ACC Wins Second Business Excellence Award

13 September 2002
ACC media release

ACC Wins Second Business Excellence Award

ACC Healthwise has won the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation’s Progress Award for 2002 – its second business excellence award this week.

On Thursday it won the business section of the 2002 Performance Excellence Study Awards.

Healthwise is the division within ACC responsible for purchasing the treatment and rehabilitation services provided by health practitioners and for developing related policy.

It oversees an $840 million annual budget, and maintains data on over 13,000 providers and 1400 contracts covering 48 different health services, ranging from home help to elective surgery and trauma care.

The New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation makes only five awards each year and assessors put entrants through a rigorous examination, includes site visits, interviews and the study of documentation.

The Business Excellence Awards, like the Study Awards, used the internationally recognised Baldrige Performance Excellence criteria as a basis for assessment.

The Baldrige criteria provides a framework for assessing an organisation’s performance in seven categories: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus, process management and business results.

ACC Healthwise was commended in their achievement in Human Resources.

Healthwise general manager Dr David Rankin said the Foundation’s award was a wonderful achievement, especially as it was the first time it had entered.

“One of the key reasons for entering the awards was the fact that Healthwise has been requiring more and more of its contracted providers to meet a external certification that their work is high quality,” Dr Rankin said.

“The Baldrige criteria sets a very high standard, and Healthwise was determined to demonstrate their ability to achieve that standard. We certainly have a new sympathy for providers who are undergoing quality certification,” he said.

“The award is a tremendous validation of the energy and dedication that Healthwise commits to developing robust policy and in implementing contracts with health providers.”

ENDS

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