BLOGRIGE

New Eligibility Rules for the Baldrige Award

Posted by Harry Hertz, the Baldrige Cheermudgeon

As we prepare for the 2012 Baldrige Award cycle, the Baldrige Program has enacted some changes to the Award eligibility rules that leverage the larger Baldrige enterprise—in particular, the state and local Baldrige-based award programs. We’re confident that these changes will ensure a healthy Baldrige enterprise long into the future, as we develop a new business model that relies on non-appropriated funds to operate the Baldrige Program.

As you all know, the decision by Congress to eliminate our federal funding is causing the Program to adopt a new business model. What you may not be aware of is that we have been exploring ways to become less dependent upon federal funds for much longer than the recent events through our strategy mapping.

With the larger enterprise in mind, the Baldrige Program is enacting changes to our eligibility requirements that will formalize the de facto feeder system that currently exists between the Alliance award programs and the national award program. Starting in 2012, in order to be eligible for the national award, organizations must meet our existing requirements AND one of the following conditions:

• Be a previous Baldrige Award recipient
• Have received the top-tier award from an Alliance member award program within the past 5 years
• Have received a site visit at the national level within the past 5 years
• Have received a combined scoring band range of 8 or better (e.g., process band 4 and results band 4) in the past 5 years
• Have 25% or more of your employees/staff outside of your organization's home state
• Have no Alliance member program available for your organization.

There are additional details available on the award application web page:  http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/publications/award_application.cfm

We have not made this decision lightly, and believe it is not only necessary but an important step towards a brighter Baldrige future.

This will be the last Blogrige post for 2011, so I wish all Blogrige readers a happy holiday and a healthy and rewarding New Year!

What I Love about Baldrige

Posted by Harry Hertz, the Baldrige Cheermudgeon

In just the last two days I have come across two blog posts on the three key characteristics of effective leaders. Of course the two posts did not (totally) agree with each other, although both raised good points. The first post by Bradley Owens and David Hekman says the top three effective leader traits are: admit mistakes, spotlight follower strengths, and model teachability. The authors say these three traits are the core of humility in leadership. These are also signs of leaders who want to grow and who are committed to their organization's growth, according to the authors. These leaders legitimize "becoming" rather than "pretending." Through these traits they are signaling to the organization that learning, growth, mistakes, uncertainty and false starts are normal and expected.

The second post is based on the new book by Jennifer Garvey Berger, entitled Changing on the Job: Developing Leaders for a Complex World. Her three traits are: asking different questions, taking multiple perspectives, and looking at systems. The first two traits deal with listening, understanding the perspectives of others, and learning. So clearly learning and growth are common themes for these two sets of authors. What I particularly like about Berger's input is the realization that organizations are complex systems that defy our human desire to dis-aggregate and analyze.

What I love about the Baldrige Criteria is that they are a framework for excellence that ongoing research continues to reinforce. For the last several revisions of the Criteria we have been focusing on dealing with organizational complexity. A Systems Perspective is one of the 11 Baldrige core values and Item 1.1 of the Baldrige Criteria deals with senior leadership, including organizational and personal learning, frank two-way communication with employees, and engaging the entire workforce.

So, as you read about the practices of high-performing organizations, as you come across concepts, think of how they are already embedded in the Baldrige Criteria. And, if you come across a concept that is not in the Criteria (and you think it should be) please let me know!

 

Running the Business, Health Care Style

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey

With financial results comparing favorably to the Standard & Poor's "A-"-rated benchmark, Schneck Medical Center, a 2011 winner of the Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award, proves that controlling the costs of its work systems can align with its commitment to excellence through its Patient First Culture, an initiative that has resulted in numerous advances in clinical outcomes, patient safety enhancements, and organizational and customer service improvements.

The 93-bed nonprofit hospital providing primary and specialized services to the residents of Jackson County, Indiana, uses the Criteria for Performance Excellence to guide growth results in its strategic focus areas—women’s health, joint replacement, noninvasive cardiac care, cancer care, and bariatric surgery. And it has consistently demonstrated high levels of patient care performance: on 17 of 22 core measures reported for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Schneck scored 100 percent in the second quarter of 2011.

In addition, patient satisfaction surveys reflect Schneck’s year-to-year favorable performance, meeting or exceeding top 10 percent or top 25 percent levels on nine of ten Press Ganey (a national consulting firm focused on improving health care performance) measures, including inpatient quality of care, inpatient family support, inpatient coordination of care, and inpatient customer service.

