Benefits of the Baldrige Framework in U.S. Health Care: A Summary of Recent News

Benefits of using the Baldrige Excellence Framework in U.S. health care organizations are well established. Recent news stories and other publications and media continue to highlight the value of the Baldrige framework (which includes the Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence) for U.S. health care. Following are several examples:

• An Alabama-based nonprofit dedicated to improving health care quality is using the Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence to enhance its work as part of a federally funded initiative to improve the quality of care for people residing in long-term care facilities in the state. The nonprofit, AQAF, is leading a quality improvement initiative to benefit 23 nursing homes in Alabama, and it recently received an additional four years of funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to intensify and extend the work to an additional 23 Alabama nursing homes. AQAF is one of only six organizations in the United States to receive the competitive CMS funding. AQAF is using the Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence as a conceptual framework for the nursing home leadership training series that it launched in January 2016.
• A recent episode of PBS's News Hour highlights the continuous focus on improving patient care by Hill Country Memorial, a 2014 Baldrige Award recipient located in Fredericksburg, Texas.
• In its first quarterly issue of 2016, the Focus newsletter of the American College of Medical Quality features Charleston Area Medical Center Health System (CAMCHS), the newest Baldrige Award recipient in health care.
• A recent newsletter of the American Hospital Association also highlights the achievements of the 2015 Baldrige Award-winning CAMCHS.
• FierceHealthcare recently summarized findings of a new report from the National Patient Safety Foundation on the beneficial impact of the Baldrige framework for patient safety in U.S. health care organizations.
• The current issue of Medical Lab Management (April 2016) features an article, "Benefiting the Lab with Baldrige" by Jennifer Dawson, that encourages medical labs to use the Baldrige framework as a management resource.

These developments follow a series of beneficial reports and research findings in recent years in regard to the Baldrige framework and related practices, including these:

• A 2015 study published in Quality Management Journal, a peer-reviewed publication of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), found that Baldrige Award recipient hospitals provided a superior patient experience, compared to their local competitors, while also matching or exceeding their competitors' results on measures of health care quality.
• The Fall 2015 issue of Frontiers of Health Services Management, a publication of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), featured accounts and commentary by leaders of several U.S. health care organizations affirming that the Baldrige framework helped them achieve the national role-model practices and performance levels they demonstrated in order to earn the Baldrige Award. ACHE has granted permission for the Baldrige Program to share this issue on its website (PDF).
• A 2012 report by Truven Health Analytics linked hospitals that adopt and use the Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence to successful operations, management practices, and overall performance.
• A 2011 study, also by Truven Health Analytics (then known as the health care business of Thomson Reuters), found that hospitals that had won the Baldrige Award or progressed to the site visit stage of the Baldrige Award process outperformed other hospitals in nearly every metric used to determine the "100 Top Hospitals" identified by the prominent health care survey research and data analysis organization.

The Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence, part of the Baldrige Excellence Framework, are revised every two years by the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. Copies of the 2015–2016 Baldrige Excellence Framework (Health Care), which includes the Health Care Criteria, are available for purchase on the Baldrige Program website.

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