Jim Rogers of Mayo Clinic

Jim Rogers, Chief Business Development Officer and Interim Chief Strategy Officer for Mayo Clinic, shares highlights from the first three years of the Mayo Clinic Platform. The pipeline of physical, location-based care is ultimately not scalable for an organization that leads the world in innovation. Learn how running a platform business is different than running a medical center, and how it helps Mayo Clinic achieve its mission of inspiring hope and promoting health through integrated clinical practice, education and research. 

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:03):
And.

S2 (00:07):
Hello and welcome to Prophets Healthcare Changemakers Podcast, where we'll
be talking to leaders in health care who are focused
on transforming their organizations to drive the next level of
growth for their business and for health care and profit.
We believe that the organizations that thrive in health care
are those that dare to change the game, striving to
improve human health, create better experiences and make the best
of care an enduring and sustainable reality for all those

(00:30):
that will transform health care are the change makers. And
for this podcast, we want to focus on them. Our
podcast dives into and recognizes the people behind the transformation
and their journeys in changing the game one story at
a time. Are you ready to dive in?

S3 (00:47):
Thank you for joining us on this podcast. Today's guest,
we are thrilled to have Jim Rogers, who is the
chief business development officer and the interim chief strategy officer
for the Mayo Clinic. Jim, thanks for being here.

S1 (00:58):
Jeff, I'm really pleased to be here. Thank you.

S3 (01:00):
Jim, why don't we start, if we could. Tell us
about yourself and your role at the Mayo Clinic beyond
the title I just shared. And then keep going and
tell us one fun fact that cannot be found on
your LinkedIn profile.

S1 (01:14):
Sounds good. So business development at Mayo has aspects of
what you would expect in a business development group. So
we have what's called corporate development, and that's like a
traditional business development shop in a in a corporation. Their
role is really focused on how do we move the
strategic goals of Mayo Clinic forward. So they support what

(01:35):
we'll talk a little bit about today platform. They support
Mayo Clinic International, Mayo Clinic Labs and also what we
call high value opportunities. And these are really opportunities that
can continue to bring revenue back to Mayo so that
Mayo can reinvest that revenue in our three field mission,
which is practice research and education. We also have a
technology transfer organization, but it's not a traditional technology transfer organization.

(01:59):
It's something that we've developed into a business. It's really
designed to drive innovation to the marketplace for the benefit
of patients. And sometimes that means it comes out of
mail that these innovations are mayo developed, and sometimes it
means that these innovations come from third parties. That group
is called Mayo Clinic Ventures. And Mayo Clinic Ventures has

(02:22):
a long history here at Mayo, started probably in the
late eighties when the Abidal Act came into play. But
the proactive strategy is something that's really been over probably
the last ten, ten years or so, and it's really
bearing a lot of fruit from both a revenue standpoint,
but also from a commercialization perspective. It's generating a lot

(02:42):
of innovation for the benefit of patients. And again, that
revenue that's generated off of that comes back to Mayo
to be reinvested.

S3 (02:49):
Good. So that's the business development side. And then tell
us about the strategy portion of your role.

S1 (02:53):
So strategy is interesting. I'm partnering with Matt Carlstrom. Matt
is a physician here. He heads the Department of Radiology.
Long story short, just a remarkable individual to work with.
But here at Mayo, we tend to have dyads. So
that means that you have a business person or an
administrator partnered with a physician. That's my DYAD partner Strategy

(03:15):
is an excellent organization within Mayo. The recently was formed
out of several different groups. Within Mayo. We have project managers,
we have management consultants, and we also have high level
strategists and data analytics and folks who are really focused
on how do you put strategy into action. So that's

(03:37):
that group. And that group is working very closely on
our bold forward strategy, which in part a key pillar
of that of that strategy is how do we turn
pipeline businesses into a platform, particularly as it relates to
health care. So one fun fact was I came up
as a patent attorney. So my previous roles before Mayo

(03:59):
were at Dorsey Whitney, which is now, I believe called Dorsey,
and then 3 a.m. company, two fabulous organizations, can't say
enough good things about both of those organizations. Really enjoyed
my work there. And then when I started at Mayo,
I started the patent function in Mayo, and then after
over time, I moved into running Mayo, what's now Mayo
Clinic Ventures and then running the combined business development group.

