Total teamwork--the Mayo Clinic

Typical of the Mayo Clinic is its century-old team approach to treating patients. Physicians work in teams, with each team driven by the medical problems involved in a case and by the patient's preferences. Occasionally, a team will be expanded or even taken apart and reassembled. At Mayo, diagnosing a complex problem, proposing treatment and slotting the patient for surgery can happen within 24 hours of the diagnosis. The overall effect at Mayo is one of orderliness, function and, above all, vigor. Even as other medical institutions are cutting staff and reducing services, Mayo is a robust, thriving organization with revenues of $2.9 billion and a staff of roughly 30,500. Each year, more than 400,000 patients visit its seven facilities. Mayo's administrators continue to invent (and reinvent) the business side of medicine. Having developed one of the world's first systems of centralized patient records, Mayo is able to keep costs low enough to admit patients from all income levels. "The best interest of the patient is the only interest to be considered" is a motto that has become a Mayo standard on how best to practice medicine. Fearful of becoming complacent and watchful of the risks posed by its deliberative style, the clinic constantly looks for new and fresh ideas.