CXC: Connecting Care Exchange is a web-based solution that leverages how health care professionals share information.

Description

Knowledge-sharing platform that cultivates and broadcasts the Mayo Clinic’s world class health care knowledge and talent.

Overview

This 40 week research project began with a simple question: “How can the Mayo Clinic meet the health needs of more people off-site?” The research team began by meeting with physicians, administrative leaders, and patients from departments spanning Mayo's spectrum of care. A great deal of insight was also developed from secondary research from popular and professional publications.

Defining design criteria for this project included significant historical trends for the Mayo Clinic. Mayo is quality focused, seeking improvement in care rather than ability to treat more patients with current tools. Mayo also has no plans to open new facilities in new locations. Now that Mayo wants to help more people, meant that the team needed to find new and unexpected offerings in order to meet Mayo’s goals.

The team analyzed the needs and current trends facing the many stakeholders within the health care system. This revealed the core needs to share knowledge, have a like-minded community, be empowered by supporting knowledge and documents in their efforts to create change. These principles were driven through the project, helping to frame the research and development process.

The team investigated the way that medical information is currently shared, and found that there was a key distinction between knowledge and ideas. Knowledge is tested and vetted. Ideas, however, are emergent and provide new understandings and perspectives not yet tested or entirely understood. Our research found that the tools and technology currently exist, but are not necessarily user-focused to add value.

The team created a multimedia input prototype to test on various participants within the Mayo Clinic. This prototype asked the participants key questions to help guide them in describing their valuable ideas. The Mayo participants were well versed in concise communication and offered many insights towards the concept’s refinement.

The data from the input prototype was collected and organized into an online prototype that was tested on health care professionals outside of Mayo. The feedback from these sessions culminated in the creation of the Connecting Care Exchange. This web-based platform extends Mayo’s impact–both internally and externally–positioning them as the leader in developing a care delivery knowledge institute.

A guided prototype was created to collect ideas from Mayo participants using several media formats.

An online prototype was presented to healthcare professionals outside Mayo to gauge the value and delivery of the content.

Structure helped guide the idea sharing process and effectively categorize the input.