The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recognizes excellence in organizational strategies and results for manufacturers, service companies, small businesses, education and health care organizations, nonprofits, and government agencies. Way back in the 1990s, the Council on Competitiveness said, "More than any other program... (it's) responsible for making quality a national priority and disseminating best practices across the United States." Sounds like we should pay attention.

Five organizations recently received the Baldrige Award from President Bush and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, including two health care systems. One is the Mercy Health System, which is a fully-integrated, three-hospital system serving southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

Guided by their mission to provide "exceptional health services, resulting in healing in the broadest sense," Mercy operates according to its Culture of Excellence Four Pillars: quality, service, partnering, and cost.

Mercy calls their 4,000 employees "partners," and that includes 285 physicians who make up most of their medical staff. When hired, partners are asked to commit to the system's mission, participate in performance improvement efforts, and create a professional growth plan. In addition to paying off with low staff turnover, Mercy is listed as one of the top places to work by both AARP and Working Mother magazine.

With regard to quality, the Department of Commerce says, "Best-practice benchmarks are used (by Mercy) to measure clinical care and ensure continuous improvement and patient safety." It shows: Mercy has among the lowest risk-adjusted mortality rates in the United States, including a very low rate for pneumonia deaths. What's more, they have an electronic network that allows clinicians across the system to view patients' visit history, images, orders, and test results at the point of care.

Mercy's service pillar is exemplified by their "Take the LEAD" program, which encourages partners to turn negative patient experiences into positive ones: Listen to the customer; Empathize with the customer; Accept their perspective, Apologize, Acknowledge concern and take Action to recover; Direct to the person able to recover the situation, and Document the occurrence.

Regarding cost, Mercy encourages partners to identify ideas for growing revenue, decreasing expenses and waste, and increasing productivity and effectiveness. Their A2 bond rating has remained stable since 1996, a sign of competent financial management.

More on Mercy here and here.

I'll post next week on the other Baldrige health care winner, Sharp HealthCare, San Diego's largest integrated delivery system.