Mayo Clinic vs. Cleveland Clinic: Positioning & Differentiation

Introduction

In an increasingly competitive business environment, organizations must carefully differentiate and position themselves to remain ahead of the competition. Differentiation essentially entails incorporating unique features into a product with the aim of portraying it to the intended market as different from what competitors offer (Berkowitz, 2016). For consumers to perceive a product or brand as different from the competition, an organization must strategically address the consumer using a well-crafted positioning strategy (Berkowitz, 2016).

Positioning and differentiation are particularly crucial in the healthcare industry. Even as healthcare consumers become ever more proactive, healthcare organizations must aggressively differentiate themselves with a robust and consistent brand position (Berkowitz, 2016). Two healthcare organizations whose success in the ever-changing marketplace can largely be attributed to effective differentiation and positioning are Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic — two of the top hospitals in the United States. This paper compares the positioning and differentiation strategies of these two hospitals.

Organizational Background

Over the years, Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic have earned their reputations as some of the best hospitals in the United States in terms of patient care as well as healthcare education and research. Both hospitals operate as nonprofit organizations and offer quality, highly specialized patient care covering multiple disciplines including oncology, cardiology, pediatrics, dermatology, endocrinology, emergency medicine, neurology, orthopedics, urology, and gynecology. Commitment to quality and safe care has been a vital ingredient of success for both organizations.

Mayo Clinic

With its headquarters in Rochester, Minnesota, Mayo Clinic operates over 60 hospitals and clinics across the United States, including locations in Florida, Phoenix, Georgia, Iowa, and Wisconsin. The organization was founded in the 1860s and has grown to become one of the largest healthcare organizations in the country. Mayo Clinic has also made significant contributions to medicine, particularly in the areas of multidisciplinary care, surgery, organ transplantation, pain management, and vascular care.

Cleveland Clinic

Cleveland Clinic was established in the early 1920s. With its flagship hospital located in Cleveland, Ohio, the organization has operations in various locations across the country, including Nevada and Florida. In addition, Cleveland Clinic has international operations in Canada and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The organization has particularly excelled in cardiology and heart surgery, nephrology, urology, rheumatology, endocrinology, orthopedics, pulmonology, and ophthalmology.

Contrasting Positioning and Differentiation Strategies

Both Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic have unique positioning and differentiation strategies. With their excellence in patient care, research, and education, the two hospitals serve over one and a half million patients annually — not only from the United States, but also from other parts of the world. The two organizations are distinctively positioned to advance primary and preventive care and to make healthcare practice more effective and efficient. Through their focus on multidisciplinary medicine, the organizations position themselves as the answer to virtually every healthcare problem — a vision that is effectively captured in their mission statements, which generally espouse the provision of hope and cure.

A significant source of competitive advantage for both hospitals is their physician workforce. Having the best physicians is an important element of their positioning and differentiation strategies. Three aspects that make Mayo Clinic's and Cleveland Clinic's physicians distinctive are availability, affability, and ability (Beckham, 2014). These principles of healthcare practice were originally suggested by William Osler, who is widely regarded as the father of American medicine (Beckham, 2014).

Availability denotes the degree to which physicians make themselves accessible to patients — particularly in terms of appointment speed, waiting time, referral efficiency, and follow-up (Beckham, 2014). Physician availability can be an important driver of patient satisfaction and loyalty, since patients generally want quick and responsive consultation. Affability relates to the interpersonal skills of the physician, including friendliness, responsiveness, empathy, and effective communication with both patients and colleagues (Beckham, 2014). Physicians with strong interpersonal skills are more likely to build rapport with patients than those without. Ability relates to the physician's training, experience, results, reputation, and skill (Beckham, 2014). With physician performance becoming ever more transparent, the need for demonstrated quality and safety is paramount.

Over the years, physicians at both organizations have demonstrated genuine commitment to these three principles. Cleveland Clinic, for instance, improved physician availability by offering next-day appointments, promoted through a nationwide advertising campaign (Beckham, 2014). The hospital has also excelled in providing meaningful care experiences to both patients and their families (Anderson et al., 2010). At Mayo Clinic, physicians have mastered the art of affability — a tradition reinforced through patient-centered philosophy, thorough staff recruitment procedures, and training initiatives that emphasize compassion, clear communication of critical information, and undivided attention to patients (Beckham, 2014). As two of the top hospitals in the nation, both organizations have also differentiated themselves through physicians of unquestionable reputation, recognized nationally and internationally for exceptional ability (Beckham, 2014).

While the two hospitals share significant strengths in physician availability, affability, and ability, notable differences exist in the areas of affordability and accountability. Cleveland Clinic has aggressively positioned itself as affordable in terms of physician costs (Beckham, 2014). Although Mayo Clinic also offers competitive pricing, Cleveland Clinic appears to hold a stronger price advantage. Cleveland Clinic has also made tremendous progress in physician accountability. When CEO Toby Cosgrove joined the organization, he prioritized this dimension — the organization now publishes annual booklets detailing the outcomes of each department (Beckham, 2014). This transparency has been crucial for positioning the hospital as a provider of quality, safe care.

Conclusion

In essence, Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic have positioned themselves as exclusive healthcare brands. The two organizations can be described as the epitome of healthcare excellence — they have garnered an intensely loyal following, both nationally and internationally, owing to their superiority in patient care as well as healthcare research and innovation. The two hospitals have differentiated their services by attending to physician availability, affability, ability, affordability, and accountability, as well as through clinical specialization and healthcare integration.

While both hospitals have made tremendous progress across each of these dimensions, notable differences remain. Cleveland Clinic appears to hold a competitive advantage over Mayo Clinic in terms of affordability, and each organization leads the market in distinct clinical specialties. Effective differentiation and positioning has been an important building block for the success of both healthcare organizations in an increasingly dynamic industry.

References

Anderson, T., Lee, K., Mbanefo, E., Ujadughele, N., & Vyas, J. (2010). Designing for interactions in patient and family experience. Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University.

Beckham, D. (2014). Differentiating physicians for competitive advantage. H&HN Magazine.

Berkowitz, E. (2016). Essentials of health care marketing (4th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Colwell, A. (2014). Cleveland Clinic strategy to maintain competitive edge reflects national trend. Decision Resources Group.

Gamble, M. (2013). 7 ways hospitals can position themselves in today's market. Becker's Hospital Review.

Garcia, L. (2013). Clinical laboratory management. American Society for Microbiology Press.