Category Name and Criteria

1. Community Service Project
An undertaking implemented or significantly improved in 2009/2010 that made a difference in the improvement of healthcare in the community. Is the project or program sustainable? Does the hospital merely provides resources or makes it an integral part of its community involvement. Does the hospital give of its management time and expertise? Is it innovative? More weight is given to how meaningful is it to the community it serves.

2. Customer Service Project
A customer service project implemented in 2009/2010 that responded well to the needs of its clientele, drew praise from them, and positively projected the hospital as a quality service provider. The judges favor entries that also reduced costs, and did not require major capital expenditure. More weight is given to projects that are innovative (in relation to where the hospital is located). Is it a meaningful improvement of its service considering the environment in which it operates?

3. Human Resource Development Project
A series of activities or a project undertaken by the hospital in 2009/2010 that was aimed at developing a large percentage of its people as knowledge-based workers. Is it a sustainable activity and did it achieve its goals? How innovative was the project and program. Did it have a lasting improvement in the skills of its employees? How meaningful was the program to the employees? How useful is it in their work? Special weight is given to the percent of employees covered, how well it motivates employees to provide better service and how the training improves service.

4. Internal Customer Service Project
These are awards for any hospital department or unit that implemented in 2009/2010 any outstanding projects on how better to serve their co-departments or employees better. How well did the project look upon the other department(s) as a “customer”? Special weight is given to how innovative the project is, how well it reinforces the concept of “internal customer”, at no additional expense and how it improves service to its clientele.

5. Marketing, PR or Promotional Project
A project implemented in 2009/2010 that made an impact on clients and the public, and/or that resulted in the hospital’s gaining recognition as an innovator or leader in the field, or that resulted in business generation. The emphasis here is on business that can be more or less attributable the project and what this is as a percent of the department or hospital’s revenue. In this sense, a department or center (and not necessarily a hospital wide program) that launched a successful campaign and can show results is eligible. More weight is given to how it used marketing tools to improve its revenue at least cost.

6. Patient Safety / Quality Medical Care Project
This award is for the hospital that introduced in 2009/2010 an outstanding project for the monitoring and improvement in the delivery of quality medical care. Projects for the reporting, deliberation, management, and prevention of Sentinel Events are included as part of this category. More weight is given to how much project or program improved patient safety and are there measurements to back this up. In other words the judges will particularly look at the percent improvement.

7. Departmental Service Improvement Project
A project successfully completed in 2009/2010 in any of the specialized (technical) areas of hospital management, such as Nursing, Laboratory, Radiology or in specialty clinics such as eye center, kidney center, etc. The project should show measurable results of having improved the service in such areas as reduction in medication errors, reduced waiting times, prevention of service defects, or faster results with little or no capital outlay.