The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is the highest level of national recognition for performance excellence that a U.S. organization can receive. The award focuses on performance in six key areas: product and service outcomes, customer-focused outcomes, financial and market outcomes, workforce-focused outcomes, process effectiveness outcomes, and leadership outcomes. To be selected as an award recipient, an organization must have a system that ensures continuous improvement in overall performance in delivering products and/or services provides an approach for satisfying and responding to customers and stakeholders.