(04:21):
And at some point I also worked in regenerative medicine.
But the fun fact is, the last really official thing
I did as a pen attorney was a Supreme Court
case where we were sued by a company alleging pad infringement.
We believed that the patents were invalid because essentially the
company was trying to patent laws of nature. And just

(04:43):
really briefly, when you think about a patent, it's kind
of a contract, almost the same way of thinking about
a contract. US government gives you a monopoly. Under that monopoly,
you have the right to exclude others, but you tell
everybody what you do so that people can design around.
And the intent then is that you continue to spur
innovation that way. But if you patent a law of nature,
there's really no effective way to design around. And so

(05:04):
we felt that this was something we had to defend on,
we did defend on it, and at the end of
the day, it ended up in the Supreme Court. Some
great quotes came out of it. The Wall Street Journal
at one point in time, I believe, said, Hold the
Mayo play on Mayo Clinic. I was quoted in the
same paragraph as Albert Einstein. My wife likes to point
out that Albert Einstein, it was it was really a
fascinating journey. And ultimately we prevailed. Nine zero, which is

(05:28):
pretty rare in these these times. There was still a
split court back then when it happened, and I think
it made a real positive impact for people because it
knocked out a lot of patents that were frankly overbroad
and in keeping with the true intent of the law.

S3 (05:43):
Certainly a career highlight, I'm sure. So. For. We get
into the platform business, which I know is a lot
of exciting and lot of the things that Dr. Farrugia
is speaking about and writing about. But before we go there,
I just want to take a minute back to what
I'll call the traditional location based delivery of care business

(06:03):
for Mayo Clinic, which I know that you and Dr.
Fruit have kind of taken calling the pipeline business. I
just want to ask you, this is Mayo Clinic has
added locations in the last five years or so. Right.
Partnerships in London and partnerships in the UAE. I just
love to get a sense with your strategy hat on
is what role will physical location based expansion play for

(06:27):
the Mayo Clinic when it thinks about its mission of
inspiring hope and promoting health through integrated clinical practice, education
and research?

S1 (06:34):
You know, at our heart we're a destination practice. And
what that means is people will fly, drive by many
other health systems to get to us because we practice
cautionary care, you know, tertiary quaternary care, serious and complex care.
When you think about it, it's do you have an
unknown diagnosis? Many times people come to Mount Hood to

(06:56):
get their diagnosis. There's always going to be a need
for effective physical spaces for us to practice and for
health care in general. So that's not going to go away.
It'll be different in the future than what it is today.
Of that, there's no doubt. And what we have to
understand is what is that going to look like? We
none of us have a crystal ball. And I think

(07:17):
we have to understand that while our values will never change,
the physical locations will be still critical for us to
be able to effectively practice medicine. And so we are
continuing to invest significantly in Florida and our campus there
in Arizona and our campus there and in Minnesota and
our campus there and including throughout our health system, which

(07:37):
is in the upper Midwest. And then you mentioned we
have a joint kind of partnership that we have done
both in the Middle East and in London. And those
are areas that we're exploring. We're trying to sort out
what makes the most sense for Mayo Clinic and for patients,
not just domestically, but also internationally.

S3 (07:55):
So a skeptic could ask and I'm sure has asked.
So I know you've heard this question before. With so
much of the globe that doesn't have physical access to
the Mayo Clinic. Right. And you've just you're just scratching
the surface with London and the Middle East, that could
be a focus of your expansion for the next ten
years and then some. Right. Doing it right. What made
you decide as an organization that to achieve your mission,

(08:19):
sticking with the what you now call a pipeline business
wasn't sufficient that led you to the platform business.

