Mayo Clinic Platform > Ajani Dunn Engages Others to Lead Change

Ajani Dunn Engages Others to Lead Change

As chief administrative officer of Mayo Clinic in Florida, Ajani Dunn embraces ambiguity and complexity.

By Gianrico Farrugia, M.D. Photography by Paul E. Najlis

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Leading transformational change requires transformational leaders. At Mayo Clinic, we’re making a concerted effort to cultivate five core skills to help our leaders sustain performance, inspire and motivate staff, and build a workforce that drives patient-centered healthcare transformation from within. 

Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., president and CEO, highlights Mayo Clinic leaders who exemplify these competencies with the hope that their stories will inspire others to come forward to lead healthcare transformation at this critical juncture.

In times of transformation, we need leaders who engage with others to guide change. People with this competency navigate ambiguity by remaining grounded in our core values while helping others in the organization see the benefits of change. 

One of Mayo Clinic’s founders, Charlie Mayo, M.D., famously said, "Today the only thing that is permanent is change." This is just as important today as when he said it more than 90 years ago. Leaders must become master change agents, while remaining servant leaders, which means they must be dedicated to our primary value — the needs of the patient come first — while building consensus around innovative, unconventional ways to accomplish it. 

Ajani (AJ) Dunn, FACHE, chief administrative officer of Mayo Clinic in Florida, embraces ambiguity and complexity and is an excellent example of “engages others” to lead change. 

In 2019, AJ led our effort to establish Advanced Care at Home, which offers acute, inpatient-level care to people in the comfort of their own homes. 

Realizing the critical need for more flexible care options during the pandemic, AJ helped Mayo Clinic bring together multiple elements, including our Platform, our internal digital health teams and an external implementation partner, Medically Home, to create a more seamless hospital-at-home care experience. Even amid significant ambiguity, AJ deftly surrounded himself with a network of stakeholders and experts — from nursing and physician leaders to supply chain and IT teams — to help shape a vision for the new program. 

To foster support for the new program, AJ consistently connected every aspect of the project back to its primary goal of improving patient care, emphasizing that the new care model would enable patients to heal in the comfort of their own homes and manage their conditions in a familiar environment. 

By embedding the program’s patient-centered vision in all aspects of his leadership, AJ helped foster both enthusiasm and commitment to making the care model a success. Today, more than 29,500 patients have been treated through this care model, and studies have shown that hospital-quality care at home has reduced infections and falls, and improved patient outcomes and satisfaction.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn.