key: cord-0749144-bpxhy2vj
authors: Ballard, David J.; Nash, David B.
title: The Best Interest of the Patient
date: 2020-07-16
journal: Am J Med Qual
DOI: 10.1177/1062860620940290
sha: 4885af159544800694e0fc5c238191af2d774edd
doc_id: 749144
cord_uid: bpxhy2vj

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As articulated during our interview with him related to this event and as discussed in more detail in his book on health care leadership, 5 Denis Cortese, former Chief Executive Officer of Mayo Clinic and the original chair of the Roundtable on Value and Science-Driven Health Care of the National Academy of Medicine, stated,

The role of senior leadership in any organization is to create the vision; communicate messages in a way that everyone begins to take ownership; and align the organization for success in reaching the goals. In the case of Mayo Clinic, the reason to exist is to care for patients. The "needs of the patients come first" is a core value that every Mayo Clinic employee believes and owns. Senior leaders must have the courage, will, and vision to consistently reinforce the message. Leaders should do so through actions, not just words. The responsibility for maintaining the core value lies with Mayo internal leadership. The responsibility of the Board of Trustees is to understand, endorse, and ensure this message is reinforced. To me, if Vice President Pence was unwilling to wear a mask, his visit on the Mayo campus should have been terminated on the spot and moved off the campus. This would have reinforced the message of the Mayo Clinic's core value, rather than cause a disconnect between what the Mayo Clinic staff live and breathe every day and the actions of its senior leadership. The Mayo Clinic culture is strong, but not immune to change if leadership does not reinforce it in visible ways.

Mayo Clinic is the world's leading brand in health care and an organization with a world-renowned commitment to patient safety. A forthcoming commentary in the American Journal of Medical Quality focuses on how this patient safety policy violation event might be used as a learning experience to advance health care leadership and patient safety globally. Mayer and Hatlie address the executive leadership and patient safety lessons learned from a tragic patient safety event in another health care organization. 6 Additionally, they provide cogent recommendations for how health care systems can learn from this episode to optimize a global commitment to patient safety and to the reliable performance of patient safety practices.

To reinforce their conclusions, health care systems need to focus on 3 components to achieve and sustain a commitment to patient safety culture and to reliably implement patient safety practices: an engaged and courageous leadership that walks the walk, transparency that fuels learning and improvement from all safety events, and true partnerships with patients and families so that health care systems throughout the world can embody the Mayo core value that "the needs of the patient come first."

I should've worn a mask

Safe in-person and virtual care

The necessity of cooperation in medicine

Putting the needs of the patient first: Mayo Clinic's core value, institutional culture, and professionalism covenant

Rescuing Healthcare: A Leadership Prescription to Make Health Care What We All Want It to Be

Leadership and a true culture of patient safety

David J. Ballard https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3325-2872