Journey to Excellence: How Baldrige Health Care Leaders Succeed

The book was a clear and concise evaluation of how Baldbridge process works and how organizations use the award process. The book can be applied to any type of organization including education.

Good overview.

The premise of this book, as stated in the foreword, is that although there may be no magic bullets, there are rational approaches that achieve results. The Baldridge approach that Dr. Goonan and her co-authors elucidate provides guidance and checklists to embark and persist on the iterative journey of improvement based on the LASER framework:- Leadership consists of 3 steps: recognizing that fundamental change is necessary to achieve one's vision, welcoming objective evaluation and "brutal facts" feedback, and commiting to build a culture based on organizational learning and improvement- Assessment reflects the decision to systematically evaluate processes and practices to view the organization from the perspective of patients and families- Sensemaking describes the critical role leaders play in interpreting and explaining disruptive marketplace changes and framing what is required for successful healthcare delivery- Execution refers to the focused action necessary to achieve results, which includes: formalizing informal processes, setting priorities, discontinuing unproductive activities, establishing accountability with action plans, and integrating the Baldridge process into strategic and operational planning- Results includes strong performance on a comprehensive set of measures important to patients, stakeholders, and markets; beneficial trends over time relating to the organization's mission; key results that show good-to- excellent relative performance on benchmarks; alignment with organizational strategiesOn page 102, the authors quote Karl Weick, who introduced the concept of sensemaking by writing, "What is good for sensemaking is a good story." I like this concept because it underscores the cyclical journey of improvement including assessment, interpreting feedback, learning, and implementing improvements. The discipline of being committed to a continuous process allows an organization's members to dive deeper into making sense of disruptive changes, using candid feedback to improve clinical and financial processes and outcomes.Sensemaking leads people to go beyond narrow silos to focus on processes that they need to perform well to achieve desired outcomes. It begins with answering questions and addressing inconsistencies. The authors cited an example of Sister Mary Jean Ryan, CEO of SSM Health Care, regarding a disconnect evaluators noted: "You say that human resources are your most important asset, but you don't cover them in your strategic plan."Once she became aware of her organization's failure to link its vision and values with strategy development and human resource management, she was able to lead her team to breakthrough performance. In short, sensemaking drives organizational maturity because it fosters system thinking (rather than finger-pointing and blamestorming) and facilitates team learning and collaboration.This is a great book for any healthcare leader serious about facilitating a lasting culture of improvement at his or her organization.Kenneth H. Cohn, M.D., MBA, author of Better Communication for Better Care: Mastering Physician-Administration Collaboration and Collaborate for Success! Breakthrough Strategies for Engaging Physicians, Nurses, and Hospital Executives, [...]

Dr. Goonan and her colleagues take readers through the 'Journey to Excellence' as demonstrated by nine Baldrige award winners in the healthcare industry during relatively calm waters. It will no longer be an option but a necessity for survival in the "Perfect Storm" of events; rising healthcare costs, aging population, more stringent regulations and so forth. The LASER model outlined in the book provides a proven, no nonsense approach to successfully undergoing the journey to healthcare excellence. As a physicist, I have a great appreciation for the LASER model since it is symbolic of both the light that guides an organization to the point of performance excellence as well as the analogy between the fundamental processes that make a laser work and the actual journey of healthcare excellence itself. Just as a laser is a system that transforms light, similar to that emitted from a simple flashbulb camera, into an monochromatic (single wavelength), coherent (organized), directional (highly focused) beam by "pumping up" (motivating) a lasing medium to an excited state, the LASER model can be the catalyst for an organizational transformation by providing the framework for getting an entire organization focused and motivated on the single purpose of achieving excellence.- David Marshall, Lean Six Sigma Healthcare Consultant

The healthcare delivery system is embarking on a time of great change. We must continue to improve, both in the areas of clinical quality and safety and operational efficiency. In recent years, healthcare has begun to adopt and integrate the value capture tools of industry such as Lean and Six Sigma. Now, as healthcare systems continue to evolve, and in fact are increasingly viewed as a commodity, the processes of value creation must be integrated to form coherent, comprehensive strategies to produce superior experiences for patients, staff, and physicians. Dr. Goonan and her team have expertly outlined the framework required to build your healthcare organization into an institution built upon quality and provider engagement. While many publications address theoretical constructs of quality and performance, Dr. Goonan has created a work based upon the application of the Baldrige principles, with real-life experiences and examples from healthcare's Baldrige award winners, making this a must-read for forward-thinking executives (healthcare and otherwise) who wish to attain systematic excellence within their organization. This book should also be required reading for MHA and MBA programs who wish to produce the next generation of high performance, high results leaders.