Mayo Clinic is a medical center that specializes in integrated patient care, education, and research. The medical center was founded in 1864 by Dr. William W. Mayo (Fye, 2010). The medical center first started as a sole proprietor. It then evolved under Mayo's two sons, William and Charles H Mayo, along with practice partners. Mayo Clinic has its headquarters in Minnesota, USA. The medical center is currently based in three locations across the United States: Rochester, Jacksonville, and Scottsdale, which are located in Minnesota, Florida, and Arizona, respectively.
Core values guide Mayo Clinic’s organizational behavior, and one of the organization’s core values is patient-centeredness, which guides its workforce. This paper will delve into discussing Mayo Clinic's behavior model. The paper will also discuss how current attitudes and perceptions of leadership currently affect workplace communications through both formal and informal communication methods. Lastly, the paper will outline some of the major challenges currently being faced by Mayo Clinic.
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The Behavior Model of the Organization
Mayo Clinic's core values are grounded in its history, and the values not only guide organizational behavior but also the organization's success. For this reason, the values are considered part of the organization's DNA. Mayo Clinic puts the needs of the patients first. As such, its core value is patient-centeredness. This primary value shapes the organization's organizational behavior model. Eight principle statements also shape Mayo Clinic's behavior model. Figure 1 shows the list of Mayo Clinic's values. These values not only provide the basis for the organization's model of care but also provide a basis for how the organization works.
Figure 1: Mayo Clinic Values
Source: Kang et al. (2020)
Mayo Clinic's organizational behavior model is based on the organization's core values. The organization's behavior model is defined by "high quality, compassionate medical care delivered in a multispecialty, integrated academic institution" (Mayo Clinic, 2020, n.p). This behavior model was chosen because it highlights Mayo Clinic's primary focus, which is to provide high-quality care while meeting the needs of its clients. Mayo Clinic engages its employees in delivering its primary value. This not only creates a shared and meaningful purpose among the employees but also drives the patient experience.
How Current Attitudes and Perceptions of Leadership Affect Workplace Communications
Some leadership styles can adversely impact or vastly improve organizational success. The leadership style employed by a leader has a significant impact on an employee's attitude and perception. Employees tend to have different perceptions of leadership styles. Depending on the leadership style employed by the organizational leaders, an employee can have a positive or negative attitude and perception towards that leadership style. This, in turn, can affect communication in the workplace. As such, leaders must employ leadership styles that empower employees to maintain effective communication, both formal and informal communication in the workplace. To ensure effective communication, leaders are required to engage their employees in organizational decision-making (Kang et al., 2019). This is because engaging employees in organizational decision making enhances employee satisfaction and morale.
At Mayo Clinic, the leaders create an environment that empowers employees to not only contribute to the organizational goals but also maintain effective communication in the workplace. In addition, the leaders engage their employees in all decision-making processes. This type of leadership makes the employees to have a positive attitude and perception towards their leaders. This, in turn, creates a workplace environment characterized by efficient communication. This is because Mayo Clinic’s workforce a positive attitude and perception towards their leaders. The democratic style of leadership employed by Mayo Clinic's leaders is what contributes to the organization's success.
Major Challenges Faced by Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic faces a wide range of challenges, including financial challenges and a lack of patients and doctors. According to a 2019 article published in the AP News, Mayo Clinic announced that it would close some of its medical centers located in Minnesota (AP News, 2019). More specifically, Mayo Clinic announced in 2019 that it would close the clinic in La Crescent, Minnesota (Snowbeck & Olson, 2019). The Medical center cited difficulties in recruiting physicians and declining hospital admissions, and monetary challenges as the primary cause of the closure. In particular, Mayo Clinic's rural medical centers face financial challenges. The financial challenges in these facilities are partly attributed to the low patient volume. Due to the low turnout of patients, the facilities report negative operative margins. Mayo Clinic report that the closure will affect about 600 employees (Snowbeck and Olson, 2019). According to Snowbeck and Olson (2019), this is not the first time the medical center is closing its rural facilities. In the past decade, Mayo Clinic closed two rural general hospitals, one was located in Pine City and the other Albany.
Mayo Clinic is not immune to the financial and regulatory challenges facing the health care industry. One of the regulatory challenges facing Mayo Clinic includes the "perfect storm" of reduced revenue (MacDonald, 2017). The second regulatory challenge is the organization's need to rein in skyrocketing health care costs. According to MacDonald (2017), these two financial and regulatory challenges are highly likely to force Mayo Clinic to make drastic changes to not only the way it operates but also the way it delivers care. More specifically, these challenges have forced Mayo Clinic to cut costs. For instance, John Noseworthy, the Chief Executive of Mayo Clinic, asked Mayo Clinic's cardiac surgery department to cut its costs by 20 percent (MacDonald, 2017). These changes can be attributed to the financial and regulatory challenges in the health care industry.
Lastly, Mayo Clinic faces new payment policies from insurance providers. This includes Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. Following these new payment policies, the CEO stated the medical center would prioritize patients with commercial insurance over those with Medicaid or Medicare to address the challenges posed by these insurance providers. However, the CEO later backpedaled and apologized for prioritizing patients with commercial insurance. In a new statement, the CEO of Mayo Clinic stated that the medical center would continue to serve all patients regardless of their insurance plan.
To conclude, Mayo Clinic is one of the medical centers in the United States that puts the needs of patients first. Patient centeredness is Mayo Clinic's core value. This core value is deeply rooted in the organization's history. With regard to leadership, the organizational leaders of Mayo Clinic employ a democratic leadership style. This means that the leaders engage their employees in organizational decision-making processes. As such, the employees have a positive attitude and perception towards their leaders. This, in turn, contributes to effective communication in the organization, both formal and informal. Just like other organizations, the Mayo Clinic also faces a number of challenges. A few examples include financial challenges, difficulty recruiting and retaining physicians, and financial and regulatory challenges.
References
AP News. (2019). Mayo Clinic closes hospital, clinics in Southwest Minnesota. https://apnews.com/376be22a4c196cca0628204c2cc93591
Fye, W. B. (2010). Presidential address: The origins and evolution of the Mayo Clinic from 1864 to 1939: a Minnesota family practice becomes an international" medical Mecca". Bulletin of the History of Medicine , 323-357.
Kang, J. Y., Lee, M. K., Fairchild, E. M., Caubet, S. L., Peters, D. E., Beliles, G. R., & Matti, L. K. (2020). Relationships Among Organizational Values, Employee Engagement, and Patient Satisfaction in an Academic Medical Center. Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Innovations, Quality & Outcomes , 4 (1), 8-20.
MacDonald, I. (2017). Regulatory pressures force Mayo Clinic to rethink how it does business, cut costs. https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/finance/cost-pressures-force-mayo-clinic-to-rethink-how-it-does-business
Mayo Clinic. (2020). Mayo Clinic model of care. http://history.mayoclinic.org/toolkit/mayo-clinic-model-of-care.php
Snowbeck, C., & Olson, J. (2019). Mayo Clinic closing hospital clinics in Southwest Minnesota. https://www.startribune.com/mayo-clinic-closing-hospital-clinics-in-southwest-minnesota/565793982/?refresh=true
