1 VitaValley study tour to Rochester and Washington DC 2 Mayo Clinic, Rochester 2 Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation 4 Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center (DAHLC) 5 Mayo Ventures 5 Mayo Clinic & Alzheimer’s research 6 Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media 6 Global Business Solutions 7 Comforcare Good Samaritan Center 8 “Only the Roman Catholic church has more members” 9 Visit to ViTel Net 10 Sunrise Fox Hill, Washington 11 Kaiser Permanente Capitol Hill Medical Center Nr. 19, July 2012 VitaValley study tour to Rochester and Washington DC Is it really necessary to take a study trip to the United States? Do we actually need to travel that far to learn something? Are there no great innovations to visit in our own country of the Netherlands? The significance of questions of this kind comes to the fore in a story I heard a few years ago. “A group of Dutch managers took a study trip to the US to learn more about the American system. The following comment was made during one of the visits: “Why exactly are you visiting us when in effect your Dutch system is so much better? It should be us visiting you!” Nevertheless, on 16 April 2012 I boarded a plane in a group of thirty people to visit a number of leading initiatives. The trip had been meticulously organized and planned in close consultation with Mayo Clinic, Noaber Foundation, several of VitaValley’s partners and an external consultant. Personally, I was struck by three things in particular. I am and will remain to be deeply impressed by the manner in which Mayo Clinic’s standards and values are applied throughout all its processes and are propagated by the entire staff. The whole setup gave me a really warm feeling. I was also impressed by the way in which Kaiser Permanente has incorporated its views on care and prevention throughout all its processes. In these processes, a pivotal role is reserved for the GP who discusses critical factors with his patients and actively coaches these patients to take responsibility for their own lifestyles. Lastly, we were confronted with the huge discrepancies in care for the elderly, in the care for dementia patients for instance. Private clinics offer the highest quality care and no pains or expense are spared, whereas public institutions always seem to be short of funds. All in all, an extremely inspiring journey that you can read all about in this newsletter. We consider it a challenge to establish deeply embedded values in our organization, to adopt an active approach to prevention and to further improve our care for the elderly! Maarten J. Verkerk Chairman of the Board Newsletter Special Issue VitaValley study tour to Rochester and Washington DC
Is it really necessary to take a study trip to the United States? Do we actually need to travel that far to learn something? Are there no great innovations to visit in our own country of the Netherlands? The significance of questions of this kind comes to the fore in a story I heard a few years ago.
Special IssueVitaValley study tour to Rochester and Washington DC
2
MayoClinic,Rochester
On 17 and 18 April 2012 we visited Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Here we were introduced to various disciplines within this hospital organization, such as the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation, the Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center and Mayo Ventures. More on this on the following pages.
MayoClinicCenterforInnovationOn the morning of 17 April we were welcomed at Mayo Clinic. When entering we had the same good feeling you get when walking into a first-rate hotel. High marble walls, a grand piano and not a white coat in sight. Unlike the feeling you get in some Dutch hospitals, here you start feeling better at once. We were guided down the hallways to the Innovation Center on the 17th floor, where we were warmly received by enthusiastic staff who were drinking large cups of coffee, and yet, displayed dazzling white teeth as they greeted us. As if we had stepped straight into a movie...
‘Space should inspire to think different’TheCenterforInnovationconsistsofanopenspacewithplentyofroomforstaffinteraction.‘Spaceshouldinspiretothinkdifferent.’What’smore,thereisampleroomforcreativity:glass-walledrooms,slidingpanels,whiteboards,diagrams,modelsandlotsofPost-its,reamsandreamsofPost-its.Heretoo,innovationsarebornfromthoughts,ideasorproblems.Brainstormingandmind-mapping.Jotteddownusinganold-fashionedpenonasquarepieceofcoloredpaper.Thesearethencarefullygroupedinordertogeneratenewinsightsandanimpetustoinnovation.
By Wim Schellekens (VitaValley) and Wilco Schuttelaar (Vital Innovators / VitaValley)
Vita
Valle
y st
udy
tour
- R
oche
ster
and
Was
hing
ton
DCcontinued
It was an inspiring morning full of ideas to set to work on once back in Holland. Another crucial point was the realization that (considering our different budget levels) VitaValley is really not doing too badly at all. We would consider it a wonderful challenge for us as VitaValley and partners to engage in a collaborative effort with Mayo Clinic to establish joint innovation projects and actively implement the results, both in the Netherlands and the United States. The Alliance for Healthy Aging provides abundant opportunity for such initiatives.
