TennCare Receives Commitment Award from The Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence
Award Recognizes Organizational Excellence
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Bureau of TennCare has earned the Commitment Award in the annual Excellence in Tennessee recognition program administered by the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence (TNCPE). TNCPE is the only state-wide quality program and is patterned on the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, the national standard for recognizing organizational excellence. TennCare will accept the award at the 21st annual Excellence in Tennessee Awards Banquet on February 19, 2014.
“It is truly an honor to receive this award. We appreciate the work TNCPE did during their assessment of TennCare and look forward to continuing to achieve operational excellence,” said TennCare Director Darin Gordon.
TennCare is the State of Tennessee's Medicaid managed care program that provides high-quality health care for 1.2 million Tennesseans at a per capita cost that is considerably lower than the U.S. average.
Through an annual evaluation and assessment process, TNCPE recognizes high-performance organizations that exhibit continuous improvement and best practice processes. This year, TNCPE has named 26 organizations as 2013 Award winners. They represent outstanding achievement in the following industry sectors: health care, manufacturing, service, education, government and nonprofit.
“Groups trying to improve understand that being successful takes effort from each employee and a shared commitment to quality and achievement, and organizations like TennCare play a critical role in making Tennessee a better place to live, work and raise a family,” said Governor Bill Haslam.
Organizations like TennCare apply to the TNCPE program at one of four levels. As the levels increase, so does the depth and complexity of the application, which is based on the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. Since the program was founded in 1993, only 22 organizations have attained the Excellence designation. Mountain States Health Alliance will receive the Excellence Award this year; six organizations will be honored with the Achievement Award; 18 organizations, including the Bureau of TennCare, will receive a Commitment Award; and one will receive the Interest Recognition.
Commitment Awards are presented to organizations that are beginning to demonstrate commitment to, and implementation of, performance improvement principles. They have demonstrated progress by identifying and putting in place a measurement system to capture data and analyze results, and some key process improvements, which are directly attributable to a fact-based improvement process.
“This program helps organizations look at the big picture. But it’s not easy--if it were, every organization in the state would be participating,” said TNCPE President Katie Rawls. “Organizations like the Bureau of TennCare are truly passionate about performance excellence and have chosen TNCPE and the Baldrige framework to help them become the best-run organization they can be.”
A full list of winners can be found on the TNCPE website www.tncpe.org
Established in 1993 as a public-private partnership, the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence strives to promote economic development and drive organizational excellence by helping companies and organizations grow more competitive in today’s global marketplace through affordable, in-depth assessments. A statewide nonprofit, TNCPE is grounded in the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence—a holistic framework used by organizations across multiple industries to improve their performance and achieve sustainable results. More than 1,200 organizations have participated in and benefited from the TNCPE program. Four Tennessee businesses—Caterpillar Financial Services, Pal’s Sudden Service, Eastman Chemical Company, and Federal Express—have been honored with both the prestigious Baldrige National Quality Award and the TNCPE Excellence Award.
For more information about the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence, contact Kelsey Alexander, Marketing & Communications Manager, at kelsey.alexander@tncpe.org.
For more information on the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, visit www.nist.gov/baldrige/.
For more information on the Bureau of TennCare, contact Kelly Gunderson kelly.gunderson@tn.gov or Sarah Tanksley sarah.tanksley@tn.gov