Opening Statement of

 Rich Hastings
President & CEO
St. Luke’s Health System, Kansas City, Missouri

 ASQ Health Care Panel
For the 21 st Century Health Care Caucus
Washington, D.C.
April 26, 2006

My name is Rich Hastings, and I am the President and CEO of Saint Luke’s Health System, an 11-hospital health system located in Kansas City, Missouri, and the surrounding region.

I want to thank the American Society for Quality and the Health Care Caucus for giving me the opportunity to discuss Saint Luke’s use of the Baldrige Management Model to create a discipline of organizational performance excellence and an environment of patient-focused care and safety.

In the early 1990s, Saint Luke’s Hospital (which at the time was recognized as the preferred provider in Kansas City ) wanted to increase its focus on improving overall care and patient safety. We tried a number of management models such as quality circles, total quality management, and patient-focused work redesign (re-engineering). These efforts, although helpful, did not create the organizational environment that we believed was necessary to build a world-class health care organization.

In 1995, working with the state quality award program (MQA), we began the process of implementing the Baldrige management model into Saint Luke’s Hospital, which is the flagship hospital of Saint Luke’s Health System. We believe that you cannot achieve consistently good patient outcomes and high levels of patient safety without first building the organizational infrastructure and discipline that will support safe and focused patient care. This process begins with the Baldrige Model’s leadership triad of visionary leadership, long-term strategic planning, and a relentless focus on patients and customers. Without this leadership approach and focus, one cannot set organizational direction, achieve sustainable organizational results, and create a safe patient environment.

However, achieving good results and providing for safety depends on two other Baldrige organizational approaches. They are the creation of a high-performing, educated workforce aligned with the strategy and culture of the organization, and the ability of the workforce to consistently, and repetitively, perform process tasks without error or rework. Underpinning all of this is the need to measure performance, manage knowledge, and communicate information in a seamless and rapid fashion. This requires the creation of a technological infrastructure that will support all of the organization’s needs. Measuring performance, analyzing results and managing information is the foundation for an effective performance management system. It is through the use of these principles, embedded in the Baldrige criteria, that we are able to create an environment that supports high performance and fosters patient safety.

Since 1995, Saint Luke’s Hospital has been the recipient of the Missouri Quality Award (a Baldrige state award program) three times. We are the only organization in the state of Missouri to ever achieve this level of performance. In addition, we had the honor of being selected as one of the 2003 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipients in the health care sector. Additionally, since 2003, Saint Luke’s has received several prestigious honors, including:

• The President’s Award of Honor from VHA, a 2,000+ member hospital organization, for achieving superior performance in operational and clinical outcomes
  
• Recognition with the Consumer Choice Award for most preferred hospital in the Kansas City market—an honor Saint Luke’s Hospital has received every year the award has been presented
  
• Being named one of the top 100 cardiovascular hospitals in the nation
  
• Earning Magnet nursing designation, which has been achieved by only 250 hospitals in the country
  
• Recognition as ranking in the top 5% of all U.S. hospitals for our results in patient safety

We believe we could not have achieved these performance results over the past 12 years without the systematic use and organizational deployment of the Baldrige management model. Thank you for your attention, and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

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