About Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center

Through the new Health Policy Center, Mayo Clinic hopes to play a leadership role in trying to bring about crucial reforms in the American health care system.

The Health Policy Center will act as the glue and the spur to help major stakeholders in health policy find common ground on proposals to implement fundamental reform.

One of Mayo's strengths as a medical institution is bringing together different medical experts to find an integrated solution to a patient's problem. Mayo is taking the same approach to find solutions for our national health care concerns.

This is a new role for Mayo Clinic, but Robert Smoldt says this role fits with the organization's primary value. "Mayo needs to be involved in national health care reform because we believe that the needs of the patient come first," says Smoldt. "We must be a strong voice in this process."

Mayo Clinic has the advantage of long-standing, vital relationships within the intersecting circles of the health care industry, business, academia, and government.

Mayo's position offers some advantages:

• The center will not be focused around a particular interest group or political stance. It will provide an impartial and objective voice that is based only on the premise that the "good of the whole" is more important than "the interests of a few."
• Mayo Clinic's focus on the needs of patients is a voice that is not always heard in national reform discussions. The center's location in Rochester, Minn., will help keep it grounded in the real world needs of patients and providers.
• The center will develop a matrix of collaborators from many disciplines and sectors, to help ensure that issues are analyzed from all sides. Credibility and expertise will come not just from Mayo, but from all the members of the network that the center will build.

New Director

Jeff Korsmo

Jeff Korsmo, chief administrative officer of Mayo Clinic Rochester, has been named to succeed Robert Smoldt as executive director of the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center. Smoldt has announced his plans to retire after the second Mayo Clinic Health Care Symposium in March 2008. Korsmo will continue to serve as chief administrative officer in Rochester.

Korsmo has served in many leadership roles within Mayo Clinic and has been active in health care finance and other policy issues for Mayo Clinic and its patients on a national level.