OLYMPIA—Leadership from the Department of Social and Health Services’ Behavioral Health Administration and Western State Hospital will accept the Achievement Level Award for the regional Baldrige Program during the Performance Excellence Northwest’s annual Learning Symposium, Tuesday, Sept. 17.
“This award signifies that Western’s leadership has taken the steps necessary to dig into every process, committee, organizational chart and department throughout the facility to ensure total quality management principles of continuous improvement, and process improvements are being followed,” explained Sean Murphy, assistant secretary for DSHS’ Behavioral Health Administration.
Performance Excellence Northwest is the regional Baldrige program serving organizations across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska. Each year, organizations apply the Baldrige framework within their establishments to evaluate their systems and make improvements. The process has four levels of awards: Commitment, Achievement, Leadership and Excellence. Hospital staff submitted a 55-page application, which compared Western’s performance against the Baldrige framework.
The award recognizes Western State Hospital’s demonstrated progress towards excellence and implementing processes for continuous improvement principles as defined by the Baldrige Excellence Framework. Because Performance Excellence Northwest is not making any leadership or excellence level awards, the hospital is receiving the highest award of the day.
“Receiving the achievement level award is a great honor,” said Western State Hospital CEO Dave Holt. “And we humbly acknowledge we have a long, long way to go. Our ultimate goal is to use the Baldrige process to excel beyond any minimum requirements and achieve a total quality management system that makes Western second to none in psychiatric care.”
###