MUSC Health Earns South Carolina Quality Forum Gold Award

Contact: Heather Woolwine
843-792-7669
woolwinh@musc.edu

September 5, 2018

CHARLESTON, SC – After numerous site visits throughout the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) health care system, examiner interviews, and hard work, MUSC Health has received South Carolina Quality Forum’s Gold Achiever Award. One of only three health organizations in the state to attain this award level to date, MUSC Health earned it by demonstrating superior performance in areas of leadership, strategic planning, operations, knowledge-learning, and customer and care team member engagement.

Spearheaded by Danielle Scheurer, M.D., MUSC Health chief quality officer, this voluntary path to long term and sustainable high-quality operations via the national Baldrige quality performance framework is intended to improve an organization's alignment and focus on processes and outcomes. But why is this so important? 

“For our patients and families, this award means we have a relentless focus on excellence in all we do,” Scheurer said. “The Baldrige program acts as a ‘binder’ to help us focus on our mission, vision, and values. It has taken a huge team of content and subject matter experts to get us this far and will require even more focus and dedication in the coming years to continuously improve beyond expectation.”  

The South Carolina Quality Forum was established in 1991 to recognize and encourage improvements and excellence in quality and competitiveness by organizations throughout South Carolina and uses the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program to accomplish this mission. According to the forum’s website, it seeks to “recognize achievements of organizations that improve the quality of their goods and services and/or set an example of innovation for others to follow.” 

MUSC Health achieved a Bronze Achiever Award in 2017 after almost two years of preparation. Frank W. Fusco, chairman of the forum advisory committee said, “The Gold Achiever Award is the prestigious award that shows a company or organization has made considerable progress toward the state's highest quality award: the S.C. Governor's Quality Award. The progress and results shown by MUSC Health clearly demonstrate its commitment to continuously improving its services and establishes it as on the path to the coveted presidential recognition, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.” 

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award program provides a framework for MUSC Health operating units and care team members to deliver a better integrated, safer, and more effective and efficient patient care delivery system. The South Carolina Quality Forum is the independent evaluator for the Governor's Quality Award process using the national Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award assessment methodology. The S.C. Governor’s quality awards promote shared best-practice learning and identification of the state’s top performers. This is the path to becoming one of the nation’s highest performing organizations in any sector. At the national level, the award is made by the president of the United States and is the only such award for excellence by the president.  

“This achievement is a testament of higher performance and quality in everything we do,” said Patrick J. Cawley, M.D., MUSC Health CEO. “Achieving organizational success in the Baldrige methodology is difficult and requires engagement of the entire organization. This is tremendous progress on our journey and everyone is to be congratulated for their efforts. Simply put, this is one more indication to those we care for just how serious we are about continually improving upon the excellent care our system provides and also delivering care that is forward-thinking and patient-centered.” 

About MUSC Health

MUSC Health is the clinical enterprise of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), comprised of a 700-bed medical center, the MUSC College of Medicine and the physician’s practice plan. It serves patients across South Carolina and beyond through four hospital facilities in Charleston and more than 100 outreach sites. Among these are the Hollings Cancer Center, the only National Cancer Institute-designated center in the state, and a nationally recognized Children’s Hospital. The Medical University was founded in 1824 and has become a premiere academic health sciences center at the forefront of the latest advances in medicine, with world-class physicians, scientists and groundbreaking research and technology that is often the first of its kind in the world. Visit muschealth.org for more information.