Maryland Performance Excellence Awards Program Announces Winners of Maryland Quality...

Maryland Performance Excellence Awards Program Announces Winners of Maryland
Quality Awards

COLLEGE PARK, Md., March 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The University of
Maryland's Maryland Performance Excellence Awards Program, in conjunction with
U.S. Senators Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin, today announce the winners
of the prestigious Maryland Quality Awards.

These awards honor role-model organizations that successfully implement
systematic processes for continuous improvement and achieving outstanding
results. Award recipients are evaluated rigorously by an independent board of
examiners using the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, which
measure an organization in seven areas: leadership; strategic planning;
customer and market focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management;
workforce focus; process management; and results.

Award recipients include:
-- Maryland Quality Award -- Gold: Headquartered in Harford County,
Custom
Direct is a market leader in direct-to-consumer personalized printed
products, security and fraud protection, financial documents,
fulfillment items, phone support and direct marketing services. With
a
vision to become a world class organization with $250 million in
revenue
with less than 50 percent from checks, the organization has adopted
the
Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence and LEAN principles to
create a culture of excellence for its 460+ associates, located in
Maryland and Arkansas. Custom Direct was established in 1993 and is a
wholly owned subsidiary of Edgestone Capital Fund III.
-- Maryland Quality Award -- Gold: Upper Chesapeake Health, a
community-based, two-hospital, not-for-profit health system located in
Harford County, has served more than three generations of patients
with
high quality health care since 1912. It owns and operates Upper
Chesapeake Medical Center and Harford Memorial Hospital, both which
are
accredited by The Joint Commission (TJC). With its core values of
excellence, compassion, integrity, respect, responsibility and trust,
Upper Chesapeake operates in a Culture of Excellence model. Nearly
3000
staff and 800 volunteers work as a team to serve the healthcare needs
of
the residents of this northeastern Maryland community.
-- Maryland Quality Award -- Gold: The Veteran Affairs Capitol Health
Care
Network (VISN 5) serves over 200,000 enrolled veterans in Maryland,
the
District of Columbia and portions of Virginia, West Virginia and
Pennsylvania. Its mission is "to honor America's veterans as
heroes by providing the highest quality health care." With a team
of 7025 employees and 2500 volunteers, the network facilities include
hospitals, community living centers, rehabilitation centers, research
centers and community based outpatient clinics. The network utilizes
the
most widely distributed, integrated computerized medical record system
in the United States. With its values of trust, respect, excellence,
compassion and commitment, the network monitors its progress through
external peer review, clinical service champions, monthly clinical
committee meetings and quarterly medical center reviews.
-- Maryland Quality Award -- Silver: Since its founding in 1958, the
College of Southern Maryland has evolved into a comprehensive
community
college dedicated to serving the residents of Calvert, Charles and St.
Mary's counties. It serves 21,000 students through a broad range
of high-quality associate degree and certificate programs, as well as
short-term training, workforce development, cultural enrichment and
continuing education offerings. The college serves to improve the
quality of life for residents in the community by providing a wealth
of
educational services and uses a Quality Improvement Process for
continuous improvement throughout its three campuses.
-- Maryland Quality Award -- Bronze: The Internal Revenue Service Office
of
Procurement is one of six divisions in IRS Agency-Wide Shared Services
and is headquartered in Oxon Hill, with area offices located in New
York, Atlanta, Dallas and San Francisco. It provides lifecycle
acquisition management services to its customers including IRS
organizations and employees and the Departments of the Treasury and
Homeland Security. With a workforce of nearly 500, the organization
focuses its work on its core values of service, teamwork, ethics,
quality of life, innovation and professionalism. Using a performance
improvement system that includes the GAO Framework Assessment,
Baldrige
framework self-assessments and a Balanced Scorecard, this public
agency's vision is to be the best acquisition organization in the
federal government--best people, best practices and best performance.
-- MPEA Certificate of Recognition: A privately held company
headquartered
in Frederick, Integrated Communication Solutions provides IT services
to
the federal government with its core business areas of Information
Security, Network Services and Managed Services. Founded in 1989 with
a
vision to be a leading small business with a national presence, the
company has four sites across the country and 109 employees serving
its
customers. The organization follows the simple formula of listening
to
its customers, standing by its commitments and delivering effective
solutions on time and on budget. ICS's continuous improvement
program centers around its FADE approach, a four-step variation of the
PDCA model.

Since 1983, Maryland's U.S. Senators and the University of Maryland have
joined together to help Maryland organizations achieve excellence and
world-class results using the Maryland Performance Excellence Awards process
to inspire, coach and recognize role model organizations for their successful
implementation of systematic processes and achievement of outstanding results.
The awards program provides an opportunity for organizations to improve their
performance through self-assessment, writing an application, receiving an
external analysis, participating in workshops and conferences, benchmarking
with other high-performing organizations and sharing best practices.

About the Maryland Performance Excellence Awards (www.mpea.umd.edu)The
Maryland Performance Excellence Awards Program recognizes and honors
high-performing organizations in Maryland. Given since 1983 by Maryland's U.S.
Senators and the University of Maryland, the awards foster process-based,
measurable, continuous improvement that drives results, creating successful
organizations that strengthen the Maryland economy.

SOURCE Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute

Eric Schurr of the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute, +1-301-405-3889,
schurr@.umd.edu