Sustainable Quality Services in the Healthcare Industry. TQM Magazine, Volume 18, Issue 6. (Electronic book text)

Healthcare is a topic that is never too far away from most peoples minds. The primary concern for most of us is the ability to continuously enjoy affordable quality healthcare. Quality healthcare encompasses two major aspects of healthcare: clinical quality and service delivery quality. While clinical quality is always the major priority of customers in the healthcare industry, good service delivery quality, although unaware to many, is equally important in supporting patient care and contributing to affordability of healthcare. The integration of Total Quality Management (TQM) principles within the healthcare system management (HSCM) framework is a key enabler for healthcare excellence. It is critical that healthcare service providers should realize that the long-term sustainability of quality healthcare services requires the adoption of innovative quality management practices, theories, and techniques, not only in patient contact areas but in the overall system of healthcare delivery. Instead of focusing only on customer satisfaction issues and the quality of the service contacts, this e-book presents quality perspectives that range from service impacts, to process improvement approaches, service delivery designs, best practices in healthcare industry, and understanding of quality culture in a healthcare organization context.