Contact:
Christel Henke
414-332-2933
chenke@hansondodge.com

For Immediate Release

ASQ Healthcare Division Launches Scholarship

Postsecondary Students Invited to Submit Essay

Milwaukee, Wis., December 15, 2008 – The Healthcare Division of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) has created a $2,000 Nightingale Scholarship to be awarded annually to one outstanding postsecondary student who is pursuing studies related to healthcare quality. The first scholarship recipient will be announced at the Quality Institute for Healthcare, May 18-20, 2009, in Minneapolis, Minn.

The scholarship is named in honor of Florence Nightingale, the initiator of the nursing profession who also pioneered healthcare statistics and promoted quality reforms in hygienic hospital care.

The competition is open to any student enrolled in an accredited postsecondary institution who is nominated by a member of the ASQ Healthcare Division and who is pursuing studies related to healthcare quality. The student need not be an ASQ member at the time of application.

Candidates must submit an essay on the topic of Quality in Healthcare: Reducing Adverse Outcomes, Costs, or Both While Improving Quality of Care. (Note that settings in which healthcare is delivered can include primary care, clinics, hospitals, diagnostics centers, laboratories, patient or public health education, etc.)

Other submission criteria include:

• Three letters of recommendation
• Transcripts of current enrollment and level of progress in an accredited postsecondary institution
• A cover letter outlining the nature of any related work experience, professional society involvement, current program of study and areas of interest in healthcare quality as well as future career plans.

For more information and eligibility requirements, please visit http://www.asq.org/health/scholarship/index.html.

Entries are due no later than January 31, 2009, and should be mailed in one envelope to Community Development, Attention: HCD Scholarship Committee, American Society for Quality, 600 N. Plankinton Ave., Milwaukee, Wis. 53201-3005.

The American Society for Quality, www.asq.org, has been the world’s leading authority on quality for more than 60 years. With more than 90,000 individual and organizational members, the professional association advances learning, quality improvement and knowledge exchange to improve business results and to create better workplaces and communities worldwide. As champion of the quality movement, ASQ offers technologies, concepts, tools and training to quality professionals, quality practitioners and everyday consumers, encouraging all to Make Good Great®. ASQ has been the sole administrator of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award since 1991. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., ASQ is a founding partner of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a prominent quarterly economic indicator, and also produces the Quarterly Quality Report.