(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- Several recent articles in national journals support the validity of the Baldrige approach across several sectors, including healthcare and manufacturing.

First, “Understanding High-Reliability Organizations: Are Baldrige Recipients Models?”  which was published in The Journal of Healthcare Management of the American College of Healthcare Executives, asks, “Is the Baldrige model a platform for achieving high reliability?” Author John R. Griffith analyzed the outcomes of Baldrige Award recipients in the healthcare sector to determine if, by applying the Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence, they have become high-reliability organizations—i.e., those that seek zero defects in quality outcomes.

With some exceptions, Griffith looked at the outcomes data of the 15 healthcare-sector award recipients to date that applied for the Baldrige Award as individual hospitals, the seven healthcare recipients that applied as systems, and all hospitals within those systems, across several measures.

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