On May 29, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) released a report to President Obama, Better Health Care and Lower Costs: Accelerating Improvement through Systems Engineering (PDF) that calls out the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award as an opportunity "for raising awareness of performance excellence" in U.S. health care.
According to the report, "Health and Human Services and the Department of Commerce should build on the Baldrige awards to recognize health-care providers successfully applying system engineering approaches."
In its fact sheet (PDF), PCAST offers seven recommendations, "all of which support and reinforce each other as components of a strategy to improve the quality of delivery of health care and the health of Americans through systems engineering." The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award was specifically called out in recommendation 6: "Establish awards, challenges, and prizes to promote the use of systems methods and tools in health care."
Read a blog by Baldrige Director Robert Fangmeyer about how the Baldrige Criteria provide exactly the holistic, systems approach to excellence that the PCAST report recommends.
Read the full report Better Health Care and Lower Costs: Accelerating Improvement through Systems Engineering (PDF).