Member News Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
December 15, 2008

Sarah Bush Lincoln Receives Lincoln Silver Award

For the second time in three years, Sarah Bush Lincoln has received the Lincoln Foundation for Performance Excellence Silver Award, Progress Toward Excellence. The award is process based on the Criteria for Performance Excellence of the Baldridge National Quality Program. It first received the award in 2005.

Sarah Bush Lincoln President and CEO Gary Barnett expressed his gratitude to the employees, volunteers, medical staff and board members who have worked tirelessly to achieve this level of recognition. “We are once again pleased to be recognized at the Silver level. We'll use this recognition to motive and energize ourselves on our journey to the Gold level.” Barnett said.

The annual award program this year recognizes three organizations at two levels. For 2008, two are recipients (Sarah Bush Lincoln and St. Mary's Good Samaritan, Mt Vernon) of the Lincoln Silver Award for demonstrating sound and notable continuous improvement process. One organization, United Cerebral Palsy Land of Lincoln, Springfield, received the Bronze Award.

During the week of October 13, 10 Lincoln Foundation examiners visited Sarah Bush Lincoln and interviewed nearly 200 employees. The over-reaching goal of going through this process is to improve the organization so that all employees understand the patient quality goals, direct their efforts to reach these goals and fulfill the Health System's mission.

Throughout the week, the examiners, who divided into smaller groups of two, three or four people, met in scheduled meetings with board members, physicians, administrative team members, management team members, and employees. Informally, they also visited with employees throughout the organization as time allowed.

The intent of the weeklong visit was to determine which recognition tier Sarah Bush Lincoln reached. It closely examined the processes it uses to provide patient care and the associated outcomes.

In the examiners' closing comments, they noted six key areas of strengths:

  • Senior leadership (Board members and Administrative Team members) is engaged and committed to Excellence a Way of Life, which has resulted in a cultural focus on service excellence.
  • Quality of community volunteers is strong on its Boards of Directors.
  • Sarah Bush Lincoln is deeply involved in the communities it serves and supports them with outreach and wellness programs.
  • There is strength in the Board members and Medical Staff leadership, who are clearly supportive of Excellence A Way of Life.
  • The Strategic Plan development process involves a number of key groups. They use data analysis to align the Strategic Plan with the objectives, goals and resources of the organization.
  • The Health Center has a dynamic and interesting staff and it was extremely friendly and supportive throughout the process.

Barnett said, "We are a good organization moving toward greatness. I am confident that as we continue on our journey, we will reach our goals together. I am very proud of our organization and the people who make it what it is."

The examiners noted that Sarah Bush Lincoln needs to continue using fact-based evaluation and improvement of processes and share trended performance results at all levels of the organization.

The Lincoln Foundation for Performance Excellence is a not-for-profit organization funded by both private and public organizations. It assists Illinois organizations continuously improve their performance by encouraging, developing and highlighting excellence among all five sectors of the economy: industry, service, health care, education, and government. Each year a Lincoln Board of Examiners reviews and assesses award applications in seven areas (leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus, process management and results) and a panel of judges determines which applicants have earned recognition.