The development and implementation of an integrated Quality Improvement Program (QIP) for the Department of Surgery at The Hospital for Sick Children was approached as a problem-solving process by which departmental managers could bring about change so that actual results would align more closely with desired outcomes. A planned and systematic process was developed, through which managers are able to reach decisions about when and where to make useful changes that result in improved quality of care and services provided.
Three useful techniques were employed: team-building, continuing education and quality circles.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BerwickDonald M.1989. Continuous improvement as an ideal in health care, New England Journal of Medicine320 (1).
2.
DemingW.E.1982. Quality, Productivity and Competitive Position, Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Advanced Engineering Study.
3.
JuranJ.M.GrynaF.M. and BinghamR.S.Jr. (eds). 1979. Quality Control Handbook, New York: McGraw-Hill.
4.
ShewhartW.A.1925. The application of statistics as an aid in maintaining quality of a manufactured product. Journal of the American Statistics Association20: 546–548.
5.
CrosbyP.B.1979. Quality is Free: The Art of Making Quality Certain, New York: McGraw-Hill.
6.
JuranJ.M.1964. Managerial Breakthrough, New York, McGraw-Hill.
7.
DemingW.E.1986. Out of Crisis, Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center of Advanced Engineering Study.
8.
KacharR.N.1985. Off-line quality control. Parameter Design, and the Taguchi Method. Journal of Quality Technology17: 176–178.
9.
KaizenI.M.1979. The Key to Japanese Competitive Success, New York: McGraw-Hill.
10.
KossenS.1983. The Human Side of Organizations, New York: Harper and Row: 183–185.
11.
BennetC. and BakerO.1990. Developing an integrated QIP. American Journal of Information Control18(2): 118–125.
12.
SoreffStephen. 1990. Quality improvement: A collaborative discipline approach. Psychiatric Clinics of North America13(1): 187–191.
13.
Listed as members of the proposed QIP Committee were all the middle management group, a representative from the QA/RM Department and the Administrative Director of the department, for a total of nine.
14.
ThomasJ.1990. A hospital-wide QA indicator report. Dimensions in Health Services67(1): 24–27.
