By Healthcare Facilities Today

    In a bid to attract patients and employees from around the world, Mayo Clinic has announced a $5 billion initiative to develop its Rochester headquarters into a Destination Medical Center (DMC). This includes an earlier commitment in 2012 from Mayo Clinic to invest over $3 million in facility capital improvements in the Minnesota portfolio and beyond over the next 20 years.  
    An additional $2.1 billion in private investment to address the gap in patient visitor satisfaction between the experience on the Rochester campus and off the campus, according to a Mayo Clinic release, will be necessary to the success of the expansion. Desired improvements to the community touch on lodging, hospitality, entertainment and retail. As well, public infrastructure investment totaling $585 million is proposed to support the 20-year DMC expansion.  This aspect of the DMC will be presented to the 2013 Minnesota Legislature for considerations, says the clinic.
    "Ten years from now, there will emerge just a few medical centers with the reputation for health care excellence and patient-focused outcomes that will attract patients from all over the world to their flagship medical center," says John Noseworthy, M.D., Mayo Clinic president and CEO, in a press release.  "Mayo Clinic not only intends to protect its current status as one of the world's premier medical institutions but to significantly expand our highly-effective practice model and medical assets to be clearly recognized as a global destination medical center for decades to come."
    The clinic is Minnesota's largest private employer, with more than 32,000 employees in the state.

For more on the DMC, read/listen to the NPR Minnesota Public Radio report.