NHIS Wins Presidential Medal at National Quality Innovation Contest for 8th Straight Year

[Financial News] The National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) won a presidential medal at the National Quality Innovation Contest for the eighth consecutive year, based on employees' voluntary job-related learning. NHIS said on the 27th that it took part in the 2026 National Quality Innovation Contest, the 52nd National Quality Circle Contest, held from the 24th at the Sori Arts Center of Jeollabuk-do in Jeonju-si, and won one gold medal and two silver medals.
The National Quality Innovation Contest, hosted by the National Institute of Technology and Standards under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and Jeonju-si, and organized by the Korean Standards Association (KSA), recognizes and rewards outstanding quality circles that have contributed to quality improvement and customer satisfaction through voluntary improvement activities by frontline workers.
This year, three learning groups from NHIS entered the competition and all won presidential medals.
NHIS's Daegu-Gyeongbuk Regional Headquarters won a gold medal in the service category with its project, "Improving customer satisfaction by enhancing health insurance services."
The Busan Northern Branch's "Long-Term Care CAD" won a silver medal in the CoP category for "improving integrated support work capabilities through preliminary learning on integrated care," while the Gwangju, Jeolla and Jeju Regional Headquarters' "HealthAIs" won a silver medal in the free-form (service) category for "reducing processing time by improving the health checkup operation process."
With this year's awards, NHIS added three more presidential medals to the 25 it had won through last year, bringing the total to 28. It also extended its streak to eight consecutive years of recognition.
At the heart of this achievement is NHIS's long-running learning circle program.
Since 2006, NHIS has operated learning circles in which employees independently study and improve problems at their workplaces. Since 2019, in particular, the agency has identified outstanding learning circles through an internal contest and sent them to the National Quality Innovation Contest, sharing improvement results from the field with outside audiences.
The agency said that the approach goes beyond simple job training, as employees identify problems in their work processes, improve them through learning and research, and apply the results to actual operations, leading to external awards.
Cho Joon-hee, head of NHIS's Human Resources Development Institute, said, "I am very proud that employees' voluntary job learning, driven by intense reflection and action in the field, has led to work improvements and valuable results." He added, "We will continue to provide generous support so that employees can keep learning on their own and establish a culture in which the organization grows through self-development."

[email protected] Kang Jung-mo Reporter