So You're a Health Care Role Model, Now What?

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey

After receiving the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, Bronson Methodist Hospital and North Mississippi Medical Center (NMMC) said the Presidential recognition propelled them forward, but is the organizational improvement sustainable?

Speaking at the 23rd annual Quest for Excellence Conference, Michele Serbenski, vice president, performance excellence and organizational learning, a 2005 Baldrige Award recipient Bronson, said receiving the Baldrige recognition "was the best thing that ever happened to us." The organization has found a commitment to excellence at the highest level, and this includes best-practice sharing, increased engagement and involvement of the medical staff, and leaders asking questions that come straight from the Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence.

 

But Serbenski warned health care organizations beginning their Baldrige performance excellence journeys not to consider Baldrige just a quality fad. Executives should not treat the Baldrige Criteria like skiing, she said, with one ski on executive work and one ski on the Baldrige Criteria. Instead, think of adopting the Criteria like snowboarding, with both feet on Baldrige as your guiding principle. She said the key to adopting the Baldrige Criteria is to "make Baldrige the work of your organization—not a project, not a season, not an executive team that locks itself in a conference room" once a year.

Serbenski said Bronson has learned many lessons from Baldrige:

• Commit to excellence
• Continuously self-assess
• Understand your culture
• Make the Baldrige Criteria your work
• Continuously raise the bar
• Recognize it's an improvement journey that never ends

Karen Koch, director of the Patient-Focused Improvement Department at NMMC, said that after receiving the Baldrige Award in 2006, NMMC became both a magnet for exceptional employees and a magnet for recruiters. But the organization focused on its lessons learned from Baldrige. This led to alignment of services and goals to every employee, the integration of systemwide departments into the Patient-Focused Improvement Department, expanded leadership safety rounds and participation in high-level benchmarking, and the development of patient-safety specialists, among other improvements.

Koch said NMMC continues to benefit from using the Baldrige framework by focusing on the "how" questions of the Criteria.

 

How might other health care organizations improve with the Criteria?
 

Comments

[Jerry Linnins - Director of Transformation & Acceleration, Kaiser Permanente, South Sacramento Medical Facility]

The thing I like about the Baldrige approach is it answers SO many of the "now what do I do?" type. It helps you craft both a "burning platform" and a "compelling destination" for your organization. Just completing the organizational profile in the criteria/application package can be eye-opening; i.e Just what IS our mission/purpose, what IS our vision, whare ARE the values we want to live out, how ARE we organized to execute on our Mission/Vision/Values? Then, the actual criteria really layout a do-able plan with the focus on leadership, process, results, culture, etc. Baldrige helps prevent the "reinventing the wheel" syndrome, keeps you from wasting resources on fads of the month, and provides a laser focus that all organizational elements can understand, operationalize, and execute.

Can you tell I am a fan?!!!

[Jack Ryan]

Vivid reminer, since most skiers go downhill.....

[Gwstewart]

This is a terrific reminder of the importance to all businesses, not just the health care field, that the alignment of operations and goals will produce significant benefits to the firm

[gclub]

Great idea...you have some of my favorite people contributing to your blog. I enjoy it a great deal. I'm still working out how to do links neatly but in the meantime will keep it as a post...up now.