One Question that Changed Our Organization (Video)

By Toby Cosgrove, MD

It happened over a decade ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I had been invited to Harvard Business School to discuss a case study on Cleveland Clinic. A student raised her hand and said, “Dr. Cosgrove, my father needed mitral valve surgery. We knew about Cleveland Clinic and the excellent results you had. But we decided not to go because we heard you had no empathy there. We went to another hospital instead.”

The student then asked me: “Dr. Cosgrove, do you teach empathy at Cleveland Clinic?”

So I had a long hard look in the mirror, and I realized what had happened. When I became a cardiac surgeon about 20% of the patients would die. Now the mortality rate is 1% or less.

All I thought about was heart surgery all day every day. I spent my life in the pursuit of technical excellence so people wouldn’t die on the operating table. I didn’t spend much time looking after patients as a whole person.

I decided to do something about it.

That’s when we established the Cleveland Clinic Office of Patient Experience and appointed our first Chief Experience Officer.

We went from a doctor-centered organization to a patient-centered structure with 26 institutes and support centers.

We worked hard to make empathy a part of our culture, including assigning all 43,000 caregivers to a sort of boot camp for empathy, engagement and service behaviors. I showed the following video to all Cleveland Clinic caregivers as a way to begin the conversation about and highlight the importance of empathy in what we do. I encourage you to watch and consider the importance of empathy in your daily practice.

Dr. Cosgrove is CEO and President of Cleveland Clinic.