“Schneck first implemented the Baldrige framework four years ago to accelerate and prioritize our performance excellence journey,” says Gary A. Meyer, President/CEO of Schneck Medical Center. “The Baldrige Criteria and our unwavering commitment to quality, satisfaction, and continuous improvement have helped us toward our vision to be an organization of excellence, every person, every time.”

Schneck controls the costs of its work systems through daily and monthly monitoring, as well as annual reviews of performance measures in alignment with the fiscal and operations pillar in its “Run the Business” approach. This approach has resulted in an improved bond rating and improved operating margin, both of which had decreased during the 2009 national economic downturn.

You can learn more about this running-the-business approach, as well as about other best practices from Baldrige Award recipients, at the 24th Annual Quest for Excellence conference.

How can learning about this award-winning approach help your organization?

The Amazing Balancing Act: Quality Care and Business Growth

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey

 

Health care organizations know that to remain sustainable, especially with rising uncompensated care, they must ensure both exceptional patient care and a positive net operating income. Sometimes this is easier said than done.

Henry Ford Health System (HFHS), a 2011 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winner, has shown that such an approach to balancing quality care with building a sustainable business is not only possible but role model.

Despite operating in one of the most economically depressed regions of the country, HFHS has maintained a positive net operating income of greater than $25 million per year from 2007 to 2010. In addition, the system has seen significant increases in uncompensated care, which grew from approximately $130 million in 2007 to approximately $200 million in 2010.

At the same time, HFHS offers exceptional care to its patients. The system's performance on core measures publicly reported for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is at the 90th percentile for 75 percent of the reporting areas across HFHS's seven inpatient hospitals. And the Institute for Healthcare Improvement considers HFHS's evidenced-based global harm campaign a national best practice.

"The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is a symbol of the highest standards of excellence, and we are extremely proud and humbled to have been selected,” says CEO Nancy M. Schlichting. “Participating in the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program has prepared Henry Ford to continue to serve our community, our State, and our country with vision, innovation, and a relentless focus on achieving world-class quality and service to our patients and their families, and providing the best workplace for our employees and physicians.”

Through short- and long-term planning horizons, the leveraging of partnerships, and best-in-class innovations (e.g., the Perfect Depression Program, services with a retail presence, and a “hospital model” in which a new hospital was built from scratch with the active involvement of the community), HFHS continues to balance quality care with building and sustainingits business. HFHS, which uses the Criteria for Performance Excellence as a guide to performance improvement, will be presenting at the 24th Annual Quest for Excellence conference, along with other Baldrige Award recipients, in an interactive best-practice sharing forum.

Could your organization benefit from learning and sharing best practices for balancing customer needs with business growth?

How Engaged Are Your Workers?

 

Posted by Pamela Wong

 

It makes sense that engaged employees—those who are committed to their work, emotionally and intellectually—are better employees. They have more motivation and perform at a higher level than their less-engaged coworkers, and they are less likely to leave their jobs. It’s easy to see why the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence devotes item 5.2 to workforce engagement and asks “How do you engage your workforce to achieve organizational and personal success?”

 

Unfortunately, though, the majority of American workers are not engaged, according to the Gallup Employee Engagement Index. Since Gallup began tracking this metric in the fourth quarter of 2010, it has found the percentage of engaged employees to hover between 28 and 30 percent. The percent actively disengaged has been 18 or 19 percent, while the majority of 51–53 percent are classified as not engaged.

 

These numbers caused me to wonder why only about one-third of workers are engaged. Gallup began this index last year, during a very challenging U.S. economy that continues to this day. Could that be a factor?

 

An article in The Wall Street Journal , “How to Motivate Workers in Tough Times,” deals with this very issue. In it, Jim Harter, who studies employee engagement at Gallup, discusses how managers can help employees stay committed and do their best amid difficult circumstances. Here is some of his advice:

 

·         Get to know well the people you manage. Then, if someone loses a friend at work due to layoffs, for instance, that person will still feel connected within the workforce. Knowing the strengths of workers will also help if it is necessary to reposition people because of layoffs.

·         Set clear expectations. If a smaller workforce is causing roles to change, ongoing communication and clear expectations are important.

·         Have fun. Resist the tendency to become hard-grinding when there are fewer people to get the work done. This stresses people out. Instead, Harter said, “build relationships, and have fun at work.”

