Quality In The Health Care System example essay topic

The Health Care Industry is one of the most important industries if not the most important one. The Health Care industry consists of everything from the little pharmacy across the street, drugs processing plants all the way to the hospital where we immune our kids. The Health Care industry affects nearly every living person. Most people don't realize how important this industry is and how it affects their everyday lives, not to mention how complicated it is.

That is why it is so critical that products and services of this industry are at their highest quality and are free of harm to ensure that the consumer will not face any damaging consequences. Therefore, as any other industry, quality in the health care system has become the element in the world's market competition and Total Quality Management (TQM) plays a big role in promising that result. TQM was widely accepted by Japan from 1950 onward. They used this principle for continuous refinement of an organization-wide quality system. During the 1970's and 1980's, the Japanese and their U.S. companies demonstrated that high quality is achievable at lower costs and greater customer satisfaction. It was the result of using the management principles of total quality management.

Since then many organizations around the world have adopted TQM or similar methodologies. There have been many successes and many reported failures. Success of the system depends on the total commitment of the people to quality from top to bottom within the organization. TQM implementation is based on team work and the philosophy of continuous improvement. As hospitals are indispensable part of our health care system, which predominantly provides curative health care services, and as hospitals seem to occupy a very small part in overall health care system in terms of number, yet in fact hospitals take a major chunk of expenditure on health care and also mark the reputation of health system, and with the rising cost of health care services, hospitals have to carry out their functions effectively & efficiently so that, appropriate quality of care is provided at a cost acceptable by the Society. As King Abdelaziz University Hospital's management is running on an older system, which adds to workers that call out more sick days and abuse the Hospital's production procedure, organizational problems decoding means that all the members of the organization participate in cultivating a vision and improving the corporate cultures.

In any change program one must comprehend where his organization is before he can chart a course of where he want his organization to be. Therefore, before executing TQM or another program, it is important to add the total value of the organization in terms of its current quality or performance class and to define the level of performance or quality he wants to achieve. Steps To Implement TQM: 1. Organizational vision: Organizational vision provides the frame work that guides a firm's believes and values. The general picture of the corporate vision should be a simple, one sentence guide or motto that every employee knows, and more important, believes in. If well crafted, the vision statement can serve through a torrent of change in product and service technology.

The strategic vision needs to consider both the external customer and the employees, but should lack a defining or differentiating phrase between them. For example, General Motors provides all employees a card with its strategic vision, including a cause-effect diagram that indicates the importance of team work. Simply stating a vision is not enough. It needs to be demonstrated by the actions of the executives, managers, superiors, foremen, and individuals. It should be done continuously in all their actions and initiatives. Moreover, deliberation must be exercised in developing these goals and strategies.

They must reflect the values and culture of the work force. While top-management commitment is essential, managers should realize when to lead and when to get out of the way. In a sense quality management is management from the bottom up. An atmosphere of responsibility must be created toward the customer for whatever product is produced or service is rendered. Strategies in successful vision implementation demonstrate commitment.

2. Barrier Removal It is inevitable that change will be resisted. In fact, a great deal of effort in quality management is expended in overcoming such resistance, usually by allowing change to come from individuals directly involved, rather from management. The whole idea of continuous improvement leads to continuous change. Some of these barriers are: - We know what they really want (without asking them). - Quality is not a major factor in decisions-low initial cost mentality prevails.

- Creative accounting can increase corporate performance. - Can't manufacture competitively at the low end. - The job of senior management is strategy, not operations. - Success is good, failure is bad.

- If it isn't broke, don't fix it. - The key disciplines from which to draw senior management are finance and marketing. - Increase in quality means increase in cost. - Thinking that time, quality, and cost are the worst mutuality exclusive, at best we can only choose two out of three.

The following are the steps to barrier removal: I. Identify barrier. As seen above some of these barriers may apply more efficient progress. II. Place into categories. Related barriers and their systemic causes may now be analyzed. Categorization may be facilitated by using either cause-effect diagrams or quality function deployment..

Establish priority. An objective process that is not influenced by management or hidden agenda must be developed. At this stage barriers are judged on their validity in accordance with the severity of the problem. IV. Problem solving.

This means more than symptoms removal. Sick organizations do not recover for the long term if the symptoms are masked. It is vital to address the root of the problem. The elimination of one barrier may solve many problems for example poor communication between management and staff.

One should keep in mind that analyzing the problem should include estimates of resources required for its solution. V. Goals and strategies for resolution. Resolution of problems may entail goals over a period of months or years. Goals should be realistic and attainable with the given resources. Strategies ensure that goals can be accomplished. Bear in mind that numerical goals as such may not be what is required. Numerical goals may also limit the amount of growth, particularly in organizations used to working up to an average.

3. Communication Communication is the glue that binds all the techniques, practices, philosophies, and tools. Communication may be written, verbal, or nonverbal. Understanding and refining skills for each main type communication is an ongoing process for everyone. All forms of communication involve four elements: the sender, the receiver, the message, and the medium. The medium is the method of delivery, and can affect the message.

It was said that 'the medium is the message', referring in part to the filtering effects that can happen to the message and how personality factors may influence our understanding. 4. Continuous Evaluation Feedback is essential to continuous improvement. How else would we know if our goals are being reached? These feedback mechanisms may be simple oral or written reports, information systems, or complex automated statistical analyses integrated with our expert systems. The key is to receive the information in time to allow initiating corrective action.

