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A Malcolm Baldrige Award Winner

We're grateful to be a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. And we're also grateful for what we learned along the way-from our partner organizations and from the process itself.

Our Baldrige journey helped us sharpen and streamline many of our processes. It also confirmed the effectiveness of Evidence-Based LeadershipSM (EBL), the execution framework Studer Group lives by and shares with our partner organizations. EBL is a prescriptive model that closely aligns with many of the non-prescriptive Baldrige criteria-and it's what allowed us to respond to the principles that shape the journey.

We've partnered with some of the top healthcare organizations across the U.S. and beyond. In fact, we have worked with eleven of the twenty-three healthcare recipients of the Baldrige Award-and have Studer performance experts on our team who have worked with several of the remaining recipients.

Our Application

Download the Studer Group Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Application.

Voices of Experience to Guide You on Your Baldrige Journey

As a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, Studer Group is grateful for the opportunity to share our insights with others. We are an outcomes-based firm that coaches healthcare organizations on how to achieve, sustain, and accelerate exceptional clinical, operational, and financial results.

In addition to our hands-on coaching, our national speakers and senior leaders fulfill more than 500 speaking engagements each year. Several of our national speakers are available to offer guidance to healthcare organizations that are on their Baldrige journeys.

These speakers have a wealth of firsthand experience in helping healthcare organizations achieve the performance levels necessary to receive the Baldrige Award. They are pleased to speak on a variety of topics, including:

  • Utilizing Studer Group's Evidence-Based LeadershipSM Framework to Accelerate Your Journey
  • Integrating Studer Group's Performance Management System in Your Organization
  • Creating a World-Class Workforce
  • Creating Better Places to Work & Higher Quality Service for Customers

Meet the Studer Group Baldrige Experts:

Debbie Ritchie joined Studer Group in 2006 as Chief Operations Officer and stepped into the role of President in 2016. She is devoted to making healthcare better, evidenced by the dedication seen in her direct work with partner organizations, ensuring each has an excellent experience and achieves their desired outcomes. Debbie’s leadership and commitment to excellence has advanced Studer Group's continuous process improvement journey and engagement results, illustrated by the company’s recognition as a 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient and a consistent 99th percentile performer in employee engagement.

Under Debbie's leadership, Studer Group, a Huron Solution, is modeling what it teaches by delivering high quality results to its partners with an internal focus on engagement and an emphasis on Mission, Vision, Values and Standards of Behavior. Throughout her years as an executive leader at Studer Group, she has consistently offered executive-level coaching and built professional connections, further demonstrating her commitment to the success of the organizations Studer Group serves.

Craig Deao is a national speaker, author and senior leader for Studer Group. He served as one of the key leaders of Studer Group's Baldrige journey and now spends most weeks inside of healthcare organizations working with boards, medical staffs and executives to help architect their own journeys to excellence. Craig wrote much of the firm's application and was the lead on Categories 3, 4, and 7.

Craig has a passion for identifying and spreading best practices across the healthcare industry, particularly those that improve patient care. His areas of interest include patient safety, patient perception of care, and the intersection of evidence-based medicine with Evidence-Based Leadershipâ„ . He is trained in the application of aviation Crew Resource Management techniques to reduce medical errors.

Since 1999 Craig has been involved at the national level on several initiatives impacting the quality of healthcare, including patient safety and charting a new system for ensuring continual assessment of nursing competencies.

Debbie Cardello not only coaches organizations to create cultures of excellence, she lived the journey as chief operating officer at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Hamilton, the fourth hospital ever to be recognized with the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award. For the past several years, she has served as a Baldrige examiner and is a member of the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award Board of Examiners.

Under her leadership, RWJ Hamilton achieved bottom-line results in the nation's top 10th percentile in quality outcomes as well as patient, employee, and physician satisfaction.

She has held senior leader positions for more than 15 years including chief nursing officer, VP patient care services, and VP professional and support services. Today, she works with Studer Group partners to create better places to work, practice medicine, and receive care. She also coaches several organizations that aspire to meet the Criteria for Performance Excellence as part of their Baldrige journeys.

Studer Group - Baldrige Award Ceremony Remarks April 15, 2012

Malcolm BaldrigeBG Porter: Thank you, Secretary Bryson, Dr. Gallagher, Baldrige Foundation Chair Collard and, most of all, to the Baldrige program and examiners whose deeply inquisitive examination of our performance will make us even stronger as a company in the years to come. As with the leaders and workforce of the other recipients of this remarkable honor, we believe that work is far more than a job. For us as the Studer Group team, work has purpose, is worthwhile, and makes a difference.

We are a young company, now just finishing our 12th year of existence. Our Mission is to make healthcare better - as a place to work, practice medicine and receive care. We share a Vision to drive outcomes and maximize the human potential within each organization and healthcare as a whole.

All 150 of us dedicate ourselves to identifying and implementing, in partnership with our more than 800 healthcare clients, evidence-based best practices that enable patients to seek and receive healthcare they have confidence in, and that healthcare providers, businesses and our nation can afford. For the Studer Group, and ultimately for the patients in hospital beds, emergency rooms and in doctor's offices across the country, we must assure that the knowledge, skill, and talent of every healthcare employee and every clinician is put to best use for every patient, every time.

Frankly, as may be the case with many, we were not always certain what the implications of adopting and embedding the Baldrige framework would have on us. With so much to do, with such rapid growth, and then faced with the deepest of recessions, we questioned if learning and using the framework would strengthen us or divert our attention away from what is important. I can tell you, leaders can never be too busy to pursue excellence, and it is excellence that enables growth and the ability not just to survive but to thrive. Since being named a recipient we have increased our workforce by 20%.

Quint Studer has often said, 'never underestimate the difference one person can make'. In founding Studer Group, Quint ignited a passion in healthcare. Today, that flame burns brightly, and with the guidance of the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, we can continue to re-set the benchmark, re-set the 99th percentile, and continuously innovate to further improve our nation's health outcomes, reduce costs, and make our country stronger and a role model for the world. Thank you.

To schedule a speaker or to learn more about their respective backgrounds, please call 850-439-5839 or email Genevieve Kurpuis at genevieve.kurpuis@studergroup.com.

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