What would you expect are the potential consequences of information overload in an intensive care unit? Why is it important for to help doctors meet this kind of mental demand ? The Mayo Clinic might seem like a strange candidate for work redesign. The organization is known for setting the gold standard for patientcare. Each year, more than a million patients, many with complex health conditions, travel to the main campus in Rochester, Minnesota, orto facilities in Arizona and Florida. There they receive "patient-centered care," in which a team of doctors collaborates on treatment,consulting one shared medical record for each patient. Próviding these services brings in annual revenues of nearly $14 billion.Changes in the U.S. health care system are making past practices unsustainable, however. Mayo's CEO, Dr. John Noseworthy, observed thatas health care costs continue to rise faster than inflation, payers-Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance companies-are all putting capson what they will pay, even as an aging population needs more care. Payers are insisting that doctors and hospitals start thinking more likebusinesses and figure out ways to deliver consistent patient care more efficiently. Dr. Noseworthy determined that protecting Mayo Clinic'sfuture would require him to lead a rethinking of how work is done in every part of the organization, a project he named the Mayo Clinic2020 Initiative.For the hundreds of projects in this initiative, the changes include some restructuring of jobs. For example, a review of the care given topatients with epilepsy found that some services doctors were providing could be delivered just as well by nurses. Expanding nurses' jobs inthis way not only lowered the cost of a visit, it also freed up a quarter hour of time per patient for doctors to visit new patients. Similarly, areview of care following heart surgery led to a decision that nurses should have more control over that process.The very act of launching the 2020 Initiative changed the jobs of Mayo's physicians. Previously their role was all about health care, with thedoctors assuming the clinic would provide whatever resources they requested. Now their role has expanded to include decision makingaimed at eliminating wasted time and money. For example, heart surgery teams competed to see which team could best shrink the time to setup operating rooms between surgeries. No prizes were awarded, but the friendly competition cut the average time in half.Efforts to improve work processes have also addressed the problem of information overload. Mayo Clinic observed that doctors had availableas many as 50,000 data points about any given patient–too much to process quickly and accurately. To improve care in the clinic's intensive-care units, a team of researchers and IT experts interviewed doctors to identify which pieces of data are most important to their work. Theyidentified several dozen and designed a system to display this data set, highlight relevant measures with color coding, and deliver alarms

Question

What would you expect are the potential consequences of information overload in an intensive care unit? Why is it important for to help doctors meet this kind of mental demand ? The Mayo Clinic might seem like a strange candidate for work redesign. The organization is known for setting the gold standard for patientcare. Each year, more than a million patients, many with complex health conditions, travel to the main campus in Rochester, Minnesota, orto facilities in Arizona and Florida. There they receive &#34;patient-centered care,&#34; in which a team of doctors collaborates on treatment,consulting one shared medical record for each patient. Próviding these services brings in annual revenues of nearly $14 billion.Changes in the U.S. health care system are making past practices unsustainable, however. Mayo's CEO, Dr. John Noseworthy, observed thatas health care costs continue to rise faster than inflation, payers-Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance companies-are all putting capson what they will pay, even as an aging population needs more care. Payers are insisting that doctors and hospitals start thinking more likebusinesses and figure out ways to deliver consistent patient care more efficiently. Dr. Noseworthy determined that protecting Mayo Clinic'sfuture would require him to lead a rethinking of how work is done in every part of the organization, a project he named the Mayo Clinic2020 Initiative.For the hundreds of projects in this initiative, the changes include some restructuring of jobs. For example, a review of the care given topatients with epilepsy found that some services doctors were providing could be delivered just as well by nurses. Expanding nurses' jobs inthis way not only lowered the cost of a visit, it also freed up a quarter hour of time per patient for doctors to visit new patients. Similarly, areview of care following heart surgery led to a decision that nurses should have more control over that process.The very act of launching the 2020 Initiative changed the jobs of Mayo's physicians. Previously their role was all about health care, with thedoctors assuming the clinic would provide whatever resources they requested. Now their role has expanded to include decision makingaimed at eliminating wasted time and money. For example, heart surgery teams competed to see which team could best shrink the time to setup operating rooms between surgeries. No prizes were awarded, but the friendly competition cut the average time in half.Efforts to improve work processes have also addressed the problem of information overload. Mayo Clinic observed that doctors had availableas many as 50,000 data points about any given patient–too much to process quickly and accurately. To improve care in the clinic's intensive-care units, a team of researchers and IT experts interviewed doctors to identify which pieces of data are most important to their work. Theyidentified several dozen and designed a system to display this data set, highlight relevant measures with color coding, and deliver alarms

Accepted Answer

Intensive care units (ICUs) are specialized treatment centers that serve and assess critically ill…