Thousands of people come to Mayo Clinic inMinnesota each day for diagnosis and treatment
of medical problems. Many peoplemake their own appointments and some are recommended by
doctors. Most peopleare treated on an outpatient basis. Evaluation, tests and treatments are
done in the clinic, and the patients can return to their home or lodging at the endof the day.
In 1864, William Worrall Mayo came to Rochester, Minnesota as part of his appointment as an examining surgeon for the military draft board during the American Civil War. The city was to his liking, and his wife and children joined him in early 1864. William Worrall Mayo opened his medical practice after the war, and served in several leadership roles in the community. Both of W.W. Mayo's sons, William James Mayo and Charles Horace Mayo grew up in Rochester, and when old enough both attended medical school. William graduated in 1883 and joined his father's practice, with Charles joining after he completed his training in 1888.
As is evidenced by the Mayo Clinic logo, the institution has a three part focus. First and primary to the organization is the patient care practice, represented by the central shield. This is in accordance with the primary statement of the organization that "the needs of the patient come first." The other two shields represent the areas of education and research, two areas of Mayo Clinic which have become more prominent over time.
It is a nonprofit medical practice and medical research group based in Rochester, Minnesota.It is the first and largest integrated nonprofit medical group practice in the world, employing more than 3,800 physicians and scientists and 50,900 allied health staff.The practice specializes in treating difficult cases through tertiary care.It spends over $500 million a year on research. In 2014, Mayo Clinic marks 150 years of continuous service to patients. Dr. William Worrall Mayo settled his family in Rochester, Minn., in 1864 and opened a medical practice that evolved under his sons into Mayo Clinic. Mayo Clinic has been near the top of the U.S. News & World Report List of "Best Hospitals" for more than 20 years.The practice is distinguished by integrated care. It has been on the list of America's "100 Best Companies to Work For" published by Fortune magazine for eight years in a row.
Each year, more than one million patients from all 50 states and from more than 150 countries are seen at one of the Mayo Clinic facilities.Mayo Clinic offers highly specialized medical care, and a large portion of the patient population are referrals from smaller clinics and hospitals from across the upper Midwest and the United States as a whole. Mayo Clinic physicians are paid a fixed salary that is not linked to patient volume (relative value units) or income from fee-for-service payments.This practice is thought to decrease the monetary motivation to see patients in large numbers and increase the incentive to spend more time with individuals. Salaries are determined by the marketplace salaries for physicians in comparable large group practices.
Dr. Henry Stanley Plummer became a full 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. He was also first director of the Mayo Foundation.
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 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.
As is evidenced by the Mayo Clinic logo, the institution has a three part focus. First and primary to the organization is the patient care practice, represented by the central shield. This is in accordance with the primary statement of the organization that "the needs of the patient come first." The other two shields represent the areas of education and research, two areas of Mayo Clinic which have become more prominent over time.