·         Give recognition. “When times are tough, it’s easier to think about correcting weaknesses than to think about recognizing people when they’re doing great,” says Harder. “I would argue recognition is even more important in times like this. … [Recognition] is a basic human need, and it makes people do productive things.”

We can also learn from Nestlé Purina PetCare (NPPC), a 2010 Baldrige Award winner, on how to achieve an engaged workforce. NPPC recognizes that its people are one of its strategic advantages, and assessment is an important element of its employee engagement. To this end, NPPC uses a comprehensive annual survey, the Organizational Capabilities Questionnaire (OCQ). Each department uses a customized questionnaire that reflects its most important engagement factors. The OCQ includes benchmarking and links to specific business results.

 

How does your organization encourage worker engagement during difficult times? Could it do more?

 

 

Eyes and Mind Forward

Posted by Harry Hertz, the Baldrige Cheermudgeon

While it is frequently tempting to look in the rear-view mirror and admire where you have been, aside from the function of providing an important piece of an "environmental scan",  a driver must face forward and look to the road ahead. The same can be said for organizations and the Baldrige Program is a perfect example.

Recognizing the need for the Program to have greater leverage through partnerships and also the possibility of a shift to no Federal funding, we embarked last year on a strategy mapping activity and completed that strategy map this fall. Now that the possibility has become a reality (with the Baldrige Foundation providing funding for the Program in FY 2012), the strategy map, and the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, serve as guidance documents for us as we now develop a business model and financial plan that do not rely on Government funding. 

Here are some of the current activities we are engaged in to ensure the sustainability of the Baldrige Program into the future.  We are actively working with our Enterprise partners (the Baldrige Foundation, The Alliance for Performance Excellence, and ASQ) to develop an Enterprise business and financial model that looks at Baldrige processes on an enterprise-wide scale, looking for revenue sources and efficiencies that can be gained. At the same time our internal Enterprise Transition Team, composed of five Baldrige staff members, is working on our own business model, as part of the transition to an Enterprise focus. Included in our planning are some revisions to Award eligibility rules to encourage organizations who are not "Award ready" to apply to their state programs first. We have benchmarked other award programs, various associations, and successful nonprofits; decided on numerous process simplifications and stop-do's to get us the bandwidth to work on the new business model; and are working on revenue generation opportunities and financial models.

There is a lot of very focused planning happening and we are committed to sustainability and agility. I wanted to share this brief update to encourage your ongoing support, your continued application for the Baldrige Award, and to affirm your continued ability to rely on Baldrige products and services. We will be different, but we are here and we will be true to our three strategic thrusts of defining, promoting and recognizing performance excellence,

You should expect specific communications about our plans and changes as we progress. The Baldrige community is a strong and dedicated community! We look forward to a long relationship.

How to Own, Manage, Direct, and Design Your Own Health Care

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey

 

Ever since Congress passed a law enabling Alaska Native people to obtain ownership and management of their own health care services, Southcentral Foundation (SCF), a 2011 winner of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, has been improving the health care of approximately 60,000 Alaska Native and American Indian people.

The health care organization, which is owned, managed, directed, designed, and driven by Alaska Native people (i.e., the customer-owners), has seen a 50 percent decrease in costly emergency room and urgent care visits, an approximately 65 percent decrease in specialty care, a 36 percent decrease in primary care visits, and a 53 percent decrease in hospital admissions.

Using the Criteria for Performance Excellence as a continuous improvement system, SCF attributes its successful approaches to

• Listening to the wants and wishes of those receiving services
• Redesigning services around long-term trusting relationships
• Empowering customer-owners to own health issues at personal and systems levels

It's no wonder than that in 2010 SCF achieved the highest level of Patient-Centered Medical Home™ recognition from the National Committee on Quality Assurance for creating a strong primary care system that engages customer-owners and offers a broad range of preventive services and treatment.

"At Southcentral Foundation, we intentionally design everything from our buildings and facilities, to our services and systems, to be responsive to the needs and values of the Native community. Our customers drive everything," says President/CEO Katherine Gottlieb. "While we are celebrating 30 years of health care excellence and have won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, continuous improvement is a journey—and we realize we still have more work to do."

Southcentral Foundation's customer-owner-based system is highly benchmarked and honored. How might such customer empowerment benefit your organization? One place where you can learn more is at the 24th Annual Quest for Excellence conference.