collaborative patient-first care remain
in this environment and hence the staff at Mayo have shared values of patient-centered
collaborative care.
Translating Mayo Processes and Programs to Other Organizations
The processes and programs at Mayo can be translated to other healthcare organizations
and the first step would be to redefine how decisions are made. Most healthcare organizations in
the US have a top-down decision-making process whereby the CEO at the top and specific
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directors have a lot of power in strategic decision-making. While this may be great for efficiency
and also productive when the right leaders are in place, it does not encourage teamwork and
relationship-building. The healthcare organization can use the example of Mayo to build teams
for shared strategic decision-making. At the very least, a consultative process should be put in
place for different opinion leaders such as physicians, nurses, and other clinicians to contribute to
key development and strategic decisions.
The second component that can be borrowed from Mayo Clinic is the recruitment and
enculturation of staff in the health organization. The culture of Mayo Clinic is unique due to the
compensation model which only attracts physicians focused on care quality and collaboration.
This uniqueness defines the type and attitudes of staff that are attracted to and retained in the
organization. Hospitals should have unique cultures that help them stand out from the rest with
clear focus on their mission and philosophy (Comfere et al., 2020). A clear focus on care
accessibility, quality, and patients’ needs should be defined in the hospital mission and vision
and the recruitment process designed to ensure only staff that fit the culture are recruited into the
organization. Mayo stands out for its unique approaches and other organizations should emulate
too.
Care integration, coordination, and collaboration should also be adopted in the hospital.
The healthcare industry in the US has been faulted as complex and fractured, frustrating not only
patients but also clinicians and administrative staff. Mayo stands out because the organization
provides integrated multi-specialty care by assigning teams and a specific clinician to each
patient to follow-through the patient journey. Quality improvement programs at other hospitals
should focus on how to provide high quality care in a collaborative and integrated environment.
The first step is freely shared EMR and interoperable EHR systems. Additionally, a care
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coordination system that ensures patient tracking and ongoing communication needs to be put in
place. This could include integration of telehealth for patient communication and communication
among healthcare staff as well (McLendon et al., 2019). Large healthcare organizations should
focus on integration so as to provide care to all patient needs in a collaborative team-based
environment. These changes can be achieved through innovative quality-improvement projects
and are useful in promoting better relationships and teamwork.
Conclusion
Mayo Clinic is a leading healthcare organization and its programs and processes have
maintained high-quality relationships and teamwork. The organization thrives due to physician
leadership, shared decision-making, a compensation model focusing on care quality,
multispecialty integration in collaborative care environment, and peer-review programs. These
have been maintained through a culture of teamwork and trust, continuous innovation, patientcentered care, and consensus-driven decision-making among other attributes. Other healthcare
organizations can learn from Mayo and implement processes and programs for improvement.
Shared decision-making can be adopted by changing the leadership structure and a unique
culture of quality can be built through recruitment and organizational culture maintained. Above
all, integration and collaboration should be supported by using current technologies and
innovation. Mayo Clinic is a great example of effective patient-centered organization whose
processes are based on healthy relationships and teamwork.
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References
Comfere, N. I., Matulis III, J. C., & O’Horo, J. C. (2020). Quality improvement and healthcare:
The Mayo Clinic quality Academy experience. Journal of Clinical Tuberculosis and
Other Mycobacterial Diseases, 20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jctube.2020.100170
Didehban, R., Caine, N. A., Glenn, S. W., & Hasse, C. H. (2020, September). Role of the
administrative partner and the physician-administrator partnership. Mayo Clinic
Proceedings 95(9), S38-S40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2020.06.043
Farrugia, G., & Lee, T. H. (2020). Cure, Connect, transform: Three Mayo clinic strategy
components for servant leaders. NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery, 1(4).
https://catalyst.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/CAT.20.0416
Hayes, S. N., Noseworthy, J. H., & Farrugia, G. (2020, January). A structured compensation plan
results in equitable physician compensation: A single-center analysis. Mayo Clinic
Proceedings 95(1), 35-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2019.09.022.
Lee, R. H. (2022). Economics healthcare managers. Peter C. Olden, Ph. D., Chair.
Manzaneque, N. N., Pérez-Arechaederra, D., & Montalbán, J. M. C. (2019). Side effects and
practices to improve management of type 2 diabetes mellitus from the viewpoint of
patient experience and health care management. A narrative review. Endocrinología,
Diabetes y Nutrición (English ed.), 66(10), 596-610.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.endien.2019.11.005
Markel, H. (2018, Jun. 29). The brilliant brothers behind the Mayo Clinic. PBS News Hour.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/the-brilliant-brothers-behind-the-mayo-clinic
Mayo Clinic. (n.d.). About Mayo Clinic Health System.
https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/about-us
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McLendon, S. F., Wood, F. G., & Stanley, N. (2019). Enhancing diabetes care through care
coordination, telemedicine, and education: Evaluation of a rural pilot program. Public
Health Nursing, 36(3), 310-320. https://doi.org/10.1111/phn.12601
Nauman, S., Bhatti, S. H., Imam, H., & Khan, M. S. (2022). How servant leadership drives
project team performance through collaborative culture and knowledge sharing. Project
Management Journal, 53(1), 17-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/87569728211037777
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Appendix: Balanced Scorecard for Mayo Clinic
Objectives
Goals
Indicators
Initiatives
Financial
Perspective
Increase
revenue and
reduce costs
Increase
revenue by
10%
Financial
statements
Negotiate with
suppliers
Customer
Perspective
Have high
patient
satisfaction
levels
Increase
proportion of
patients who
report being
satisfied by
20%
Patient
satisfaction
HCAHPS
Survey
Staff training on
patient care and
interaction
Internal
Processes
Reduce the
rates of errors,
adverse events,
and near-misses
Reduce the
rates of
reported errors
by 25% in one
year
Organizational
safety and
quality
dashboard
Safety
improvement
projects
including
medications
reconciliation
and new
barcode
medication
administration
technologies
Learning and
Growth
Maintain
research and
development
processes
Increase
research
funding and
annual grants
by 20% in 2
years
Financial
statements and
research
publications
Publish current
research and
support
innovators in
the organization
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