Answer:

Both categories were introduced in 1999. Since then, a total of 47 applications have been submitted in the education category and 42 in th health care category.

Any for-profit or not-for-profit public or private organization that provides educational or health care services in the United States or its territories is eligible to apply for the award. That includes elementary and secondary schools and school districts; colleges, universities, and university systems; schools or colleges within a university; professional schools; community colleges; technical schools; and charter schools. In health care, it includes hospitals, HMOs, long-term-care facilities, health care practitioner offices, home health agencies, health insurance companies, or medical/dental laboratories.

As in the other three categories, applicants must show achievements and improvements in seven areas: leadership; strategic planning; customer and market focus (for education: student, stakeholder, and market focus; for health care: focus on patients, other customers, and markets); information and analysis; human resource focus (for education: faculty and staff focus; for health care: staff focus); process management; and business results (for both education and health care: organizational performance results).

Many education and health care organizations are using the Baldrige criteria to good effect. For example:

• The New Jersey Department of Education permits school systems to use the New Jersey Quality Achievement Award criteria – based on the Baldrige Award criteria – as an alternative to its state assessment criteria. Other states are considering a similar approach.
• The National Alliance of Business and the American Productivity and Quality Center have developed the Baldrige In Education Initiative, a national program to improve the management systems of education organizations and educational outcomes.
• In April 2000, the National Education Goals Panel (NEGP) held a nationwide teleconference, “Creating a Framework for High Achieving Schools,” to focus on the Baldrige criteria in education. In the foreword to a report issued in conjunction with the teleconference, then-Governor Tommy G. Thompson of Wisconsin and 2000 chair for the NEGP, said the Baldrige criteria for education “can provide educators with a framework and strategies for improving their schools and helping all children to reach high standards.”
• At the teleconference, Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association (NEA), said, “The Baldrige process and what I call ‘new unionism’ are a quality match. Most crucially, NEA's new unionism and the Baldrige process share the same bottom line, improving student achievement.”
• Dr. Michael Wood, CEO, Mayo Foundation and Clinic, hosted a Baldrige Health Care Summit on June 29, 2000, involving 10 leading health care institutions in the United States.
• Special sessions on Baldrige in health care were held at the Institute for Health Care Improvement conferences in December 1999 and December 2000.
• Motorola University hosted 120 health care leaders for a one-week course on Baldrige and Quality Improvement in Health Care in February 2001.
• Richard Norling, CEO, Premier Inc., a leading distributor of health care supplies, is serving as president of the private-sector Baldrige Foundation during 2001.