Campbell County Health just
submitted our first of several applications in the journey toward the
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. This award was established by Congress in 1987 and named after former
Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige in response to foreign competition
in product and process quality (some of you may remember when foreign
cars were of much higher quality than American made vehicles). This award
was extended to healthcare in 1988, recognizing only two healthcare organizations
in our region in the past nine years.
I’ve been asked by some of our staff who are weary of writing award
applications, why are we doing this AGAIN? We’ve been fortunate
to have had several important quality and safety awards in the past year or so:
You’ll see several other awards in our Fall 2017 Health Matters newsletter for our
Cardiology and Dialysis programs, and both the
hospital and
The Legacy have received quality excellence awards during this year's Wyoming
Quality Health Care Conference. We've received these awards because
everyone in the organization is working toward the same goal of Excellence
Every Day.
Those awards are tangible reflections of our work to improve our safety
and quality and I’m very proud of the many employees and providers
that had a part in making them happen. But I’m just not satisfied
with sitting on our laurels. One of the pillars on which we base our work
is Care, and we define that as the Constant Pursuit of Safety and Quality.
That means we are always striving to improve our care and processes so
we can take better care of our community.
Because the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program is so rigorous, I expect
it’s going to take us three to five years to get there. It will
challenge every aspect of the organization to improve performance and
examine our results internally and externally with a view for the future.
I’m excited for the journey, and will keep you informed of our progress
along the way.
Sincerely,
Andy Fitzgerald, CEO