The First Healthcare Sustainability Scorecard for Suppliers

In “Kaiser Permanent Launches Health Care Industry’s First Sustainability Scorecard,” by Ariel Schwartz (May 4, 2010), Fast Company shows us the scorecard’s SKU-level questions that suppliers must answer:

1. NICU product?
2. PICU product?
3. Latex-free?
4. Lead, Mercury, Hexavalent chromium, Polybrominated biphenyls, Polyborminated diphenyl ether, <1,000ppm or Cadmium <100ppm
5. Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)-free?
6. Diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP)-free?
7. California Prop 65 Chemical <threshold or warning level
8. Product – Contain more than 10% post-consumer recycled content?
9. Primary Packaging – Contain more than 5% post-consumer recycled content?
10. Secondary packaging – Contain more than 30% post-consumer recycled content?
11. Product – Designed for multi-use (i.e., not a single-use device)?
12. Manufacturer’s product code for environmentally preferable alternative

The desired answer for questions 3 through 11 is “yes.”

Kaiser Permanente claims that, if all things are equal between competing suppliers, the scorecard will be the deciding factor.

The article provides an example, courtesy of Robert Gotto, executive director in Kaiser’s Procurement & Supply group:

“One contract we went through last year was for a rigid endoscope provider. We evaluated the four major players and found that clinical performance and pricing were comparable, but there were big differences in terms of sustainability performance. One supplier had the foresight to develop a camera that doesn’t need to be sterilized with chemicals. It uses steam instead, and we can cut down chemicals in…

Know Thyself — and Act Accordingly

“We live in a conversation driven world,” writes Paul Worthington for Fast Company online. “Even if your brand is not an active user of social media, your customers and potential customers are.” He warns that “a brand that generates little or no conversation will be killed by one that does.”

According to Worthington, successful brands like Apple, Amazon, and Nike have three traits in common:

• Long term consistency of purpose. They know who they are and what they value and “everyone within that organization makes decisions that are consistent with this purpose.”

• Innovation as a core competence–and their innovations are true to the purpose of their organization and brand.

• Culture as decision making filter. Employees make their decisions based on what is right for the brand.

From a Baldrige perspective, these three traits are evidence of the alignment that high-performing organizations achieve. I’ve worked with five Baldrige Award winners and they all know who they are. They face challenges, consider opportunities, make decisions, and invest resources based on the mission, vision, values, and goals of their organizations. They know when something fits and when it doesn’t, and they act accordingly.

You find evidence of their purpose in their strategic plans and performance measurement systems, which are two…