2017 Baldrige Award Site Visits Decided
Site visits will be conducted in late September 2017 and the awards presented in April 2018. Getting site visits will be seven health care organizations, three in education, two nonprofits, and two small businesses.
The Judges Panel for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award has selected 14 organizations that will proceed to Site Visit Review, the final stage of the evaluation process for the 2017 awards -- the highest U.S. award for organizational performance excellence. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) manages the program in cooperation with the private sector and funding from fees earned and financial support from the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Site visits will be conducted in late September 2017.
The judges reviewed scoring data from the first two stages of the evaluation process for the annual award. Names of the organizations selected for site visits are not revealed until the judges conclude all discussions and votes, to avoid potential conflicts of interest. The panel will reconvene in November to review findings about the site-visited organizations' performance and determine which to recommend to the secretary of Commerce to be named Baldrige Award recipients. Awardees will be honored at a ceremony during the 30th annual Quest for Excellence® Conference, April 8-11, 2018, in Baltimore.
The 24 applicants that were evaluated during the first two phases of the selection process for the 2017 award include 12 health care organizations, five educational organizations, four nonprofits, and three small businesses. Getting site visits will be seven health care organizations, three in education, two nonprofits, and two small businesses.
NIST reported that the site visit evaluation teams, composed of Baldrige examiners, will include experts in each sector. Teams will spend several days at their assigned organizations' sites, interviewing employees at all levels of the workforce to clarify and verify information submitted in the award applications. Applicants are evaluated by members of the independent board of examiners in seven areas defined by the 2017–2018 Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence: leadership; strategy; customers; measurement, analysis, and knowledge management; workforce; operations; and results. Baldrige examiners provide each applicant with 500 to 1,000 hours of review and a detailed report on the organization's strengths and opportunities for improvement.
For more information on the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program and the Baldrige Award, see www.nist.gov/baldrige.
The 2016 winners were announced in November 2016.