For example, in constructive feedback from doctors, patients and so forth can help us as managers to find new ways to reduce cost and schedule. Feedback may also help mangers to find the best way to manage a department and therefore affecting the design. We also should understand and separate assessable causes from chance causes. Assessable causes have distinct reasons for their existence, while chance causes are those causes that we have no control over. 5. Continuous Improvement Unlike innovation, which requires great resources, and, no small amount of serendipity, continuous improvement is easier to manage and utilize Everyone's talent.

Japanese companies have used this idea for some time, and call this approach kai zen. This idea fits hand in hand with team building approach. Kaizen and innovation are compared in. To reduce cost and time and increase productivity, in any industry, the focus must be projected on the process that produces the product. Improving the process in construction, for example, reduced or may eliminate costly change orders and therefore reduced complexity and time. Through inspection and analysis of the process, everyone shares a common learning experience and the accumulated knowledge and understanding of the process become the basis for improving it.

Precepts of Quality Improvement. Quality leadership must begin with top management. o. The most important aspect of quality is identifying the activities within the organization that affect quality. o. Written procedure is one of the necessary communication media by which the management functions of directing and controlling are exercised. o. One of the most critical activities in quality improvement is preparing a clear, concise description of the services to be acquired. o. The cost, time, and effort devoted to evaluating and selecting suppliers must be commensurate with the importance of the goods and services to be procured. o.

Quality audits must determine the adequacy of, and compliance with, established policies, procedures, instructions, specifications, codes, standard and contractual requirements. Quality audits must also assess the effectiveness of their implementation. o. The simple objective of most quality audits is to gather enough reliable data through inspection, observation, and inquiry to make reasonable assessment of the quality of the activity being audited. o. The foundation of quality control is having timely and accurate information so that systems that are not capable of producing consistent quality can be identified and improved. o.

An effective quality cost program can help the management team to allocate strategic resources for improving quality and reducing costs. o. Productivity, profit, and quality are the ultimate measure of success of the production system. 6. Customer / Vendor Relationship " hearing the voice of the customer' has become a key phrase in the past few years. This would seem to be an obvious point but it's not. After World War II, The United States was the only major country that did not have a devastated economic infrastructure.

Therefore, it was able to produce items of any quality and sell them. Industries were internally driven and not customer driven. As the glob markets grew, new competitors with new technologies approached these markets providing better quality products and involving the customers. This approach worked miracles for these new industries and valuable lessons should be learned from this.

Here are some strategies for improving customer and vendor relation: o. Link organizational vision to customer satisfaction. o. Reward suppliers. o. Move to a single source. o. Minimize the overall number of vendors. o. Identify the internal and external customers. o.

Identify end users and distributors. o. Establish routine dialogue with customers. o. Involve the customer in planning and development. Keep in mind that vendors must be qualified and have policies that are compatible with yours. Viewing these vendors as partners, rather than adversaries lead to the ability to implement successfully such cost-saving measures as just-in-time, whereby materials arrive as needed to the construction site. 7.

Empowering the Worker Empowering the worker means enabling the worker to achieve his / her highest potential. For most companies, this is new, and may be the most powerful and useful concept in quality management. Allowing and facilitating workers to achieve their highest potential may seem obvious or impossible, but in fact it is neither. Empowering requires turning the organizations chart upside down, recognizing that management is in a place to aid the worker in overcoming problems they encounter, not to place new roadblocks on the way. Empowering strategies may include: I. Ownership. A key strategy in empowering employees is to allow them ownership of tasking, project, or division.

Ownership implies trust and requires a delegation of authority commensurate with the responsibility of the task. Ownership can also be granted to a team. Ownership also demands that the final resolution of the tasking be in the hands of the owner. II. Value all contributions. Whether or not we appreciate them, it is important to enhance self-esteem of the contributor to accept their contribution and evaluate it..

Every one has a value. If they didn't why would they be employed? Treat everyone with respect. IV. Teams must own problems.

Teams are a waste of time if management vetoes or substantially changes their recommendation. If management is unable to trust the recommendations that come from the team, then management fear rules, and will spiral to lower and lower productivity. V. Delegate authority to the lowest possible organizational level. Constantly ask: why should I do this? If you have hired competent people, let them do there job.

No one knows about the job than the person directly involved with it. 8. Training The outcome of training is modified behavior. It may be enhanced interpersonal skills or specific manual skills, but there is a direct, identifiable modification.

Training need not to consist solely out of traditional classroom instruction, employees can train other employees very effectively. A company-wide curriculum should be developed that address the needs of each department. Courses should be just long enough to be effective. Anything over three or four days is unlikely to immediately be absorbed into daily work habits. Immediate reinforcement of the training is necessary to be effective. Conclusion: Today, our hospitals are not able to provide quality care at reasonable cost.

Present organization structure is costing more (more than 60% of hospital budget is spent as salaries) and delivers less than desired level of medical care. Yet, today consumer driven market has not left the healthcare sector untouched. Patient satisfaction and therefore value for money is the buzzword. However, an eagles eye view of the various causes attributable to lack of quality care in our hospital, brings out one of the factors to the forefront, is the lack of general upkeep of the hospital and the huge investment on the manpower.

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