4
VitaValley study tour - Rochester and Washington D
In short: Mayo Clinic offers its staff some marvelous facilities. You may wonder, however, whether these are really effective. Would the same people not otherwise have joined a regular gym? There are still a great many avenues to be explored when it comes to offering patients programs aimed at wellness and nutritional education, avenues that are not currently being properly addressed (at least not by the DAHLC), even though the chances of achieving gains in health and well-being within that population are probably much higher than achieving these gains among staff.
On 18 April, Heather Preston, Operations Manager at the DAHLC, delivered a presentation on the Healthy Living Center. The DAHLC provides wellness coaching and behavioral change programs, as well as an integrated approach to health care and wellness.
MayoClinic&Alzheimer’sresearchThere are ever more technical tools available for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, resulting in ever better treatment options. The significance of biomarkers is a hot topic in Alzheimer’s research. Using these biomarkers it is far easier to accurately predict what individuals not yet showing clinical Alzheimer’s symptoms will develop the disease and who will not. It has already been established that obesity in middle age is a significant risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s.
Mayo Ventures’ mission is: ‘taking Mayo’s IP and bring it out into the world’. In-house this is also referred to as turning idealism into action. Meanwhile, Mayo Ventures has helped establish some fifty startups. On 18 April Steven Nurden, Chairman of Mayo Ventures, gave us some examples.
GlobalBusinessSolutionsOur visit to Mayo Clinic was concluded with a presentation by David Herbert, Chairman of Global Business Solutions (GBS). He told us about Mayo Clinic’s transformed mission, as well as what target groups it is hoping to reach to ensure the organization’s continued growth.
Brigitte Gabel: “It is my impression that the CSM is creating a distinct profile for itself and is exploring a multitude of different channels. In doing so, the results they are achieving are quite satisfactory, but were they to apply a more structured and comprehensive approach, (much) greater strides could be made.”
MayoClinicCenterforSocialMediaOn 18 April, Lee Aase, Director at the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media (CSM), introduced us to the CSM. The Center, founded in 2012, focuses on the below activities.
VitaValley study tour - Rochester and Washington D
Margo Brands“I found our visit to the Good Samaritan Center fascinating. It’s a place where people live and are cared for, and the overall mission is: ‘people are cared for, loved and at peace’. The ‘neighborhoods’, as the divisions are called, seemed a little dreary though, plus the building’s surroundings offered little room for diversion. On the other hand, the residents here need intensive nursing home care and more than anything, a safe place to live and proper looking after. I was impressed by the fact that there was just a handful of employees, who despite the huge staff turnover due to low pay, were able to talk about the residents in a very loving manner, and - I assume - looked after them in an equally loving way. The doors of all rooms being open I thought was a very positive sign. In a way this gave me a voyeuristic feeling, but at the same time it shows that residents are not tucked away in their rooms and out of sight.All in all, despite the meager resources and competition for staff from the local hospital, to my mind they manage to maintain a very respectable and loving community. The whole setup is not exactly innovative and I sure hope that we in the Netherlands will not use this type of care as a model for people who cannot afford private care, but that we can increasingly focus on homecare and short-term intramural care in the last stages of life.”
Gerard Honkoop“I really enjoyed visiting a value-driven organization. The building was relatively new (five years old) and looked well-kept with its two wings and central entrance. As mentioned by Margo Brands, the organization primarily focuses on nursing home care, which became evident when looking at the average age of 89 years among the thirty residents in the long-term care ward. The fifteen places for rehabilitation care are to stop the location from going into the red, as here the daily revenue is three times as high (approximately $450 a day as opposed to
$160 a day). In short, it seems like a huge challenge to cover the costs with yearly proceeds of nearly four million dollars, taking into account the fact that the organization employs some 80 staff members (50 FTEs).What was remarkable considering this is an American organization, is that they use a family council to discuss planned decisions and in which recommendations are incorporated in the final decision-making process. In short, an organization employing staff wholeheartedly committed to care.”
