The COVID-19 pandemic showed that our health care system doesn’t simply need to be “fixed.” It must be transformed. Even before the pandemic began, Mayo Clinic unveiled an ambitious vision for a new and better model of health care, and a bold strategy for how to get there. It’s called the Mayo Clinic Platform.

The Mayo Clinic Platform is a portfolio that will introduce thousands of initiatives and partnerships, uniting experts across a wide range of fields who share Mayo Clinic’s historic values, and our commitment to transforming every aspect of health care. Some of these partnerships are already in place, and important progress is being made in harnessing the most advanced technological tools to accelerate research and improve patient experience.

One aspect of the Mayo Clinic Platform can be thought of as “Care Where You Need It.” This emphasizes harnessing the most advanced diagnostic, care and recovery services to give patients Mayo Clinic-quality care in the comfort of their own homes. Think of it as today’s telehealth services multiplied by a thousand, so that every patient — regardless of location, transportation or mobility — can instantly access world-class information, resources and care.

Along with making care more accessible, it needs to be more informed. That’s what “Care When You Need It” is all about. The Mayo Clinic Platform is finding new ways to harness the power of your own biomedical data. Just imagine the information you choose to share with your Mayo Clinic physician, combined with clinical data, medical research and the latest breakthroughs in genomic sequencing, to give you more insight into your own health and more control over your own care!

Managing that volume of data is the focus of “Care That Connects.” The fact is that the amount of biomedical information in the world is far outstripping humanity’s ability to process and learn from it effectively. The Mayo Clinic Platform will help close that gap by harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced data-analytic tools to unlock powerful new insights, speed the development of new medications, and improve patient health.

With all this change going on, it might be easy to feel like a passenger on a train someone else is driving. But John Halamka, M.D., President of the Mayo Clinic Platform, emphasizes that — as it has been throughout our history — the support of farsighted benefactors is the key to achieving the ambitious vision of the Mayo Clinic Platform.

“Mayo Clinic has visionary leadership, a remarkable culture and staff, and a willingness to take risks,” Dr. Halamka says. “And it has generous and selfless benefactors who are eager to help lead the way to a better future. No other organization in the country is as poised as Mayo Clinic to spearhead this effort.”