Case Study Shows Large System Using Baldrige Criteria as Management Framework

A large, complex health system with multiple service lines—a fictitious Baldrige Award applicant—is the focus of the 2022 Baldrige case study that is now freely available for downloading. The Copansburg Regional Health System (CRHS) Case Study illustrates the practices of a large health care system using the 2021-2022 Baldrige Excellence Framework®: Proven leadership and management practices for high performance (Health Care) during a year when health care organizations are still reeling from the COVID pandemic, workforce shortages and burnout, and other challenges.

CRHS shows how one organization applied the Baldrige Health Care Criteria across seven key areas of its performance. The case study, which was used to virtually train the 2022 Baldrige examiners, can be used for learning by organizations in every sector on how they might use the Criteria questions to assess and improve their performance, even if they are not interested in applying for a Baldrige Award.

Baldrige master examiner Eric Fletcher led a team of other master examiners—Patricia Curtis (backup team leader), Marsha Chan, Patrice Griffith, Eric Malloy, Denise Haynes, Kay Kendall, and Geri Markley—to research and write the CRHS case study. With a vision to be among America’s best health systems, CRHS was created with service lines of cardiology, oncology, orthopedics, women’s and children’s, behavioral health/substance abuse, and neurology, with programming varying depending on hospital size, complexity, and local population needs. The writing team created processes for succession planning and development, best-practice sharing, representation of diversity, complaint management, feedback loops, dashboards, intelligent risks, and innovation. Reviewers Sarah Ball, Brenda Grant, Paul Grizzell, Glenn Hamamura, and Marlene Yanovsky provided guidance to the team.

A team of Baldrige master examiners (Patrice Griffith [team leader], Michael Drake, Kathleen Carrothers, Tom Field, Melanie Hatch, Jim McCorvey, Tamera Parsons, and Fonda Vera) evaluated the fictitious organization against the Criteria and created a Virtual Evaluation scorebook to be used in examiner training.

Baldrige case studies have at least three purposes.

• First, given that actual Baldrige Award applications remain confidential until award-winning organizations approve selected content for public sharing, the case studies are used to train examiners for the Baldrige Program's annual award process. 
• Second, the case studies serve as sample applications for organizations interested in applying for a Baldrige Award or in writing a whole or partial application as a self-assessment.
• Finally, case studies are used by Baldrige-based regional or state award programs that are members of the nonprofit Alliance for Performance Excellence, part of the Baldrige Program’s public-private partnership.

You can learn how CRHS scored in that assessment against the 2021–2022 Baldrige Excellence Framework® through a free, downloadable feedback report. The 2022 Copansburg Regional Health System Feedback Report (Word) shows the scorebook comments in the format of the reports received by actual organizations at the end of the evaluation process.

Beyond learning from best practices and other examples in this case study, organizations that wish to get started with Baldrige-based performance improvement can access sector-specific resources online at “Baldrige by Sector” and basic ideas for how to get started using the Baldrige framework. 

Since 1987, the Baldrige Program has produced case studies that describe how fictitious organizations are fulfilling the elements of the excellence framework and continually improving in challenging situations and economies. The case studies rotate sectors to show examples for a variety of organizations using the three versions of the Baldrige Excellence Framework®: Business/Nonprofit, Health Care, and Education.

Additional Baldrige case studies are available for free downloading in the Baldrige materials archive