Metrics

One of the CFI’s key challenges was to develop metrics showing the benefits of its work. LaRusso and Brennan had established the original SPARC lab with the goal of measuring in a scientific way the impact of new methods of care delivery. They wished to demonstrate the results of their experiments both with the long-term goal of improving health outcomes and with the short-term goal of maintaining the funding of the CFI. As LaRusso explained, "The way our budget is currently set up, it's an annual negotiation. And it's not so much 'we don't think what you're doing is important'; it's 'show us there's an adequate ROI' – return on investment – 'for the money that we're giving you to hire designers.'"

For some projects, results could readily be quantified. For example, the dermatology practice redesign had resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of patients treated. Clear results had also been demonstrated with the diabetes education cards and the exam room redesign.

Other projects were evaluated in a more informal way. In particular, the e-consults and the Rios projects had been met with an enthusiastic reception among Mayo doctors. Project manager Dan O’Neill said, “We found with Rios that now we actually have a line of divisions and departments stepping up and saying, ‘I heard what you've done – would it be possible for us to be next?’ We saw that as a measure of the success … that other groups are saying, unprompted, without marketing, please work with us next.”

But CFI leaders admitted that they were still searching for concrete ways to demonstrate the center's value. LaRusso was finding that in many cases, scientific rigor was not the best way to measure success:

...the metrics that we use at Mayo are not necessarily the kind that lend themselves to the things that we're trying to do in the Center for Innovation, which are longer-term, don't always have an immediate financial return, and in fact, when you look at the literature about innovation, there's no unanimity of opinion about what the best measure should be.... I think we need a portfolio of activities that not only span the spectrum of innovation, from sustaining to disruptive, but span a spectrum of metrics and outcomes, some of which are going to be financial, and some of which won't be.