Heartland Health Highlights And Results with Baldrige

Hi! I'm Dr. Mark Laney. I am the President and Chief Executive Officer of Heartland Health. We're here in St. Joseph, Missouri, and if you looked at a map of the United States, we're almost right in the center. We truly are in the heartland of America. We serve a city of about 75,000, but a regional area of about 300,000. We have 3,200 employees here at Heartland. We are very much committed to quality and safety, and we have a culture of deep caring for our patients - and are very much committed to their having a healing experience when they visit us here at Heartland. At Heartland, as in many other big, modern hospitals, you'll find gift shops and friendly information desks, a cafeteria, bright hallways and nurses' stations. But there is a difference, an important one: The care that Heartland Health provides starts way beyond the four walls of its Medical Center or its clinics. They think of it as an pyramid, and the care provided here represents only the visible top. At the top of the pyramid is the acute side of health care where we see patients in the clinic or see patients in the hospital. It's the traditional part of what most hospitals or health systems do. The middle of the pyramid is the things that we do to try and improve individuals' health - before they need to come to the hospital or have to come to the clinic. And at the bottom of the pyramid is the foundation. And that is the things that we do to improve the health of the entire community. It is here that Heartland Health reaches out to address factors such as poor education, poverty, and just plain stress, empowering people to build healthier, more livable communities. The Heartland Foundation was uniquely recognized by Colin Powell's "America's Promise" organization as the Nation's only "America's Promise Partner" for addressing all five youth health and behavior focus areas. But Heartland has another "secret weapon" ... its employees. What makes Heartland great is the people. By including them into the process, and by helping everyone understand where we're going and in getting focused, we've been able to move the entire organization along its path. But it's the people working with our patients and working with our other customers that make the difference. So I'll give the credit back to them because they're the ones doing the real work every day, and in making it happen. The organization goes out of its way to nurture its employees with on-the-job and other training programs, recognition and award offerings, and with continuous process improvement reviews that help them give their best when they perform their tasks. And in something called the "PAL Program", Heartland Health assigns leadership roles to pairs of physicians and administrators, to give equal weight to both perspectives and bring both viewpoints to bear on important decisions. So this is a strategy of pairing the best of the business world with the best of clinical leadership on every level of the organization to make sure that we're balancing the efficiency that we need with making sure that we meet the needs of the patient. Just consider these results: In 2009, Heartland Health was rated "Best in Value" for quality, affordability, efficiency, and patient satisfaction ... and was recognized as being in the top 0.5 percent nationally for its sustained level of performance in patient safety. This is only the beginning! If we stopped using all of our Baldrige skills and tools to achieve excellence, that would be a tragedy. So, the commitment to excellence never ends. It doesn't end with the Baldrige Award. We must have another mountain to climb. We must continue to get better ... and we're still committed to that ... and always will be!