NCQA Equity Communications, Quality Talks Earn APEX Awards
July 20, 2022 · NCQA Communications
It’s a good day at NCQA, especially for the communications team responsible for keeping you up-to-date on all things health care quality. Our efforts have been recognized by our peers.
NCQA’s communications team—Matt Brock, Tommia Hayes and David Smolar, specifically—has earned an APEX Award of Excellence for Communications. And Matt Brock has earned an APEX Grand Award for his production work for the 2021 online version of Quality Talks.
The thirty-fourth annual awards program recognized excellence in publishing by professional communicators. The awards are based on excellence in graphic design, editorial content and the ability to achieve overall communications excellence. APEX Grand Awards honor the outstanding works in each main category, while APEX Awards of Excellence recognize exceptional entries in each of the individual subcategories.
The Award of Excellence for the entire team is particularly rewarding because it specifically recognizes the vast volume of communications NCQA has presented to promote Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. If you are a regular reader of the NCQA blog, you are aware that health equity is among the organization’s top priorities… and you can expect to real a lot more here about finding solutions for disparities.
While the Grand Award recognizes Matt Brock specifically, it is also an honor for the organization, that collectively presented Quality Talks 2021. Our in-person event was forced to become a fully online event in the face of the pandemic—a feat fully recognized by the APEX judges
“2021 was, again, a challenging year with “virtual meetings” becoming a standard for many workers regardless of their fields,” said APEX Awards Executive Editor Ken Turtoro. “However, the continuing exceptional quality of all the submitted entries is a testament to the fact that communications professionals have adapted, and continue to adapt, to the ‘new normal.’”
NCQA’s Communications team was selected from thousands of entries nationwide—and now stands among the best. 100 Grand Awards were presented to honor outstanding work in 14 major categories, with 485 Awards of Excellence recognizing exceptional entries in 100 subcategories.
The panel of judges for APEX 2022 included Ken Turtoro, APEX Senior Judge and Concepts Executive Editor; John De Lellis, Concepts Editor & Publisher; Christine Turner, Contributing Editor of the Writing That Works Archives; and John Tavaska, Consulting Editor.
It is gratifying for the team to be recognized. But it is more gratifying to know we are communicating in the best ways possible to inform and encourage health care quality improvement.
