The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is the highest honor or acknowledgment for performance excellence given to a company in the United States. In the 1980s, Congress established this prize and named it Malcolm Baldrige, honoring the former secretary of commerce. Its objectives were to share best practices, establish benchmarks for judging improvement, and recognize good businesses’ achievements and performance. Congress also sought to demonstrate the importance of performance and quality excellence for commercial competition. Healthcare is one of many business areas that receive awards each year. An organization must meet specific requirements to be eligible for the Baldrige Award. It must serve as an example of an organizational management system that establishes continuous improvement in service delivery. It should function successfully and efficiently, engage customers, and respond to their needs. The criteria for this award can be used as a guide to help an organization perform better. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award chooses recipients from seven categories based on the following criteria: strategic planning, leadership, customer focus, measurement, analysis, and knowledge management; operations focus, workforce focus, and results (Eastman, 2010).
A Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is only given to the most suitable companies. Nevertheless, all healthcare organizations, regardless of type or size, can use the criteria as a framework to enhance their daily activities, patient safety, care quality, outcomes for specific conditions, patient loyalty, staff happiness, community services, and income. The Baldridge Criteria can be modified by any organization to meet its requirements and are compatible with the objectives of other organizations like The Joint Commission (Scott, 2013). The standards also stimulate and support organizations’ competitiveness and goal-achieving performance. The Baldrige framework, which contains multiple aspects to review processes and results and identify strengths and shortcomings, can be used by healthcare organizations to evaluate their status. Approach, deployment, learning, and integration are all used in process evaluation. The first dimension exposes an organization’s operation and efficiency and organization. Second, deployment shows how consistently a company applies its strategies across diverse domains.
CHI keeps track of utilization data. Acute admissions, acute inpatient days, inpatient and outpatient ER visits, inpatient and outpatient procedures, and physician visits are all included in these statistics. Additionally, it tracks and contrasts financial data according to location and service type. Service to the underprivileged, involvement of employees, the satisfaction of physicians, quality, patient experience, safety, expansion, transformation, and operation of EBITDA are among CHI’s nine performance goals. Revenue cycle, labor management, non-labor overhead, supply chain, organic growth, information technology, and the medical group enterprise are some of the areas where CHI works on performance improvement. Efficiency, standardization of systems and procedures, cost and savings reductions, increased growth and income, and service consolidation were the objectives.
With operations in 18 states and ten regions, CHI Memorial Health Initiatives is one of the country’s most prominent Catholic healthcare organizations. Through facilities offering services across the whole continuum of care, it provides services to nearly four million individuals yearly (Msqpc.com, 2009). To achieve its strategic objectives of preserving, building, and enhancing its networks in current and future markets, CHI actively looks for future expansions, acquisitions, mergers, relationships, partners, affiliations, and divestment prospects. CHI has made recent purchases, realignments, and divestitures. CHI has formed strong and knowledgeable leadership teams. They are familiar with starting and maintaining relationships with partners. In 2011, CHI set objectives for diversified revenue, reduced expenses, increased access to healthcare, and revenue growth. CHI is currently working on two significant projects (Msqpc.com, 2009). The first is to perform better, and the second is to launch a new ministry in partnership with Dignity Health. CHI places a strong emphasis on expanding in both current and emerging markets.
CHI uses performance metrics to evaluate success and performance evaluations to monitor development. The patient experience measures patient satisfaction. CHI’s number of employees and providers indicates the workforce’s capacity. One illustration of such information is CHI, which demonstrated progress by running EBITDA in 2018 instead of 2017 (Scott, 2013). Before restructuring, impairment, and other losses, operating EBITDA increased to $238.7, or a margin of 6.3%, from $224.1, or 5.9% in 2017 (Scott, 2013).
CHI’s nine performance goals are service to the underprivileged, employee engagement, physician satisfaction, quality, patient experience, safety, growth, transformation, and operating EBITDA. Revenue cycle, labor management, non-labor overhead, supply chain, organic development, information technology, and the medical group enterprise are some of the areas where CHI works on performance improvement (Eastman, 2010). Efficiency, standardization of systems and procedures, cost and savings reductions, increased growth and income, and service consolidation were the objectives. Every year, CHI conducts internal benchmarking using financial data. It compares data from year to year using financial data as internal standards.
In conclusion, the Annual Report for CHI is extensive and in-depth. It appears to be missing a few aspects that might help them win a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The report includes financial information, business plans, and objectives. The study must address client relationship management, despite CHI’s desire to expand and see more patients. Nonetheless, it shows it actively upholds and hunts down opportunities for partnerships and acquisitions. CHI defines operational areas but, if it does so at all, just briefly describes how it designs or enhances each one. Distinct staff types and competencies do not break down the workforce’s demands; general totals characterize the force. Moreover, becoming a higher-performing company is one of CHI’s two main aims, but this goal is too nebulous. The health, safety, and security of its personnel were not mentioned in the study, nor were environmental considerations. Before applying for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, CHI might make better use of the Baldridge Criteria to keep assessing, improving, and focusing more on the customer’s needs.
References
Eastman, M. (2010). Baldrige by sector: health care. NIST. Web.
Msqpc.com. (2009). Organizational assessment – baldrige assessment – the quality center. Msqpc.com. Web.
Scott, L. (2013). About the Baldrige excellence framework (Health care). NIST. Web.