Topic > Operational Analysis and Quality Improvement

The initial concepts of quality improvement were actually concepts from the manufacturing industry looking to improve the quality of their products and ensure efficiency in production processes by reducing waste. In 1910, Ernest Codman had the idea to improve hospital care by following patients to ensure treatments were effective. Codman's ideas laid the groundwork for the American College of Surgeons to develop a “minimum standard” of care, generally focused on improving the care provided in hospitals. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay By 1924, Walter A. Shewhart had developed the first known control chart, which later became known as the Shewhart Cycle. The Shewhart cycle linked related quality improvement and statistical approaches to effectively manage and continue improvement processes within companies, thus better developing and controlling how final products were manufactured. Quality improvement became a serious topic when the United States entered World War II and after the defeat of Japan, when Edward Deming contributed to the reconstruction of Japan and shared his knowledge enabling the Japanese to become industrial leaders in several industries after World War II. world war. While manufacturing industries are highly mechanized, specialized, and automated, healthcare management requires human touch and interaction to function. Healthcare management relies heavily on the latest technologies, just like the manufacturing industry, but the technology is limited to integrating the professionals who interact, diagnose patients and initiate treatment. Quality is the new market niche in the healthcare sector. Where there is quality healthcare, there will be demand, and in areas where there is no quality healthcare, losses will be incurred and liability will be high. As technology evolves, particularly in the healthcare sector, people's lifespans tend to lengthen. Similarly, healthcare has also evolved from a purely scientific and social issue to also an economic issue. Health economics means costs, dollars and cents, and that, in my opinion, is the biggest challenge for health reform right now. Justifying the cost of healthcare is an ongoing debate at all levels between consumer, provider and legislation. Besides cost, the other challenges are accessibility and of course quality. Performance indicators are also an important issue for healthcare. Why? There are too many variables and each institution has developed its own unique indicators for how it will measure performance. Within a healthcare facility itself, different departments will have their own performance measures as well as consolidated indicators for the institution as a whole. As a result, key indicators are narrowed down to certain key factors, (i) quality (ii) costs and customer satisfaction, to name a few. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to cleaning up the healthcare industry. There is no quick fix. Therefore, it is important that quality improvement programs are implemented in different healthcare sectors; these improvement programs will also need to evolve. The healthcare sector will have to think outside the box, evaluate the quality improvement programs of the financial sector, adopt relevant indicators from there and replicate this screening, copy and paste scenario in other sectors such as tourism industry, defense and.