Running head: Taylor Bowman 1

February 7, 2017
Baldrige Performance Excellence Essay

The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program

Howard Malcolm Baldrige Jr., also known as Malcolm Baldrige, was famous for

demonstrating leadership and caring about the idea of quality management. His central focus was

making sure administration and trade policy was carried out in an efficient manner. On

December 11, 1980, Baldrige was appointed for his position as the 26th Secretary of Commerce

of the United States by President Ronald Reagan, who was also a dear friend to Baldrige.

Baldrige was known as someone who had a vision, someone who was focused on improving

quality of administration throughout several organizations that were affiliated with education,

healthcare and even manufacturing. He eventually helped implement the United States Quality

Improvement Act of 1987, which was presented by President Reagan. According to authors

Batalden, Foster, Johnson and Nelson (2007), “The purpose of this competitive award

programme is to improve quality and productivity in the USA by establishing guidelines and

criteria that can be used by organizations to evaluate their own quality improvement efforts”

(Overview of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Section, para. 1). Overall, this

particular act was put into action to improve the quality of life throughout businesses affiliated

with management and was used to ensure these organizations were committed to providing

exceptional service through dedication and leadership, with an extensive amount of knowledge

of the field.

Throughout the United States, health care organizations are always looking for numerous

ways to improve quality of life, service and safety. Based on the Baldrige Award, organizations
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Baldrige Performance Excellence Essay

are judged in several areas in making sure their service is exceptional. Authors Izadi, Kashef and

Stadt discuss the seven principles known as (1996), “Leadership, Information Analysis, Strategic

Quality Planning, Human Resource Development and Management, Management of Process

Quality, Quality and Operational Results, Customer Focus and Satisfaction” (The Baldrige

Award, para. 2). Implementing these principles amongst several businesses, healthcare practices

and educational settings with the goals of providing excellent customer satisfaction will increase

their chances of becoming more successful within their organization overall. Baldrige’s Quality

Improvement Act is not only effective with providing exceptional service to customers and

satisfying their needs, but also within the practice in making sure their efforts lead to positive

outcomes.

When healthcare organizations improve their quality of service and exceed in their

performances, this means an increase in patient satisfaction, positive outcomes in clinical care as

well as patients developing a sense of connection and trust with medical personnel. This is

important simply because patients end up having a positive experience in the facility they’ve

went to. They will receive the best quality care, understanding medical physicians and feel a

sense of security. Foster provides a very detailed description, along with accurate data on how

Baldrige hospitals were able to outperform their peers. According to Foster’s lag time analysis,

“Baldrige hospitals over a five year performance span were 83 percent more likely to be awarded

in the 100 Top Hospitals compared to their non-Baldrige peers with a percentage of 3.35”

(Foster, 2011, Associations Between Baldrige and 100 Top Hospitals Awards: Detailed Results,

para. 2). Baldrige hospitals clearly reveal they are highly rated with providing exceptional

service and demonstrating better performance, unlike a non-Baldrige hospital.

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Baldrige Performance Excellence Essay

I was able to research a Baldrige winning organization within the health care sector and

my results led to locating the Charleston Area Medical Center. Located in Charleston, West

Virginia, this medical center system worked accordingly to provide the best medical care

unimaginable. They implemented Baldrige’s strategies to success and distributed extraordinary

clinical care to all of their patients. They do mention that they did take a holistic approach to

examining the individuals that came into their practice, which means concluding facts and

gathering data about the patient’s physical, mental and emotional health overall. They pretty

much took an approach to care for the person’s entire body, even when it wasn’t necessary. The

challenges were present though, seeing that it did take a course of ten years to get to where they

are today but it has allowed them to improve their practice comprehensively in making sure they

supplied the best patient care ever. According to the president and CEO, David Ramsey, Asplund

recorded his responses that simply stated, “We are key to the community, the economy, the

business climate, the workforce, and more. We just feel the absolute responsibility to be the best

we can be” (Asplund, 2016, para. 2). Their system integrated several goals to improve their

quality of health care and made sure they kept their focus on customer satisfaction, being their

number one, top priority. Based on their strategies and goals on making sure their medical center

was a success, I will definitely say they followed Baldrige’s principles in making sure quality of

care was achieved.

Overall, doing research on Baldrige’s Quality Improvement Act and understanding why

he implemented this in the first place goes to show that it was in fact, a success. Even almost

forty years later down the road, health care practices and businesses are still utilizing these
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Baldrige Performance Excellence Essay

fundamental strategies in achieving their goals and striving for success with his principles of

leadership and quality of management.

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Baldrige Performance Excellence Essay

References

Asplund, J. (2016) Baldrige Award Winner uses Holistic Approach. Hospitals & Health

Networks. http://www.hhnmag.com/articles/6866-baldrige-award-winner-uses-holistic-

approach

Batalden, P.B. (2007). Using a Malcolm Baldrige framework to understand high-performing

clinical microsystems. Quality and Safety in Healthcare. Retrieved from:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2464977/#ref3

Foster, D.A. (2011). Comparison Of Baldrige Award Applicants and Recipients With Peer

Hospitals on a National Balanced ScoreCard. Center for HealthCare Analytics, Retrieved

from https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/baldrige/baldrige-hospital-

research-paper.pdf

Izadi, M., Kashef, A.E., Stadt, R.W. (1996). Quality in Higher Education: Lessons Learned from

the Baldrige Award, Deming Prize, and ISO 9000 Registration. Journal of Industrial

Teacher Education. https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v33n2/izadi.html