Luther Midelfort Mayo Health System, a physician-led, integrated health system serving west-central Wisconsin, has advanced a culture that supports staff in their efforts to test new ideas and improve care. In a recent analysis by The Commonwealth Fund, Luther Midelfort achieved the third-highest score in the U.S. on a composite of 22 process-of-care measures that all hospitals report to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The key components of Luther Midelfort's quality strategy are: exposing clinical leaders to the concepts of quality improvement, then giving them time to work with teams to apply their knowledge; creating expert, interdisciplinary teams for each clinical area to determine the right content of care and then turning over the implementation to a team with expertise in designing workflow and care processes; and rapid measurement and feedback, supported by a quality resources department that coaches teams through improvement cycles.
