Dr. Robert Cima and Tonia Lauer were named recipients of the Mayo Clinic Diamond Quality Fellow Lifetime Achievement Award.

Honorees are nominated by their peers and selected by Mayo Clinic and Quality Academy leaders. The Diamond Award recipients demonstrate a long-standing commitment to quality improvement.

Cima is a Mayo Clinic colorectal surgeon. Dr. Cima is recognized as a leader of quality improvement within surgery and has held numerous leadership roles, advancing quality improvement inside and outside of Mayo Clinic.

He has developed and led quality improvement projects in surgical site infection reduction, operating room efficiencies and surgical process improvement. He was a leader in The Joint Commission’s project on reducing surgical site infections, where best practices in reducing surgical site infections in colon and rectal surgery were shared widely. He is a medical director for surgical outcomes in the Mayo Clinic Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery.

Lauer is quality director for Mayo Clinic Health System in Southeast Minnesota. Since the late 1990s, Lauer has spearheaded quality improvement efforts, first at Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea, Minnesota, and then across more than 20 clinics and hospitals in Southeast Minnesota.

In her regional role, Lauer has combined individual facility Quality departments into one department that works across the region. She instituted standardized performance reporting tools to track quality, using measures of safety, the patient experience and outcomes. She has driven performance improvement through multiyear, continuous improvement efforts.

She has helped implement quality improvement changes throughout the Southeast region of Mayo Clinic Health System that have improved safety for patients. Examples include decreasing unnecessary lab draws for patients and numerous changes that enhanced safety for behavioral health patients and the staff who care for them.

Learn more about Quality at Mayo Clinic.