S1 (08:24):
It was simply not scalable. We can't have folks on
the ground in every one of these locations. We, at
least in our opinion, we simply can't do it. We
don't think it's right for the patients. It's not a
model that will work for Mayo Clinic. So in economical
and in a lot of ways, that's really the beauty
of a platform. A platform allows scale. It also allows

(08:46):
us to see innovations from all over the world and
push innovation through. So it's not just about Mayo. It's
really about the health care system. If you think about it,
and it allows Mayo to at least scale its knowledge
while hopefully scaling others knowledge, it also allows mail to
bring in innovations. Whereas before we had to travel the

(09:07):
world to find the innovations, you know, in Mayo Clinic
first started, we didn't invent aseptic surgery, but we adopted
it here in Minnesota, using it in our hospitals. And
it really had a fundamental shift in the hospital previously
being a place to go, to essentially die, to know
hope and healing. Now, if you could imagine all kinds

(09:27):
of innovations occurring on a platform, now you're able to
see the best of the best, not just what mail
might invent, but what third parties invent. And then when
you start thinking about your question about how do we
get our knowledge out to third parties, we really can't
put a facility in each country. Or should we? But
we can scale our knowledge to each country if we

(09:48):
do it right through the platform.

S3 (09:49):
So in other words, it's a more efficient way to
do it, right? Taking advantage of digital means to extend
your expertise in a way that you've traditionally been able
to correct.

S1 (09:59):
And when you think about it, it also hopefully continues
to add for it to be successful. It really means
everyone gets access to data. It really means everyone gets
access to innovation. And so what that means is it
continues to push us to be better and better, right?
So for us to stay at the forefront of medicine,
we have to continue to strive to be better and
better by our own platform, because in a lot of ways,

(10:21):
our own platform is part of what's causing the positive
disruption and transformation in the health care system.

S3 (10:28):
Set another way, and I think I'm just kind of
playing back what I'm hearing from you is that while
the platform business is dependent upon the health of the
pipeline and what you feed into it, the pipeline business
is dependent upon the platform. They're augmenting each other.

S1 (10:42):
Right. And it's not a binary system either. It's the
platform as. What we're doing in our pipeline models. The
pipeline is powering what we're doing in the platform model.
But it's not a 1 to 1 correlation.

S3 (10:54):
So give us the summary of the Mayo Clinic platform.
There's a lot of platform businesses out there, but what's
the 32nd kind of summary of what the Mayo Clinic
platform is and is becoming?

S1 (11:03):
Yes, you have to discover, which is essentially what I
just talked about for data. We have a great partnership
with a company called Inference, and we have the capacity
now for people to be able to access our data
de-identified matter and gather insights on it. We're also in
the process of bringing in additional data sources, so you'll
see additional data sources that are coming in and combining it,

(11:24):
making it very, very powerful. We have gather and deliver
and essentially what what we're trying to accomplish there and
are accomplishing there is the ability to bring forward disparate datasets,
bring them forward in a way that we can standardize
and harmonize and deliver them. For example, if you're trying
to do algorithm development as an example, you need to

(11:45):
be able to make sense of all the disparate datasets,
need to build, bring them in an systematized way, meaning
be able to operate on them, and you need to
be able to push them back out and use them.
So gather and deliver is another place where we're working
and another place is accelerate. And what accelerate has is
the ability to basically have new codes coming in and

(12:08):
have access to what we're doing in the platform and
allow them to accelerate their development more quickly. It's a
win for them from the perspective of the acceleration. It's
a win for us because we get to see all
these new innovations at an earlier stage. So very excited
about that. And I think when you look at the
whole combination of our platform, essentially what it is is

(12:33):
it's taking health care and trying to transform it. We're
not just simply digitizing what we're doing. We're trying to
figure out where is health care going, where do we
need to be to continue to offer hope and healing
to our patients, to be able to continue to answer
these really vexing questions for our patients? And the beauty
of it all is when you think about how quickly

(12:54):
innovation is absolutely taking traction right now, I mean, think
about like Jimmy Carter, right prior to checkpoint inhibitors and immunotherapy,
your first line therapy was a platinum or something like
that from the forties for metastatic melanoma Now checkpoint inhibitor.
He's had stage four cancer. He's still walking around. Think

(13:15):
about how quickly things are evolving as the digital kind
of revolution meets with data, meets with artificial intelligence, meets
with the clinical practice. That's a powerful thing, a powerful
place to be. It's disruptive to people, but at the
same time the potential is astronomical. And that's what our
platform is designed to be able to support and enhance

(13:37):
so that people everywhere can innovate, people everywhere are able
to deliver their ideas. And then at the end of
the day, we transform health care accordingly.

S3 (13:46):
So you've got the platform team has both internal and
external customers. You've got the clinicians that you do important
work for, maybe more important than anywhere, and then clinicians
around the globe as well.

S1 (13:57):
That's exactly right. And when you look at it, that
model really reduces the friction between the folks that are
going to be operating, the users and the producers that
will be on that technology platform. We're trying to do
make it as simple as possible to continue to move
the needle.

S3 (14:10):
Thank you for that. So the question I know you're
wrestling with is why is the Mayo Clinic better able
to do that and say a technology company or data company? Right.
A Google, they can stitch together disparate data sets and
create that test base for digital innovators to come in
and take advantage of it. What's the unique kind of
Mayo Clinic special sauce in that realm?

S1 (14:30):
You know, it's a great question, and I think we
have to understand that it's a partnership. So we're not
doing it alone. We're doing it with tech companies. In fact,
Google is one of the folks that we're one of
the companies that we're working with. I think what what
allows me to be distinguished here is it's a physician
led organization. It's a values driven organization. And it understands

(14:51):
medicine deeply. And I think that's the differentiating proposition. If
you think about how Mayo is organized, it's organized as
specialists who work together in teams. So you have this
multi-specialty practice focused strictly on the patient, all salaried, right?
So we're not getting paid to do extra procedures or
anything like we're getting paid to get the answer. And

(15:13):
you take that philosophy into how you want to transform
health care. And I think you have a marked advantage
over if you're coming from it and trying to learn
health care. And I think we've seen over time many
of the health care companies are coming in. They're trying
to learn health care. I think most of them, you
would agree, have struggled with that. Health care is a
very difficult area. There's regulatory overlays, there's reimbursement overlays. It's

(15:38):
just a very challenging area. I think it requires sophisticated
clinical insight to get. There. But make no mistake, and
we are harboring no illusions. We need partners to do it.
We are not doing it alone. We are doing it
with sophisticated technology companies and with other academic medical partners.

S3 (15:59):
So that's a good segway, Jim, to put to this question.
So what have you found about the challenges in running
a platform business versus running a hospital or even a
series of hospitals? Tell us about the transition. Tell us
about some of the operating challenges that you and the
cultural challenges you're willing to share of of changing the processes,
the procedures, the expertise, and even the hearts and minds

(16:19):
of of going from being a location based delivery of
care business to apply for business.

S1 (16:24):
Yeah. And in some ways, really, they're one in the same.
We don't look at it as necessarily the platforms different
from Mayo. It is Mayo Clinic is what's helping to
power Mayo Clinic. It's what's helping to continue this transformation.
But certainly as you bringing in folks who understand products
and services and who have a mentality more from a

(16:48):
startup than from a clinical perspective, there have been some
cultural changes. There's a need to meld that energy and
that focus and that drive to move quickly with the
true clinical knowledge and to bring along the folks within
the practice. So it's been an interesting process so far.

(17:11):
I think it's one that's working well because if you
think about the the best of both worlds, having that
entrepreneurial spirit with some ability to move quickly with the
clinical side, that is not going to do something that's
going to harm a patient but is wanting to move
forward and understands it needs to take some risks to
move the needle. And that's a really powerful combination when

(17:33):
you think about it. We definitely need different talent than
what we've currently had, and then we have to figure
out how that talent continues to kind of transform and
morph and meld as we bring together and continue to
have the clinical practice. Think about the platform way of thinking.

(17:54):
It's a very different model than maybe what we've had
in the past. Now, that being said, we still hire
amazing clinicians, and just many of our caregivers now think
in terms of platform then maybe just the conventional way
of thinking. And it's a fascinating place to be because

(18:15):
with no one has the roadmap, we're all kind of
running down that road together. And I think people are
really interested in it and really energized by it.

S3 (18:23):
So this question might be even more interesting to your
point that no one has. The answer is maybe more
to ask you in three years. So maybe you'll come
back and we'll do it again in three years. But
let me ask now. I think it's been about three
years since you've kind of started standing up the platform.
If you could go back and clarify things or tell
yourself three years ago, like what you've learned. Like, what's
the thing you've learned about standing up and in this

(18:45):
this foray into the platform business that you didn't know
three years ago?