The Good Samaritan Society is a Christian organization with an Evangelical Lutheran background and was founded in 1922. In total the Good Samaritan operates 240 locations across the US. Our Mission
The mission of the Evangelical
Lutheran Good Samaritan Society isto share God’s love in word and deedby providing shelter and supportive
services to older persons and others inneed believing that “In Christ’s Love,
Everyone Is Someone”.
Our Vision
To create an environment where peopleAre loved, valued and at peace.
8
VitaValley study tour - Rochester and Washington D
Mobile healthAnimportanttrendseniorsareinterestedinis‘mobilehealth’.Atthemoment,13,000healthappscanbedownloadedthroughiTunesalone.Andwith80to90%ofthetargetgroupowningamobilephonenowadays,thisseemstobeagoldenopportunity.Seems,asthefactthatsmartphonepenetrationamongseniorsisextremelylowposesadistinctproblem.So:theydoownamobile,butnosmartphone(asyet).Theysimplydonotseethepointofusingone.Theysay-asonlytheAmericanscan-thatitdoesnotsuitthe‘workflowoftheirlives’.TheAARPcollaborateswithvariouspartiesinconductingresearchintohowtomotivateseniorstousemobilehealthapplications.
“OnlytheRomanCatholicchurchhasmoremembers”AARP (formerly the American Association for Retired Persons) is an extraordinary organization. This senior citizen organization with its 37 million members has earned respect and admiration worldwide. In effect, this organization is unique in its kind, and can best be described as a combination between ‘ANBO’ (Dutch pressure group for senior citizens) and ‘Het Nationaal Ouderenfonds’ (National Foundation for the Elderly). That comparison, however, actually does not hold water in some respects.
Business modelDuringtheplenarysessionitwasnotmadeentirelyclearhowtheViTelNetbusinessmodelactuallyworks,butitlaterturnedoutthatsome70%oftherevenueisgeneratedfromequipmentandsome30%fromintegrationintoexistingsystems.Theowner,however,statedthathewouldpreferforhisclientstoleasetheproducts,leavingViTelNetinapositiontoseetopermanentupgrading.
ChallengesDespite the successes, beauty, splendor, and factual knowledge, even an organization such as the AARP has hopes and expectations it wishes to fulfill. It currently only barely manages to reach the 50- to 59-year-old group. These are the headstrong baby boomers who will soon reinvent the aging experience. And who will present us care innovators, as well as the AARP, with a great many challenges.Which will bring us back on an equal footing.
Vita
Valle
y st
udy
tour
- R
oche
ster
and
Was
hing
ton
DC
ViTel Net has positioned itself as a pioneer in the field of TeleHealth, but also lays claims to a reputation of ‘product leadership’, in particular with regard to healthcare technology integration.
Reflections- It is interesting to see that ‘pioneers’ can indeed produce a good, integrated and stylish
IT solution.- In view of the size of the company (small) the claim to product leadership in a broad
range of industries seems somewhat implausible.- It would seem there is no clear product platform strategy in place for the software
domain. This is peculiar, as a stable, standard-based platform would seem to be a precondition for a healthy business model.
- The possible roll-out to Europe via the Netherlands raises some questions. Does the company not have enough on its plate dealing with the domestic market? When planning expansion to Europe, would Spain or other Southern European countries not be a more obvious choice?
VitaValley study tour - Rochester and Washington D
C
Fox Hill is part of the Sunrise chain which consists of approximately five hundred establishments throughout the United States. Fox Hill was completed in 2008 and offers high-quality senior living accommodation and care programs.
Modern technologyThe24/7urgentcareservicewewitnessedwasimpressive.State-of-the-artequipment,patientsatthecentreofattention,friendly,efficient,patientsaresenthome(ortothehospital)withatreatmentplan,aswellasacalculationofcostsassometreatmentsinvolvea(limited)additionalcharge.KaiserPermanentehasahighlyadvanced
It was with some skepticism that I visited Kaiser Permanente. An insurer that personally offers healthcare seems a little suspect right off the bat. As with all our visits, the reception was extremely welcoming, and I was immediately impressed by the magnificent building and innovative surroundings. My first impression was: if I ever get sick, I wouldn’t mind being treated here!
