Creating a culture of performance excellence at Henry Ford Health System

Abstract

AbstractHenry Ford Health System (HFHS) of Detroit, Michigan, has earned industry‐wide recognition by engaging its leaders to align the organization's strategic objectives with Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria and craft a comprehensive program to integrate performance to drive sustainable growth. One of the largest health care systems in the United States, HFHS developed a performance management approach that backed up standards of excellence with comprehensive training and development, established a performance improvement framework that emphasized analysis and review, integrated its communications systems with a renewed focus on innovation, and fine‐tuned its performance strategy to stoke agility throughout the organization. Results included a reduction in in‐patient mortality, innovations in health care best practice, enhanced employee engagement patient satisfaction, savings of almost $10 million over four years in relation to harm‐reduction efforts, and five national performance awards, including the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 2011. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.