Greatness is not something you can achieve easily, but Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano has. They became the first hospital in Texas to ever win the coveted Malcom Bridge Award in 2013, making history. One of the three groups that were chosen to receive the awards was this one. These companies were chosen after a thorough assessment using the Baldrige criteria by a board of independent examiners.
In that specific year, Penny Pritzker, the secretary of commerce, praised the winners for their creative business models. They described the company as having strong financial performance, excellent customer and staff satisfaction, and dynamic management. This was one company that had a solid commitment to their excellence and proven results. They have also maintained the legacy of serving as role model of their peers.
Baylor Plano was opened in 2004 in North Texas as component of the Baylor health care system that recently merged. The facility is a 160 bed acute care hospital that is consistently performing in the top 10% of hospitals in the country. During the award year, the hospital ended its fiscal year with 19.7 rating of core measures. President of Baylor at Plano, Jerri Garison was very delighted that her hospital had won the award. He then explained how the initially begun Baldrige journey on how to achieve performance excellence and implement best practices that help hospitals to improve. She emphasizes that their aim was not to win the awards.
Following practices set by Baldrige Awards, Baylor Plano was obliged to remodel its systems in order to reduce readmissions and increase cost avoidance. The facility participated in two performance improvement projects at Baylor so as to epitomize the success of the hospital in analytical humanitarian standpoints in such areas (Michael, 2). Some of these projects enabled the hospital to reduce pharmacy and laboratory charges that totalled more than $ 256,000.
Their participation in such projects (Project Reengineering discharge) together with Boston University and the Texas Hospital helped in aligning strategies of reengineering hospital discharge process thus reducing the readmission rates falling within 30 days for elderly patients with heart failure. Throughout the trial of six months, there was a considerable decrease in readmission rate with 44.7%. Implementation of proactive systems was done in ensuring that the care for patients is ongoing even after the discharge from the hospital (Charisty, 2). The care is provided through scheduled follow ups and educating the patients especially on drugs that need and those that need not to be taken.
Garison who is also a former nurse related the practices of Baldrige to be process that is outcome oriented. He says that using systematic processes and focusing in clinical data fits so well in nursing as nobody leaves the hospital with health complications. Thus, he recommended an improvement process to curb the problem of discharging patients with complications (Charisty, 5). Baylor Plano modelled itself past the Baldrige winners through using a lean method of increasing efficiency and waste reduction. All these were done without altering the quality of care provided.
Baldrige encourages such organizations to learn from their best practices among engines powering the economic strength in the economy of America. The three engines include education, healthcare and business. Accessing affordable and high quality care is vital to individual well-being within the country. Baldrige therefore help these organizations to improve their quality of care at reduced costs.
Works cited
Charisty L. Harris. Physical Therapy- driven quality improvement to promote early
mobility in the intensive care unit. Ncbi, July. 2014, https//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articls/PMC4059563/ Accessed 10 Sep. 2017
Michael E. Newman. The U.S. Organizations Honored with the 2013 Baldrige
National Quality Award.Nist, Nov. 2013, https//www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2013/11/three-us-organizations-honored-2013-aldrige-national-qualityaward. Accessesd on 10 Sep. 2017
