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A health organization in New Zealand hands in its standard accreditations for a more strenuous criteria program.

This is a very interesting case study in which Spectrum Care in New Zealand decided to trade in their standard accreditation for a performance-based model.  Being a government funded organizations, Spectrum had certifications that they were required to keep and accreditations that they achieved voluntarily to show a standard of excellence.  They consistently achieved the maximum three-year certification for the voluntary accreditation.  After evaluation the accreditation, Spectrum felt it only assessed the health and hospital side of things.  The organization wanted something more strenuous that really assessed how they managed their business.

After some consideration, Spectrum handed in their accreditation certificate and went for the New Zealand Business Excellence Criteria.  This is closely aligned with the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence.  This Criteria accreditation assesses seven organizational elements including leadership, strategic planning, business results, process analysis, etc.  This gives a better overall evaluation of the business and goes further than just assessing what they do.  This evaluation system assesses how they manage and plan for what they do, how they manage the people and the information, and their customers.  See, a company can be good at turning out widgets, but they could be even better if they assessed these seven other elements.

After working towards the Baldrige-based criteria, Spectrum decided to apply for the New Zealand Business Excellence Award.  The organization received the Silver Award after evaluation and said their obvious next step is to go for the gold.

I love organizations that look for improvement.  Spectrum was doing great but looked at the system that said they were doing great and decided they could do better.  Once they achieved better, they knew there was still a higher level and strived to achieve that.  There’s always, always room for improvement.

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