Marc Matthews

Redesigning Care, Restoring Meaning: Practice-Driven Innovation in Family Medicine at Mayo Clinic

Practice-driven innovation in primary care offers a powerful path to “design the updraft together” and improve population health at the community level. At Mayo Clinic, collaboration between research and design experts from the Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery and clinicians and staff from the Department of Family Medicine is reshaping how care is organized and experienced. Through the formation of the Family Medicine Learning and Experience (FLEX) lab, we are reimagining and prototyping workflows to elevate care team expertise and restore meaning and satisfaction to frontline work. For example, nurses are leading new approaches to chronic disease management, supported by colleagues who are redesigning roles to reduce administrative burden and focus on patient connection. Our approach to innovation strengthens quality, addresses resource challenges, and enhances professional fulfillment while keeping patient dignity at the center of design. As care continues to evolve, thoughtfully integrated technology and AI are extending reach and responsiveness, creating sustainable systems that meet patients where they are and honor the human relationships at the heart of care. In doing so, we are reshaping innovation itself, anchored in respect, driven by connection, with the goal of sustained impact.

Learning objectives:

• Describe how practice-driven innovation can elevate care team expertise and improve system performance while maintaining dignity in care delivery.

• Demonstrate how care team ownership of interventions and prototypes streamlines implementation.

• Analyze how collaborative design through models like the FLEX team can balance resource constraints, quality measures, and workforce well-being.

• Explore strategies for integrating technology and AI into clinical workflows in ways that enhance connection, trust, and equitable access rather than eroding them.