Winter 2008-2009 - Mayo Clinic
Winter 2008-2009 - Mayo Clinic
Winter 2008-2009 - Mayo Clinic
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G<br />
iven the current national and international economic crisis,<br />
we have invited <strong>Mayo</strong>’s president and CEO, Denis Cortese, M.D.,<br />
to comment on the organization’s short- and long-term responses<br />
to the situation.<br />
<strong>Mayo</strong> <strong>Clinic</strong>’s financial health<br />
The challenges facing health care today are great, and they’re not<br />
likely to subside, even when our nation’s economy rebounds.<br />
Although we did not foresee the current global economic crisis,<br />
we did anticipate major economic challenges in health care based on<br />
Medicare reimbursement rates and the number of people reaching<br />
retirement age.<br />
In the last few years we have taken a number of steps to improve<br />
<strong>Mayo</strong>’s financial outlook including: fully funding our pension plan,<br />
building our endowment, conducting a capital campaign to sustain<br />
our education and research missions, and launching our <strong>Mayo</strong> <strong>Clinic</strong><br />
Health Policy Center to influence health care reform. This has put us<br />
in a better position to deal with the current crisis, but increasingly the<br />
economic downturn has underscored the importance of our ability to<br />
adapt and change.<br />
Short- and long-term responses<br />
We’re taking a number of immediate actions to improve our short-term<br />
financial outlook, including increasing access for patients who meet our<br />
triage criteria, aggressively managing expenses, delaying some capital<br />
projects and reducing planned capital expenditures, and fast-tracking<br />
projects that have potential for the greatest positive impact.<br />
For the long term, our strategic plan continues to be our guide.<br />
Our goal for <strong>2009</strong> and beyond includes transformational change that<br />
will allow us to increase the value of our care for our patients. We will<br />
accomplish this by relentlessly pursuing quality, driving out waste,<br />
improving our efficiency and effectiveness by integrating across the<br />
enterprise, developing new and innovative models of care, and<br />
evolving to meet the needs of tomorrow’s patients through<br />
individualized medicine.<br />
Best regards,<br />
About the cover<br />
<strong>Mayo</strong> <strong>Clinic</strong> formally established<br />
a Child Life Program in 1988 to<br />
facilitate the emotional and<br />
physical well-being of our<br />
youngest patients.<br />
Denis Cortese, M.D.<br />
President and CEO<br />
www.mayo.edu/alumni | 1
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