Hasta La Ideas

We reviewed the first “raw” case study at the end of August, but Design Observer and Yale have just posted the second in the series, this time on the Mayo Clinic. Here are some details:

Yale School of Management in collaboration with Winterhouse Institute and the Change Observer announces a new online case study: Mayo Clinic: Design Thinking in Health Care.

In the early 2000s, Mayo Clinic physician Nicholas LaRusso began asking himself a question: if we can test new drugs in clinical trials, can we also test new kinds of doctor-patient interactions?

In 2002, in consultation with design firm IDEO, LaRusso and a colleague opened a skunkworks outpatient lab called SPARC, where physicians and designers could test hypotheses about ways in which providers and patients interact.

Within six years, the lab had grown from a small venture to an enterprise-wide Center for Innovation, a dedicated research institute that studies the processes of health care provision, from the initial phone call, to the clinic visit, to the diagnosis and treatment of the problem, to follow-up and preventive care.

In 2010, the CFI was a respected internal consultancy of Mayo Clinic. At the same time, CFI designers and physicians acknowledged that the innovations they had developed were small, and they spoke of the goal of “transformational” change. But there were questions about how the CFI would achieve its stated aspirations. What would a major change in health care delivery look like? How should the CFI’s impact be measured? Were the center’s structure and processes appropriate for transformational change?

This new case study comprises a brief history of innovation at Mayo, an overview of current challenges in health care delivery, detailed descriptions of five projects, and a discussion of challenges faced by the CFI, including internal management, metrics, and strategies for bringing together designers and physicians.

The case study is enhanced by 35 links to primary documents and 33 video clips featuring interviews with Mayo Clinic executives, physicians, administrators, and designers.

View the case study here. More background on Winterhouse/Yale case study project here.

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