S1 (18:49):
I don't know that we have a lot of regrets.
So it's not it's not regrets. Can we always do
something better? I think we could always do something better,
there's no question. Part of the challenge, I think, is
trying to figure out that balance when you're trying to
bring in a new methodology or new way of thinking.
How do you strike the right balance so that for

(19:12):
the existing group, whatever you want to, you know, take
it out of Mayo Now, whatever that group is that
they see the value of coming along and supporting as
opposed to what exactly is this? This looks like a
foreign antibody. You know, the corporate immune system kind of
comes up and that sort of thing. Fortunately for us,
that's been pretty minimal. If there was any way that

(19:33):
we could thinking about it, looking backwards on it, done
a little bit better there to really help people understand
the why and why this is important. I think it
would would have been beneficial for us. I think people
understand it in their heart. I think they understand it
at some level. But it's different. It's a change. And,
you know, change is always disruptive to people and could

(19:54):
be a little threatening to people.

S3 (19:56):
Good. So tell me about then just some of the issues,
some of the challenges, what you've learned in three years.
Tell me about some of the early successes you're really
excited about.

S1 (20:03):
Well, medically, home has been wonderful. So that's that's one
coming out of our platform efforts. And prior to the pandemic,
we invested in this company and the company really focused
on how do you take care of folks outside of
the hospital, maybe reduce their length of stay, maybe they
don't come even to begin with. And how do you
do it in a way where you're focused on serious

(20:25):
and complex conditions? So there's a lot of folks that
are talking about how you maybe do primary care, which
is incredibly important. But our focus was always kind of
where where we live, which is a serious and complex,
much more challenging than the pandemic hit. And it became
very clear that this type of capability was going to
be absolutely critical. So we kind. Double down investment. Their

(20:48):
support of this approach. We partnered them with Kaiser Permanente.
They came in many, many other partners across the supply chain,
came in, really build more of a platform type approach
in remote, know the remote care for patients. And what
I like about it is the patients love it. You

(21:09):
know as well as I do that I'd rather be
at home. I'd rather not have to come somewhere. And
then if I do have to come somewhere, I don't
have to stay there for weeks on end or my
family has to visit for weeks on end. This is
a nice approach. This is an effective approach, one that
patients really, really like. So we're very excited about that.

(21:29):
There's still many mountains we're going to have to climb
to understand the regulatory picture, particularly if the federal emergency ends.
And what does that mean? But so far, so good.
It's on a great path and it's given us a
lot of insights. You know, as an example, if I'm
a paramedic, you know, my job is to come to you,
stabilize you and get you to the hospital as quickly

(21:50):
as I can. Well, that may not be the role
we need. If you have folks that are going to
be staying at home right now, the role is how
do I make a determination whether you should go to
the hospital in the first place and or kind of
stabilize you to the level where you don't need to
go to the hospital. So it's it's thinking about that
sort of thing. It's fascinating. But it's also moving the

(22:11):
needle on health care. It's transforming health care. And that's
very exciting to us. I think the collaboration we have
going with France has been wonderful. And with Google, you know,
these are two phenomenal groups and really trying to make
data effectively available. How do you democratize data? How do
you allow people to truly gain insights so that when

(22:33):
you think about, you know, the Jimmy Carter story, how
can you accelerate that even faster? You know, how can
you apply a AI machine learning different data sets to
to go for it? Another aspect of what we're doing
on the platform is validate and validates really about making
sure that the algorithm does what it says it's going
to do and that there's not bias. And if there are,

(22:54):
we're sussing that out. And so it's a it's really
an effective tool because all these algorithms are coming out
online and no one really knows do they do what
they say they do.

S3 (23:02):
So looking forward three years from now, what do you
think we're going to see and hear kind of come
out and emerge from from the Mayo Clinic based on
these investments? What's your crystal ball tell you?

