Organisational approaches to quality improvement and quality management

There are a great many articles relevant to quality improvement in organisational and managerial literature; the following offer a taster. Broadly speaking, papers cover three areas: the measurement of quality improvement; information and its potential to improve quality and/or to raise its profile; and organisational consequences of management approaches including the increasing attention paid to organisation culture and values congruent with quality improvement. These literatures tend to draw on case studies or (what are presented as) exemplar organisations.

Scharitzer D, Korunka C. New public management: evaluating the success of total quality management and change management interventions in public services from the employees' and customers' perspectives. Total Qual Manag 2000;11:S941.

Abstract reproduced from original.

The aim of this study is the development of a monitoring approach covering and following up on the effects of total quality management and change in management interventions in public services from the employees' and customers' perspectives. The results should give managers in charge a clear idea of whether or not the steps taken in the restructuring process can be rated as successful from an internal and external evaluation perspective. The study is an empirical evaluation of a complex restructuring process in the public service sector in Austria. It was realised as a single case study conducted with a large public housing agency on the way to a more customer orientation. Extensive employee and customer satisfaction surveys were done to evaluate success.

Dewan NA, Daniels A, Zieman G, et al. The National Outcomes Management Project: a benchmarking collaborative. J Behav Health Serv Res 2000;27:431–6.

Abstract reproduced from original.

Traditional evaluation of health care quality usually involves the measurement of the structure, process, and outcome of care. Most quality improvement programmes involve a cycle that includes a setting of goals, a measurement of either process or outcomes, and a real-time or retrospective feedback of the results of data measurement. Benchmarking, a well known efficient business technology, can lead …