A lot of people don't like hospitals. In general they feel frightening, sterile, and foreign - not nice things to encounter when you or a loved one is sick. The Mayo Clinic knows that patients don't get better when they feel afraid or uncomfortable, and decided that they could provide a better, more familiar experience. The Mayo Clinic is famous for their patient oriented healthcare and endlessly innovative approaches to curing severe illness. At each of the three Mayo Clinics, doctors, surgeons, and nurses work together to create a skillful team that always keeps the patient's best interest in mind. While Mayo is a world-renowned health clinic, they still wanted to offer better service, and teamed up with IDEO to institute a better "patient-provider experience." Mayo calls this project the SPARC Innovation Program, an acronym for See, Plan, Act, Refine, and Communicate.

IDEO started by watching patients interact in various parts of the clinic, focusing on waiting and exam rooms. They also payed attention to how patients interacted with doctors and nurses during different healthcare processes. IDEO worked to provide the Mayo Clinic with a format for creating "service delivery innovation" that includes elements such as rapid prototyping and patient observation to help refine proposed patient-physician solutions. Mayo and IDEO collaborated on designing an internal medicine corridor that's informative and comfortable for patients as well as staff. The corridor ended up being a four-stop journey through which patients proceed.

Patients begin at the Service Home Base where they plan their stay with Mayo. This area uses sectioned waiting spaces to provide privacy for individuals and families, and is proposed to also become an information hub that offers literature pertaining to the clinic. From there patients travel to the Visitor-Facing Hub where they choose the kinds of service they need including check in, drop off, and pick up. The Visitor-Facing Hub also has a translucent glass wall that shows patients what's going on behind the scenes, another factor in generating a dialogue that improves patient-physician communication. In the Preparation Service Area, Mayo staff takes vitals and offers consultations prior to the actual physician meeting. In this area Mayo uses half-rooms, soft light, and transclusent dividers that provide flexibility and intimacy. The last step is Innovation Central, a futuristc exam space that uses outside walls as storyboards to convey patient information. The moveable interior walls, furniture, and space are all designed to accommodate collaboration and large group meetings.

This internal medicine corridor is to remain a part of the clinic where new service delivery processes can constantly be explored. Mayo hopes that their SPARC program will continue to benefit patient satisfaction and make more efficient use of physician time - two things that will greatly benefit the hospital visit experience for years to come. This project illustrates the joys of collaboration, and shows how already successful organizations can further the innovative practices they're so well known for.