Saint Luke’s Hospital of 

Kansas City

Founded in 1882, Saint Luke’s Hospital (SLH) is the

largest hospital in the Kansas City, Mo., metropolitan area.

Affiliated with the Diocese of West Missouri of the

Protestant Episcopal Church, it is a not-for-profit

comprehensive teaching and referral health care organization

that provides 24-hour coverage in every health care

discipline. SLH is driven by its vision, “The Best Place to Get

Care, The Best Place to Give Care,” and its core values 

of Quality/Excellence, Customer Focus, Resource

Management, and Teamwork. Under the leadership of Chief

Executive Officer G. Richard Hastings, SLH employs 3,186

staff and 500 physicians.

Saint Luke’s is committed to providing leadership,

volunteers, and funding to many community health

organizations, including the federal Women, Infants and

Children program; the Metropolitan Organization to

Counter Sexual Abuse; and The Cancer Institute. The level

of financial commitment to community health care education

has steadily increased from $9.6 million in 1999 to $12.7

million in 2002.

Specialized care capabilities for very ill people are Saint

Luke’s hallmark. These include the Mid America Heart

Institute, which treats complex cardiovascular diseases; the

Mid America Brain and Stroke Institute, which includes a

nationally recognized program dedicated to preventing and

treating stroke; a highly rated trauma center and neonatal

intensive care nursery; and the only comprehensive maternalfetal diagnostic and treatment center in the Kansas City area.

Many of its treatment regimens are among the best in the

nation. For example, in treating ischemic stroke, a leading

cause of death and permanent neurologic disability, SLH

leads the nation in the percentage of diagnosed patients

receiving Tissue Plasminogen Activator (tPA) to help restore

circulation and reduce permanent brain injury. In the second

quarter of 2003, 27 percent of SLH patients received tPA

versus a national average of 3 percent.

From 1999 to 2002, SLH’s financial performance has

steadily improved, showing that pursuing and implementing

innovative treatments is compatible with sound business

practices. In total margin and operating margin, SLH

currently ranks among the top 5 percent of the nation’s

hospitals. In total revenues, SLH outperforms the Council of

Teaching Hospitals top quartile. 

Listening, Learning, Improving

Saint Luke’s Hospital accomplishes its mission of

“providing excellent health services to all patients in a caring

environment” by listening to its customers and designing

new and improved ways to deliver health care. SLH uses a

continuous-loop model, known as the Performance

2003

Award Winner

National Institute of Standards and Technology ● Technology Administration ● Department of Commerce

Baldrige National Quality Program

Highlights

• In 2002, Consumer’s Checkbook ranked SLH 35th in

the nation out of 4,500 hospitals evaluated.

• Since 1997, studies of regional health care providers by

the National Research Corporation have shown that

patients believe SLH has the best quality health care and

the best doctors and nurses of the 21 facilities in the

market area.

• SLH has 12 “Customer Contact Requirements,”

including “Address patients/guests by last name unless

otherwise told” and “Address all complaints within 24

hours or less.” 

• SLH outperforms the Council of Teaching Hospitals top

quartile in financial performance and ranks in the top 5

percent of hospitals nationwide in total margin.

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Improvement Model, to plan, design, measure, assess, and

improve the way it delivers health care services. Used in all

hospital departments, employees are introduced to the model

during orientation and process owners and PI team members

receive extensive training on its use.

Saint Luke’s “Listening and Learning” process helps to

determine patients’ requirements. The process includes

formal methods, such as surveys, focus groups, and follow-up

calls, and informal ones, including daily conversations that

SLH employees have with patients, families, and others. 

A customer satisfaction research program continuously

gathers customer and market requirements and helps

measure customer satisfaction.

One outcome of this input is a better understanding of

how patients want to be treated and a set of 12 customer

contact requirements known as the “Commitment to the

Four Core Values.” The 12 requirements include “Address

patients/guests by last name unless otherwise told” and

“Address all complaints within 24 hours or less.” All

employees carry these requirements on a Very Important

Principles Card and they are prominently posted throughout

the hospital. 

Care Pathways

To assure the best possible clinical outcomes and high

patient satisfaction, Multidisciplinary Care Teams, comprised

of physicians, residents, students, clinical nurses, patient care

technicians, and information associates, work with patients

and their families to design individualized “care pathways.”

Patients get their own version in a format that allows both the

patient and the family to understand and follow the day-today delivery of health care. Teams also have developed 134

clinical pathways for high-volume, high-cost diagnoses that

standardize care and reduce variation in treatment. Sixty

percent of Saint Luke’s patients receive care that is based on

a clinical pathway. 

The constant cycle of listening, learning, and improving is

paying off in patient satisfaction. In 2002, Consumer’s

Checkbook, a consumer education organization, ranked

SLH 35th in the nation out of 4,500 hospitals evaluated. The

hospital received an overall score of 7669 compared to a

national average of 5418. Consumer’s Checkbook rating for

SLH physicians was 86 percent compared to a national

average of 33 percent.

An independent study by the National Research

Corporation shows that patients believe SLH delivers the

best quality health care and has the best doctors and the best

nurses of the 21 facilities in the market area. This top

position has been sustained since 1997. Additionally, the

study found that patients believe that SLH delivered the best

cardiac, neurology, and orthopedic care, and ranks it among

the top four hospitals in obstetrical care.

A Focus on Excellence and

Employees

Saint Luke’s “Leadership for Performance Excellence

Model” captures all of the elements that drive its focus on

performance improvement and excellence, including the

strategic planning and performance management process,

process improvement model, and a commitment to

excellence assessment model based on the seven Baldrige

performance excellence categories. Saint Luke’s vision,

mission, core values, and strategy sit at the top of the model

and influence all of the organization’s plans and processes. 

A robust strategic planning approach consists of three

phases and seven steps that integrate direction setting,

strategy development and deployment, financial planning,

and plan management. At a series of retreats, the leadership

team develops strategy and a 90-day action planning process

to deploy the strategy to all departments. The balanced

scorecard process produces a measurement system that aligns

all departments with the strategy and ensures the proper

focus in key performance areas throughout the organization.

A highly empowered, high-performing workforce is key to

Saint Luke’s success. To ensure that everyone is in tune with

the hospital’s focus, all employees take part in the

Performance Management Process. The process helps

employees develop action plans and goals that are aligned

with the organization’s strategy and core values and identify

personal commitments which contribute to SLH’s values.

The process also defines primary customers and

competencies needed for each position and sets expectations

for each employee. A Process Improvement Model provides

employees with the information they need to effectively

design, manage, and improve hospital processes.

Factors that determine employee well-being, satisfaction,

and motivation are uncovered through formal surveys, open

forums with senior leaders, targeted focus groups, senior

leader “walk rounds,” “staying” and “exit” interviews, and the

Peer Review Grievance Process. An intense focus on

ensuring that its workforce reflects the diversity of the

community, including diversity training for all employees and

“lunch and learn” sessions about diversity-related topics, has

led to an increase in minority managers and professional staff,

from 3 percent in 1998 to almost 10 percent in 2002.

Employees also are staying at Saint Luke’s longer, another

indicator of growing employee satisfaction. For the past five

years, results for employee retention have exceeded the

Saratoga Institute’s median and is approaching 90 percent.

For more information, contact:

Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City

4401 Wornall Road

Kansas City, MO 64111

Telephone: (816) 932-1692

Fax: (816) 932-6827

E-mail: baldrigequality@saint-lukes.org

Website: www.saintlukeshealthsystem.org

235 25 50 97 98 75 PMS

#2 PMS#3 660 C M Y B

Job No: 2003-4434

Date: 2-26-04

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