Innovation
Dr. Henry Stanley Plummer became a partner in the Clinic practice in 1901. He is considered by many American physicians to be the "architect of the modern medical practice" and a primary reason for Mayo Clinic's early success. He designed many of the systems which are now universally used around the world today, such as a shared, individual dossier-style medical record and an interconnecting telephone system. While the Mayo brothers excelled as surgeons, Dr. Plummer is largely credited with establishing and developing the diagnostic and clinical aspects of the practice. Dr. Louis B. Wilson was hired by the Clinic in 1907—at Dr. Henry Plummer's urging—to establish research and diagnostic laboratories.
Since about the year 2000, Mayo Clinic has also become known for achieving high quality at low cost. One extensive study found that the cost paid by insurers to treat Medicare patients in their last three years of life (the most expensive years) was only 54% of comparable costs in nearby clinics and hospitals. Mayo Clinic has been researched and presented many times during the passing of the 2009 healthcare reform bills in US Congress as a model to reduce healthcare costs while increasing quality for the nation. However, Mayo Clinic issued an open letter stating the healthcare reform bills as written in July 2009 would not reduce costs or increase quality nationwide.
The Biomedical Imaging Resource (BIR) at Mayo Clinic is dedicated to the advancement of research in the biomedical imaging and visualization sciences. The BIR provides expertise and advanced technology related to these fields, including image acquisition, processing, display and analysis; volume visualization; computer graphics; virtual reality and virtual environments; image databases; computer workstations, networks and programming. The BIR group developed the biomedical imaging software Analyze.
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Famous quotes containing the word innovation:
“Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
—Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)