Healthcare Leading the Way in 2010 Baldrige Award Applications

Last month the NIST announced that of 83 Baldrige applicants for 2010, 54 were for the healthcare category.

Excerpts from the press release follows.
(Note: No Indiana based organization has ever won the Baldrige Award.)

Eighty-three organizations are in the running for the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest recognition for organizational performance excellence through innovation and improvement. Applicants include three manufacturers, two service companies, seven small businesses, 10 educational organizations, 54 health care organizations and seven nonprofits/governmental organizations. The number of applicants is up 20 percent over 2009 and marks the fifth consecutive year that there have been 70 or more organizations seeking the award. Additionally, the 54 health care applicants are the largest number in that category since it began in 1999.

The 2010 applicants will be evaluated rigorously by an independent board of examiners in seven areas: leadership; strategic planning; customer focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; workforce focus; process management; and results. Examiners provide each applicant with 300 to 1,000 hours of review and a detailed report on the organization’s strengths and opportunities for improvement.

Thousands of organizations use the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence to guide their enterprises, improve performance and get sustainable results. This proven improvement and innovation framework offers organizations an integrated approach to key management areas.

“I see the Baldrige process as a powerful set of mechanisms for disciplined people engaged in disciplined thought and taking disciplined action to create great organizations that produce exceptional results,” says Jim Collins, author of Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don’t.

To learn more about starting or advancing your organization’s quality journey, go to www.nist.gov/baldrige/publications/criteria.cfm and www.nist.gov/baldrige/enter/self.cfm.