Leveraging Baldrige at AtlantiCare

As explained in the textbook, AtlantiCare identified 4 areas and 9 challenges distributed

in these areas. For the purpose of this assignment, these areas and challenges are labeled
with a number or letter to easily reference them. The areas and challenges, as explained
by Evans and Lindsay (2015), are as follows:
I. Healthcare delivery
a. Engaging physicians in new models of collaboration and
partnerships.
b. Creating sustainable growth outside of the service area.
c. Identifying and prioritizing healthcare service opportunities for
investment and recruitment.
II. Health engagement
a. Developing new business and care models to support and grow
primary care.
b. Identifying and improving critical success factors for community
health and wellness.
III. Health information
a. Increasing quality of care through clinical communication and
transparency.
b. Using technology to improve patient safety and clinical quality.
IV. Operational
a. Recruiting, training, and retaining a highly skilled workforce.
b. Succeeding in an environment of decreasing reimbursement and
access to capital, and a growing uninsured population. (p. 548)
The Baldrige Criteria includes 7 criteria, which are as follows: (I) Leadership, (II)
Strategy, (III) Customers, (IV) Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management,
(V) Workforce, (VI) Operations, and (VII) Results (Baldrige Program, 2019). The
purpose of these criteria is to provide organizations a guide to improve their
performance. Following, the relationship between the challenges and the criteria is
explained.
1. How might the different categories of the Baldrige Criteria relate to the
strategic challenges that AtlantiCare faced? Specifically, clearly explain how
effective approaches of the questions in the criteria will help address these
challenges.
i. Leadership: As the name implies, this category is about how senior
leaders contribute to the achievement of organizational goals, making
the organization sustainable over time. The challenge of Healthcare
Delivery (I) goes in hand with this criterion because they refer to
creating partnerships, sustainable growth, and identifying opportunities.
The questions that relate to this challenge are:
 How do your senior leaders lead the organization? (Baldrige
Program, 2019)
 How do you govern your organization and make societal
contributions? (Baldrige Program, 2019)
 ii. Strategy: The questions in this criterion are:
 How do you develop strategy? (Baldrige Program, 2019)
 How do you implement your strategy? (Baldrige Program,
2019)
As it can be understood by the questions, this criterion is about how the
strategic planning and action plans of an organization are built. This is
related to AtlantiCare’s challenges (I.c), (II.a), and (II.b).
iii. Customers: This criterion is about how organizations communicate with
(listen and talk to) their customers. This communication is about
obtaining information from customers to meet their needs better, and
assess and improve their level of satisfaction. The questions are:
 How do you listen to your customers and determine products
and services to meet their needs? (Baldrige Program, 2019)
 How do you build relationships with customers and determine
satisfaction and engagement? (Baldrige Program, 2019)
These questions relate to challenges (II) and (III).
iv. Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management: This criterion is
about how organization makes use of data for measuring performance.
It also focuses on the management of information and knowledge
within the organization. The questions in this criterion are:
 How do you measure, analyze, and then improve organizational
performance? (Baldrige Program, 2019)
 How do you manage your information and organizational
knowledge assets? (Baldrige Program, 2019)
These questions are related to the challenges in area (III).
v. Workforce: This criterion is about how an organization manages to
promote a sustainable work environment. It includes elements, such as
hiring, promotion, performance, engagement, and so on. The questions
in this criterion are:
 How do you build an effective and supportive workforce
environment? (Baldrige Program, 2019)
 How do you engage your workforce for retention and high
performance? (Baldrige Program, 2019)
This criterion is related with challenge (IV.a).
vi. Operations: This criterion is about the ability of organization to manage
their process in order to provide their customers with better products
and/or services. Questions regarding this criterion are:
 How do you design, manage, and improve your key products
and work processes? (Baldrige Program, 2019)
 How do you ensure effective management of operations?
These questions are related to challenges (III.a), (III.b), (IV.a), and
(IV.b).
vii. Results: This criterion’s questions are about performance results in
different areas of the organization (Baldrige Program, 2019). This
 criterion encompasses all the areas with all their challenges because this
criterion provides an overall view of the key areas within an
organization.
2. What lessons can other organizations learn from AtlantiCare’s experience?
Other organizations can learn from AtlantiCare’s case four main things. First,
they can learn that quality is not a job that is done from one day to another.
AtlantiCare did not win Baldrige award on their first attempt; instead, they
failed their first attempt and had to change their operation to perform better. It
took hard work to win the Baldrige awards, but it is worth the effort in terms of
performance. Second, every change requires identification of a need (problem
or challenge) and further planning that leads to effective actions towards the
change. Third, quality management requires a comprehensive view (systems
view) of the problem, planning, and action. Fourth, Baldrige shared relevant
information to other organizations that wanted to pursue the road to
performance excellence.
References
Baldrige Program. (2019). Baldrige Excellence Builder. National Institute of
Standards and Technology.
Evans, J. R., & Lindsay, W. M. (2015), Managing for Quality and Performance
Excellence, Cengage.