RMPEx Highlights Denver Health’s Leadership, Strategic Planning in 2nd Peak Award for Performance Excellence

Denver Health’s longstanding commitment to process improvement helped it earn recognition for the second time in five years from Rocky Mountain Performance Excellence with another Peak Award, coming at the end of 2016.

Evaluators looked at seven categories, but were particularly impressed with Denver Health’s leadership and strategic planning efforts. Denver Health’s Lean Management Systems (LMS) was also noted with high regard by the evaluators. LMS has several Lean facilitators, who provide one-on-one coaching to more than 100 managers across the organization. Additionally, LMS holds a variety of Lean events throughout the year designed to solve unique problems, reduce waste, improve effectiveness and efficiency and maximize value to our patients. LMS also offers workshops to businesses throughout the country looking to implement or improve upon Lean processes.

“As one of the pioneer health care organizations to embrace ideas from the Toyota Production System, we have evolved our Lean journey using concepts from the Shingo Institute and other best practice sources,” Director of Strategic Support Services and the Lean Systems Improvement department Beth Fingado said in the application. “Validation and learning within this journey has been an important part of understanding how best to deploy on various transformational aspects of Lean that go beyond process improvement to include leadership and strategic planning.”

Applicants for the Peak Award must submit a 55-page application that, among other justifications, explains their organizations from the perspectives of the criteria, which are: leadership; strategy; customers; measurement; analysis and knowledge management; workforce; operations and results. These criteria are identical to those used for the national-level award, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. After an organization submits its application, RMPEx examiners conduct week-long site visits and interview key groups and individuals. They also conduct walk-around interviews with staff from a wide range of areas within the organization.

“Denver Health is only the second organization to be recognized twice as a Peak Award recipient, receiving the award in 2012 and 2016. In the fifteen years of RMPEx operation, only 7 other organizations have been recognized with a Peak Award,” Jim Walker, managing director of Rocky Mountain Performance Excellence said. “Receiving a Peak Award is recognition that Denver Health is meeting the requirements for performance evaluation and improvement that are defined in the internationally-respected Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence Criteria.”

Denver Health will be presented the Peak Award at the RMPEx conference April 14, 2017, at the Auraria Campus in Denver.

About Rocky Mountain Performance Excellence:
Rocky Mountain Performance Excellence (RMPEx) is a 501C(3) organization serving as the regional organization for the Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. RMPEx helps organizations improve performance and achieve results. RMPEx is funded solely by contributions and operational revenues and is one of more than 30 similar Baldrige state programs in the U.S. Approaches used by RMPEx are based on Baldrige Framework for Excellence, a proven best-practice program that evaluates organizations in seven areas: leadership; strategy; customers; measurement; analysis and knowledge management; workforce; operations and results.