Read this article about Mayo Clinic, one of our finalists, in the category Best Achievement of Operational Excellence in Healthcare, selected by the independent judging panel, for the 2019 Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards program. Click here to read articles on other finalists.

Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated, non-profit medical group practice in the world. Mayo effectively integrates clinical practice, research, and education to achieve its mission of "the needs of the patient come first”. Mayo has major campuses located in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida as well as the Mayo Clinic Health System comprised of approximately 70 clinics and hospitals. Over 1.3 million people from all 50 states and 143 countries chose Mayo Clinic last year.

In 1947, Mayo Clinic formed an industrial engineering team, now known as Management Engineering & Internal Consulting (ME&IC) to improve operational performance and replicate best practices from other industries. Today, the department has grown to approximately 200 professionals supporting service lines that include strategy, design and execution; management, systems and process engineering; change management and organizational transformation; revenue growth and expense management, and advanced project management.

ME&IC began its shared services journey in 2013 leveraging lessons learned internally at Mayo and across various industries. A two-phased implementation approach was adopted with the first phase focused on integrating staff in nearly identical functions from Mayo Clinic sites in Arizona, Florida and Rochester. The second phase integrated staff distributed across multiple Mayo Clinic Health System sites. Ultimately, a high functioning, single shared services department was formed and leverages best practices for talent recruitment, onboarding, development and retention.

Today, the department strives to deliver exceptional service while supporting the strategic priorities of the organization spanning the Clinical Practice, Education, Research, Administration and Business Development. The ME&IC Balanced Score Card is designed to measure, monitor and report the shared service maturity and performance excellence to organizational leadership. It aligns with the Mayo Clinic Balanced Scorecard and includes measures of customer and staff satisfaction, financial impact, project alignment with strategic priorities and talent management.

Mayo Clinic’s commitment to comprehensive business consulting and management engineering services (e.g. business case analysis, process optimization, business intelligence, advanced analytics) enables the organization to leverage the potential of these disciplines for strategic initiatives leading to significant patient benefits and financial savings. Examples of the variety of complex, multidisciplinary and multi-site initiatives which benefitted from engineering tools and methods include: standardizing Bone Marrow Transplant services to enhance outcomes and reduce costs for patients, a multiphase project for Robotic Process Automation which will accommodate an additional 1000 specimen collections per day, and Chemotherapy Scheduling Optimization to improve the patient experience and optimize staff and facility efficiencies.

The success of these strategic initiatives is highly dependent on engaged and visible leaders committed to the Mayo Clinic vision and on partnering with strong multidisciplinary teams across the organization. The Mayo Clinic Values of Teamwork, Excellence and Innovation as well as the primary value: The needs of the patient come first are critical enablers. ME&IC remains committed to the institutional Mission and Vision as it delivers on its own Mission to partner with Mayo Clinic colleagues to achieve the best patient experience through objective, innovative and integrative business consulting and management engineering services.