S1 (23:12):
It's something we have to continuously be thinking about. I
think care at home will be a much more you know,
we're still in our early stages of care at home,
particularly serious and complex. I think that's going to be
a much more evolved and effective area. I think you're
going to see an explosion of algorithms that could be
used that would be validated and through the regulatory process

(23:36):
for approval, for diagnostic purposes and for monitoring purposes. I'm
hopeful that you're going to see the continued therapeutic development acceleration.
We are at the forefront of amazing things. I mean,
if you think of some of the conditions that even
five years ago were a death sentence, that today are treatable.

(24:00):
Who knows? Maybe next year they're curable. We just have
to continue to push forward on the innovation and really
embrace the use of all these tools that are available
to us. It's overwhelming for people sometimes. I think that's
where I hope our platform can help bring some clarity
and some sanity. But I do think that as as

(24:21):
that continues to occur, where more and more algorithms become
available or more clinical processes are improved, more and more
cures are available or more data is available. I think
the sky's the limit. I don't think we've seen the
ceiling yet. I really don't.

S3 (24:36):
Well, it's exciting and we will certainly look forward to
watching it. If you want to go micro. I'm just
one question with you based on where we've been, but
it's specifically tied to an issue that's really resonant of late,
particularly in my market in Chicago, where another major health
system just announced a pretty significant data breach. I think
the good news is if I reflect on when we

(24:56):
first start hearing about data breaches, I think about the
one two target six, seven years ago, which was the
lead story in the New York Times for day after
day after day, I think we're all getting more accustomed
and maybe less freaked out by data breaches than we
were five or seven years ago. But yet still, I'm
sure there's a number of people that have and are
very concerned. Dr. Halamka has spoken of the data under
glass model. I wanted you to just reflect on and

(25:18):
kind of explain the Mayo Clinic approach for balancing the
tension between privacy and access to data and all the magic,
you know, the importance of the former, but the magic
that can come with the latter.

S1 (25:28):
Yeah. So when it's all said no, we understand that
absolutely nothing is guaranteed or 100% secure. But the approach
that we took was a federated data model, essentially. So
you what are your data sources? Let's say it's male.
Data stays with us. So in de-identified. We didn't have
an ability in a way to essentially query insights against

(25:51):
that de-identified data in a way that's meaningful. So the
data never leaves Mayo. People are not getting access to it,
and they still have a way to meaningfully query it.
In our mind, that's pretty secure. We feel very comfortable
with it. We're continuously monitoring that. We're testing it against

(26:12):
independent third parties who take a look and make sure
from their perspective still de-identified. But we're doing everything we
can from an encryption standpoint. We're working with other companies.
One called Triple Blind has a fascinating encryption approach. So
to allow higher levels of security, but also functionality because

(26:34):
making the data available for insights isn't really going to work.
If you have to go through 15 layers before you
can get to an insight. So we're trying to figure
out a way to keep it absolutely secure at the
same time, make it usable. And so far, I think
we're we're getting down that road effectively. It's been very good. Now,
the question is, as quantum computing starts to bite, we're

(26:58):
hearing that no encryption will necessarily work for anybody. It'll
be a bigger problem than just what we're dealing with.
So we are continuously thinking about the future and a
part that's where groups like Triple Blind will help us.
Inference hires the best A.I. scientists out of Harvard and
MIT and everywhere else. Triple blind has amazing talent in

(27:21):
their company, etc. So it gets back to the point
I said earlier, We can't just do it alone. We
won't do it alone. We have to do it with
partners who are constantly looking for those who can help
us make sure we're at the cutting edge from a
technological standpoint.

S3 (27:37):
I'm going to leave it there. Jim Rogers, Chief visit
Development officer and interim chief strategy officer of the Mayo Clinic,
has been with us. Jim, thank you for your time.

S1 (27:45):
I really appreciate it. Really enjoyed it. Thank you.

S2 (27:54):
And thanks for listening to Prophets Healthcare Transformers Podcast. This
podcast is produced by Gerard Johnson and his wonderful team
at Shift Forward Health. And a big thank you to
our hosts, Priya NASIR, Lindsay Moseby, Paul Shrimp and Jeff Gorgie.
If you like today's episode, you can find more great
content like this at perfect com slash thinking. I'm Anna Kuno,

(28:16):
the senior editor of this podcast. Thank you for listening to.