Improving the Performance of Quality Improvement Teams
Improving the Performance of Quality Improvement Teams
Introduction
Within every company there is a customer, regardless of what your line of business is it is being done for the consumer albeit an external consumer or the internal consumer. The customer’s needs and expectations should be the driving force behind the decisions we make and the problems we solve…the customer, not our own personal or monetary gain. As quality improves we have to make sure that we are improving what matters to our customers not want we want to improve upon for own sake. What is quality improvement? Why is it necessary? Who benefits from having a Quality Improvement Team? What can we do to improve their performance? Quality improvement is a “structured organizational process for involving personnel in planning and executing a continuous flow of improvement to provide quality health care that meets or exceeds expectations (McLaughlin & Kaluzny, 2006, pg 3)”. Improving quality includes creating new methods (such as the PDCA cycle) in effort in closing the gap between current and expected levels as dictated by standards. Organizations that have quality improvement teams are constantly looking for ways to improve their current level of service. Everyone involved from patients to employers will all benefit from quality improvement, this paper will go on to answer the above asked questions, and dice into the importance of quality improvement teams and ways we can improve them.
The Focus Quality improvement focuses on understanding customer’s needs and the processes it takes to serve them satisfactorily. Quality improvement has been applied for decades and has more recently been used to implement changes in the healthcare industry. This movement draws inspiration from many disciplines such as the six-sigma method, which represents standard deviation and the concept that all items of a specification fall within six standard deviation of the mean. It uses data gathering and analysis to
Introduction
Within every company there is a customer, regardless of what your line of business is it is being done for the consumer albeit an external consumer or the internal consumer. The customer’s needs and expectations should be the driving force behind the decisions we make and the problems we solve…the customer, not our own personal or monetary gain. As quality improves we have to make sure that we are improving what matters to our customers not want we want to improve upon for own sake. What is quality improvement? Why is it necessary? Who benefits from having a Quality Improvement Team? What can we do to improve their performance? Quality improvement is a “structured organizational process for involving personnel in planning and executing a continuous flow of improvement to provide quality health care that meets or exceeds expectations (McLaughlin & Kaluzny, 2006, pg 3)”. Improving quality includes creating new methods (such as the PDCA cycle) in effort in closing the gap between current and expected levels as dictated by standards. Organizations that have quality improvement teams are constantly looking for ways to improve their current level of service. Everyone involved from patients to employers will all benefit from quality improvement, this paper will go on to answer the above asked questions, and dice into the importance of quality improvement teams and ways we can improve them.
The Focus Quality improvement focuses on understanding customer’s needs and the processes it takes to serve them satisfactorily. Quality improvement has been applied for decades and has more recently been used to implement changes in the healthcare industry. This movement draws inspiration from many disciplines such as the six-sigma method, which represents standard deviation and the concept that all items of a specification fall within six standard deviation of the mean. It uses data gathering and analysis to
References: Bacdayan, P. (2001). Quality improvement teams that stall due to poor project selection: an exploration of contributing factors Gillen, S., McKeever, J., Edwards, K., & Thielen, L. (2010). Promoting quality improvement and achieving measurable change: the lead states initiative McLaughlin, C., & Kaluzny, A. (2006). Continuous Quality Improvement in Healthcare. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers Ouwens, M., Hulscher, M., Akkermans, R., Hermens, R., Grol, R., & Wollersheim, H. (2008). Characteristics of Successful Quality Improvement Teams. (2003). Retrieved from http://a4hi.org/symposium/2003/2003_Weeks_1.pdf Pay-for-performance benefits are unproven, panel says. (2006). amednews.com. Retrieved from http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2006/11/27/gvsb1127.htm