Baldrige-based quality awards: Veterans Health Administration's 3-year experience

This article describes the Veterans Health Administration's (VHA's) 3-year experience with an internal, Baldrige-based quality award. The authors examined scores for Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs), which received site visits, variation in year-to-year survey outcomes for repeat applicants, and variation in survey team reports for a VISN with multiple surveys. Individual VISNs that applied in multiple years had mixed results. Variation in feedback reports was not significant. Although some VISNs increased their scores over time, there was not measurable, systemwide improvement. Three years may be too short a time to significantly affect Baldrige scores in an organization as large as VHA.