Patient experience. Cleveland Clinic has many of the features described by Prof. Christensen in The Innovator's Prescription. Doctors are on salary, and the clinic operates in "solution shops" organized by related specialties: cardiologists, vascular surgeons and cath labs are in one; psychiatrists, neurologists and neurosurgeons in another; eurologists are with nephrologists, etc. These aren't the reasons we list him. Not long after becoming CEO in 2004, Dr. Cosgrove visited with a class at the Harvard Business School, and was rebuked by a student whose family member had endured a bad experienced in Cleveland--not from the medical care, but the bedside manners. "Dr. Cosgrove, do you teach empathy?" she asked. He responded swiftly, prioritizing service now, along with science and cost-efficiencies. He hired a "chief experience officer," whose job is to make sure patients feel less like they're at a hospital, and more like they're at a spa. One example: Diane von Furstenberg is redesigning the Clinic's hospital gowns, "so your cheeks don’t flap in the wind when you walk down the hall," Cosgrove says, and because a little dignity goes a long way. They debut in November. A cardiothoracic surgeon, he innovated valve repair techniques, holds 30 patents, and chaired the Clinic's cardiac unit before becoming CEO. As a surgeon in the U.S. Air Force, Dr. Cosgrove served in Da Nang, Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star.

Recounting to healthspottr the incident at HBS:

"That started me off on a different journey," he says. "When I started as surgeon mortality was 45 percent. Now it's under one percent. It used to be that they just hoped to be alive, now they want more. They want to have a good experience."