Ron Schulingkamp

Dr. Ron Schulingkamp is a Quality Improvement Project Manager at University Medical Center New Orleans where he created a Performance Improvement, Learning, and Innovation System. His roles include leading and supporting hospital operations and improvement efforts. Dr. Schulingkamp also provides quality and performance excellence training for physicians.

Dr. Schulingkamp earned a doctorate degree from Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He received both a Master of Quality Management degree and a MBA degree from Loyola. His B.S. Degree in Petroleum Engineering was from LSU. Ron has 30-years’ experience in designing high-performing organizations that are innovative, highly reliable, sustainable, and resilient. He teaches future leaders the theories, philosophy, and ethics to design an organization that can achieve sustainable excellence built on the system dynamics of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Baldrige Performance Excellence Framework. Dr. Schulingkamp’ s experiences span the fields of leadership, finance, accounting, marketing, knowledge systems, environmental systems (ISO 14001), health and safety systems (OSHA VPP), project management, quality management system (ISO 9001), security & emergency preparedness, lean & six sigma and the NIST Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence and the European Foundation for Quality Management, (EFQM).

Research and Practice: Dr Schulingkamp published a pivotal research paper in 2015 in the Quality Management Journal titled, Health Care Performance Excellence: A Comparison of Baldrige Award Recipients and Competitors. The study compared 34 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Health Care recipients (2002-2011) to all 153 competitors in their geographic markets using standard CMS performance measures.  The study identified Baldrige Award recipient hospitals had higher mean values representing higher performance than the non-Baldrige Award recipient hospitals in 37 of the 39 (95 percent) study measures. His current research is a study of the long-term sustainability of high performing hospitals.

As the Senior Strategic Consultant from 2000 to 2016,  his leadership and knowledge of leadership, strategy, performance improvement, customer relationship, operations management,  workforce development and engagement were the key drivers in DynMcDermott Petroleum Operations Company receiving the Presidential, 2005 Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence Award and the international 2006 Robert W. Campbell Award for Safety, Health and Environment performance excellence.  DynMcDermott was the contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and the first federal prime contractor to obtain the business performance results necessary to receive the Baldrige Award. DynMcDermott is the first federal contractor and first company with less than 1,000 employees to receive the Robert W. Campbell Award, which was an international competition of companies from over 10 countries.

MBA students improve government: Dr. Schulingkamp began teaching at Loyola in 2007.  He has integrated his MBA classes into the real world by designing improvement projects for the MBA student organization or by improving Jefferson Parish government. The Jefferson Parish improvement projects started 2011with the first Loyola MBA Project Management and Lean Six Sigma classes. The Lean Six Sigma class improved operations and decreased the euthanasia rate at the Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter by almost 30% based on Cornell University College of Veterinary Shelter Medicine Program best practices.  By 2014, Dr. Schulingkamp’s MBA Leadership Dynamics students were activity involved in improving the performance and multiple Jefferson Parish departments including the Department of Community Development, Public Works, Community Action Programs like Head Start and Housing Counseling Program, that equips low-income citizens with the tools and potential for becoming self-sufficient.  The Loyola MBA Leadership student’s redesign of the Jefferson Workforce Connection in 2012 resulted in the Jefferson Workforce Connection receiving the Louisiana Quality Foundation Performance Excellence Award in 2015 at a ceremony in the Louisiana Governor’s Mansion. The Jefferson Workforce Connection has been the top performing workforce office in Louisiana. The Jefferson Workforce Connection worker engagement was the highest performing workforce office in Louisiana with an Employee Engagement Index of 81%, which is 49% higher than the U.S. average of 32% according to the Gallup Engagement Survey. This level of employee engagement is rare in any organization and extraordinary for a local government department. 

Professional Associations: Dr. Schulingkamp is the Vice-President of the Louisiana Quality Foundation and serves as a Board member of the Quality Texas Foundation and has contributed to the redesign and improvement of businesses, local and state government, schools, and hospitals across the U.S.  He serves on the Alliance for Performance Excellence Board and served as the Research Chair of the Baldrige Award Recipients' Consortium, from 2006 to 2017.  Ron served as a performance examiner for the former U.S. Presidential Quality Award Program, as well as the Department of Veterans Affairs Robert W. Carey and Kenneth W. Kizer Performance Excellence Award Programs.  He is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt (1999). ISO 9001 Lead Auditor, and senior member of the American Society for Quality and the past chair of the New Orleans American Society for Quality section.