ASQ Offers Free Baldrige in Health Care Webinars

(ASQ: Milwaukee, WI) -- A new three-part webinar series—Journey to Excellence—spotlights nine health care organizations and their use of the Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence Criteria to drive organizational transformation. Based on the recently published book by Kathleen J. Goonan, MD; Joseph A. Muzikowski; and Patricia K. Stoltz, Journey to Excellence: How Baldrige Health Care Leaders Succeed, First Edition (ASQ Quality Press, 2009) the free series is offered via the web by the American Society for Quality (ASQ).

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is the nation’s highest honor for quality and performance excellence in the categories of health care, manufacturing, service, small business, education, and nonprofit organizations.

The first webinar, Journey to Excellence: Leadership, will take place Thursday, June 25 at 2 p.m. CST. Register to learn how Baldrige is being used to help organizations address the challenges facing health care today as well as how to identify the recognizable stages and common pitfalls in the journey to excellence using the Baldrige framework. Leaders from 2008 Baldrige Award-winning hospitals share their perspectives and learning about the Baldrige process.

Webinar presenters include:

• Kate Goonan, M.D., Executive Director, MGH Center for Performance Excellence
• Joe Muzikowski, Senior Consultant, MGH Center for Performance Excellence
• Rulon Stacey, President and CEO, Poudre Valley Health System
• Priscilla Nuwash, Director, Process Improvement, Poudre Valley Health System
• William Neff, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Poudre Valley Health System

Details regarding the second and third webinars in the series—Journey to Excellence: Assessment Process, Change Management and Spread of Improvement and Journey to Excellence:Clinical Process Improvement—will be announced soon at www.asq.org/journey

The book Journey to Excellence: How Baldrige Health Care Leaders Succeed is based on several years’ study of the nine Baldrige Award winners from health care. It describes how these organizations approached their "Baldrige journey" and what other health care leaders should do to reap similar benefits. It is published by ASQ and is available by visiting The ASQ Store.

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American Society for Quality ASQ

The American Society for Quality (ASQ) is a global community of people dedicated to quality who share the ideas and tools that make our world work better. With millions of individual and organizational members of the community in 150 countries, ASQ has the reputation and reach to bring together the diverse quality champions who are transforming the world’s corporations, organizations, and communities to meet tomorrow’s critical challenges. ASQ is headquartered in Milwaukee with national service centers in China, India, and Mexico. Learn more about ASQ’s members, mission, technologies, and training at http://asq.org/.