Introduction
Providing high-quality health care using the best ideas and techniques while also being ready for potential costs is a priority for hospitals nowadays. Total quality measurement (TQM) as a management system aimed at achieving customer satisfaction and enhancing employee and organizational performance is considered one of the most prospective methods of addressing high-quality healthcare. The paper seeks to discuss the ways of measuring quality, assessing potential costs, and strategies to improve the quality of health care using TQM methods on Memorial Hospital.
Total Quality Management in Health Care
Total quality management is a system that is used for improving organizational performance. It is characterized by its focus on quality improvement and quality management. The literature on TQM research provides multiple accounts demonstrating its impact on delivering quality products and improving job attitudes, commitment among workers, and employee performance (Khan et al., 2019). This positively affects other performance dimensions, including finances, operations, and customer satisfaction (Psomas & Jaca, 2016). Therefore, following the success of quality management in manufacturing, it started to be adopted by other industries and sectors.
In modern health care, the total quality management approach has already become a popular method of improving effectiveness. They include a focus on delivering proper care, reduced healthcare delivery costs, and increased patient satisfaction (Parast & Golmohammadi, 2019). The character of this concentration is explained by the challenges that modern healthcare is facing in the context of increased competitiveness among hospitals. However, this approach’s implementation requires addressing the specific challenges that the health care sector is posing. Among them are the issue of quality assessment and evaluation of costs.
Assessing Quality of Health Care at Memorial Hospital
Assessing the quality of health care is a topical question that many health care organizations are discussing. The inherent complexity of quality in the healthcare industry is universally acknowledged and can be explained by customers’ heterogeneity, the knowledge gap, and the nature of quality costs (Parast & Golmohammadi, 2019). Moreover, researchers note that “quality as a concept has metamorphosed over the years, and it involves objective quality bordering on the characteristics and quality of goods and services that meet implicit and explicit customer demands” (Alzoubi et al., 2019, p. 167). Therefore, the concept of high quality should be defined in more precise terms and put into a framework that would add certain tangibility to the assessed factor.
Memorial Hospital is focused on providing high-quality general health care at an affordable price. However, to develop an effective strategy, it is necessary to outline the factors that comprise the notion of “quality”. While patient-centeredness is of utmost importance, it is required to work out a system that would cover other quality measurements: effectiveness, efficiency, equity, safety, and timeliness (Hanefeld et al., 2017). It can be done using the Baldrige Health Care Excellence Framework, widely used within the TQM approach (National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2019). According to this model, it is vital to assess not only customer satisfaction and operational results (patient outcomes), but also the effectiveness of leadership, management of processes, strategic planning, HR development and management, handling of information and its analysis.
Potential Costs of Quality for Memorial Hospital
Since Memorial Hospital focuses on providing health care at a low cost with paying special attention to patients, the advertised patient-oriented care requires the hospital management to concentrate on delivering on its promises. Improving quality health care while keeping costs down seems a severe problem as the hospital aims to find a balance between the quality and available care. However, the proposed Baldrige approach might help save resources while improving the quality of healthcare and customer satisfaction.
The central portion of healthcare quality costs would be allocated to improving information and analysis management and human resources development. As noted by Parast & Golmohammadi (2019), “Healthcare organizations should recognize the importance of information systems, the availability of timely and accurate data, and the significance of decision making as related to healthcare operations and processes” (p. 141). Human resources development measures might include practices aimed at increasing engagement, improving work processes, and creating a safer work environment.
As Memorial Hospital stresses close personal attention to each patient from the nursing staff, leadership needs to ensure the nursing staff’s availability and commitment. To do this, it might be crucial to monitor staffing needs and skills required for providing a sufficient level of care. This monitoring needs to be ongoing, as “staffing needs are difficult to anticipate and are therefore fluid and unpredictable” (Wolf et al., 2017, p. 151). Moreover, the interest in staff feedback would be additionally beneficial as it would increase the job attitude among personnel.
Conclusion
Implementing the TQM approach at Memorial Hospital would be an appropriate method of ensuring the quality of patient care. Moreover, the following quality management recommendations would support developing an effective quality assessment system to address the most critical spheres. This will allow to keep costs at a medium level and provide the necessary foundation for a balance between healthcare quality and availability.
References
Alzoubi, M. M., Hayati, K. S., Rosliza, A. M., Ahmad, A. A., & Al-Hamdan, Z. M. (2019). Total quality management in the healthcare context: integrating the literature and directing future research. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 12, 167-177.
Hanefeld, J., Powell-Jackson, T., & Balabanova, D. (2017). Understanding and measuring quality of care: Dealing with complexity. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 95, 368-374. Web.
Khan, M. N., Malik, S. A., & Janjua, S. Y. (2019). Total quality management practices and work-related outcomes: A case study of higher education institutions in Pakistan. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 36(6), 864-874. Web.
National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2019). Baldrige health care criteria for performance excellence categories and items.
Parast, M. M., & Golmohammadi, D. (2019). Quality management in healthcare organizations: Empirical evidence from the Baldrige data. International Journal of Production Economics, 216, 133-144.
Psomas, E. L., & Jaca, C. (2016). The impact of total quality management on service company performance: Evidence from Spain. International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 33(3), 380-398. Web.
Wolf, L. A., Perhats, C., Delao, A. M., Clark, P. R., & Moon, M. D. (2017). On the threshold of safety: A qualitative exploration of nurses’ perceptions of factors involved in safe staffing levels in emergency departments. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 43(2), 150-157.