As a student of the Baldrige model, I am always attracted to a diagram, a “grand unifying system,” that shows how an organization aligns and integrates everything it does with its vision and mission. The latest example of such a diagram is Heartland Health’s Organizational Architecture (HH OA), which is shown below.

Heartland Health received the Baldrige Award in 2009. You can read its entire award application summary here. It is based in St. Joseph, Missouri, and employs more than 3,200 caregivers. Heartland Health is ranked in the top 15% of hospitals nationally for patient safety and is a leader in patient satisfaction. Using Six Sigma methods, it has saved more than $25 million as a result of process improvements.

The HH OA shows how many of the key elements in the Baldrige model work together to help Heartland Health achieve its vision and mission. Information from the Voice of the Customer (Category 3 in the Baldrige Criteria) feeds the strategic planning process (Category 2), as do strategic business assessments based on performance results (Category 7) and senior leadership reviews (“Manage and Improve,” Category 1). The strategic plan is deployed through the management model, which is aligned with the first six categories of the Baldrige model. The Process Model identifies Heartland Health’s key work processes (Category 6), each of which has a Process Scorecard for each service and product line and Performance Scorecard that feed the organization’s Balanced Scorecard. All scorecards and the data they capture are managed by the performance measurement system (Category 4).

The attraction of diagrams such as this is that they demonstrate how the system defined by the Baldrige Criteria can help an actual organization achieve its goals. Hypothetically, the Baldrige model addresses all of the key elements necessary for an organization to function and to achieve world-class results. The HH OA validates the hypothesis.

To read more about the best practices of Baldrige Award winners, click on these articles:

• “America Needs Baldrige”
• Summaries of 2009 Baldrige Award Winners Now Available
• First Steps on the Baldrige Journey
• When Is Your Management System a Competitive Advantage?
• 10 Critical Questions: Results

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