2017 Award Recipient

Southcentral Foundation

Highlights

• SCF’s unique health care delivery system, the Nuka System 

of Care, brings together organizational strategies and 

processes; medical, behavioral, dental, and traditional 

practices; and an infrastructure that supports wellness.

• Multiple indicators of performance show SCF exceeding 

90th percentile rankings in the HEDIS (widely used 

industry performance measures maintained by the 

National Committee for Quality Assurance).

• Since its founding, SCF has sustained a dominant market

position, representing nearly 100 percent of the Alaska

Native and American Indian population in its 

107,400-square-mile service area.

• Demonstrating that SCF values its commitment to its 

customer-owners, the organization has adopted optimized 

access as one of its operational principles, resulting in 

70 percent of behavioral health patients receiving 

same-day consultations.

 

Southcentral Foundation (SCF) is an Alaska Native nonprofit 501c(3) 

health care system, which provides health care and related services 

for about 65,000 Alaska Native and American Indian people. 

SCF operates the Nuka System of Care, a customer-driven, 

relationship-based health care system that addresses physical, 

mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness. SCF collaborates with its 

partner Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium to ensure a seamless 

continuum of care. SCF uses a wide range of delivery mechanisms 

to provide health care service offerings, including ambulatory office 

visits, home visits, learning circles, email and telephone visits, health 

information and education, outpatient services, behavioral services, 

and day and residential treatment. Clinical teams regularly travel 

to rural villages to deliver family medicine, dentistry, pediatrics, 

obstetrics/gynecology, audiology, and behavioral services. With 33 

facilities in and around Anchorage, SCF also provides care to 55 

remote village sites, many of which are accessible only by plane. 

It employs 2,200 employees, of whom 54 percent are Alaska Native 

or American Indian people.

This is the second Baldrige Award for Southcentral Foundation. 

The health care system was honored in the same category in 2011.

Unique Health Care Delivery System

• SCF’s unique health care delivery system, the Nuka System of Care, 

brings together organizational strategies and processes; medical, 

behavioral, dental, and traditional practices; and an infrastructure 

that supports wellness. Nuka is an Alaska Native name given 

to strong, giant structures and living things. The system is owned, 

managed, directed, designed, and driven by Alaska Native people, 

referred to as “customer-owners.”

• SCF’s Nuka System of Care has distinguished itself as one of the 

nation’s leading health care systems. SCF regularly hosts visitors 

from around the world who come to learn and seek help in 

reforming their own health care systems.

• For demonstrating excellence, the organization has received 

numerous honors, including the 2016 Health Equity Award 

from the Alaska Public Health Association for the positive impact 

on families of SCF’s Nutaqsiivik Nurse-Family Partnership; threeyear national accreditation starting in 2015 from the Commission 

on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) for all of 

SCF’s outpatient behavioral health programs; and the 2014 Spirit 

of Tomorrow Award from the Anchorage School District.

Care and Commitment for Customer-Owners

• Multiple performance indicators show that SCF exceeds 

Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) 

90th percentile rankings. These include annual diabetes care 

measures (HbA1C, diabetes care: LDL<100 mg/dl), cardiovascular 

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program • National Institute of Standards and Technology • Department of Commerce 
LDL (a measure for high cholesterol), cervical cancer screening,

breast cancer screening, emergency room visits per 1,000 members,

and outpatient visits per 1,000 members. 

• Demonstrating that SCF values its commitment to its customerowners, the organization has adopted optimized access as one of 

its operational principles, resulting in 70 percent of behavioral 

health patients receiving same-day consultations.

• Since its founding, SCF has sustained a dominant market position, 

representing nearly 100 percent of the Alaska Native and American 

Indian population in its 107,400-square mile service area.

• SCF uses data and information from several customer-owner 

listening posts to identify changing health care needs and to look

for areas of opportunity to become more focused on customerowners. Results show that 76 percent of customer-owners would 

recommend SCF, exceeding the top-decile national benchmark. 

In addition, customer-owner satisfaction—overall and within SCF’s 

medical, dental, behavioral, and Executive and Tribal Services 

patient segments—exceeds the national 90th percentile benchmark.

• SCF’s Nuka System of Care takes a population-based approach to 

improving family and community well-being that extends beyond 

the coordination of care services. For example, programs to 

eliminate disparities, such as SCF’s Family Wellness Warrior 

Initiative, address domestic violence abuse, child abuse, and child 

neglect through education, training, and community engagement. 

SCF demonstrates its ongoing focus on giving through the Employee 

and Community Assistance Fund, which increased from $17,149.00 

in 2013 to $23,028.00 in 2016.

Operational Efficiency and Sound Fiscal 

Management

• SCF’s total revenue has steadily increased from $215 million in 

fiscal year (FY) 2012 to $334 million in FY2016. Days cash on 

hand and the steady increase in total revenue exceed Moody’s 

“Aa” rating for the last four years, with the last three years at or 

exceeding Moody’s “Aaa” minimum. In addition, overhead is 

tracked on a balanced scorecard related to operational efficiency 

and sound fiscal management. SCF has successfully kept its 

overhead expenses below its established goal of 20 percent for the 

past five years.

• To improve health care services and performance, SCF starts at 

the department level to assess action plans using performance 

data and broad input from customer-owners. For example, the 

Dena A. Coy residential center, which serves pregnant, parenting, 

and non-parenting women who are experiencing problems related 

to addiction, improved its retention of residents after 48–72 hours by 

18 percent through the use of a performance improvement process.

Focusing on the Workforce

• Overall staff turnover has decreased from 14.5 percent in 2013 

to 12.1 percent in 2016. Turnover rates during the same period for 

Alaska Native and American Indian employees (who make up 

53 percent of the SCF workforce) decreased from 15.7 to 

13.5 percent. Traditional and nontraditional benefits such as a 

wellness hour, financial support for academic pursuits, academic

leave, and open communication are strategies to recruit and 

retain the workforce. Behavioral-based and team interviewing 

help ensure a good fit for new hires within the organization.

• SCF has a systematic, integrated approach to organizing and 

managing the clinical workforce to accomplish the organization’s 

work. Work is accomplished by assigning customer-owners to 

self-selected, multidisciplinary Integrated Care Teams. Workforce 

competencies align with the organization’s core competencies,

which include innovation; the organizational competencies 

are integrated into interviews, job descriptions, and personal

development plans, as well as into annual plans for workforce 

learning and development.

Strategic Planning

• SCF has various methods for engaging customer-owners in the 

strategic planning cycle, including discussing future priorities 

with the community through its annual gathering, its elders’ 

council, and planning sessions with village communities. 

Customer-owners participate in operating boards and advisory 

committees, which meet periodically with the senior leadership 

team to provide feedback to the organization.

2017 Award Recipient

Southcentral Foundation

For more information:

Southcentral Foundation

4501 Diplomacy Drive

Anchorage, AK 99508

isylvester@southcentralfoundation.com

www.southcentralfoundation.com

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program

The Baldrige Program educates organizations of all sizes and 

from all sectors in organizational performance management and 

improvement. We also administer the Malcolm Baldrige National

Quality Award. Our key services are to identify and recognize 

role-model organizations, share best management practices, 

and help organizations achieve best-in-class performance levels.

We are the only public-private partnership and Presidential award 

program dedicated to improving U.S. organizations. 

For more information on Baldrige, visit www.nist.gov/baldrige,

call (301) 975-2036, or email us at baldrige@nist.gov.

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program • National Institute of Standards and Technology • Department of Commerce