Different types and aspects of quality systems and their implications

Quality indicators in burn care: An international burn care professionals survey to define them

INTRODUCTION

Quality indicators (QIs) are tools for improving and maintaining the standard of care. Although burn injuries are a major global health threat, requiring standardized management, there is a lack of worldwide accepted quality indicators for burn care. This study aims to identify the best burn care-specific QIs as perceived by worldwide burn practitioners.

METHODS

The ISBI Burn Care Committee developed a survey to analyze which burn care- specific QIs were relevant to international burn care professionals. The questionnaire was based on the three dimensions of the Donabedian model (i.e., Structure, Process, and Outcome) to evaluate the quality of care. The study was conducted from April to September 2021 and analyzed and reported following the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys (CHERRIES).

RESULTS

According to the 124 worldwide respondents, the most relevant QIs were: access to intensive care, burn surgeons, and dedicated burn care nurses (Structure category), 24-hours access to burn services, local protocols based on documented guidelines (Process category), and in-hospital mortality and incidence of severe infections (Outcome category).

CONCLUSIONS

Specific QIs related to structures, clinical processes, and outcomes are needed to monitor the treatment of burn patients globally, assess the efficiency of the provided treatment, and harmonize the worldwide standard of burn care.

Quality improvement strategies and tools: A comparative analysis between Italy and the United States

Italian and American hospitals, in two different periods, have been urged by external circumstances to extensively redesign their quality improvement strategies. This paper, through the use of a survey administered to chief quality officers in both countries, aims to identify commonalities and differences between the two systems and to understand which approaches are effective in improving quality of care. In both countries chief quality officers report quality improvement has become a strategic priority, clinical governance approaches, and tools-such as disease-specific quality improvement projects and clinical pathways-are commonly used, and there is widespread awareness that clinical decision making must be supported by protocols and guidelines. Furthermore, the study clearly outlines the critical importance of adopting a system-wide approach to quality improvement. To this extent Italy seems lagging behind compared to US in fact: (i) responsibilities for different dimensions of quality are spread across different organizational units; (ii) quality improvement strategies do not typically involve administrative staff; and (iii) quality performance measures are not disseminated widely within the organization but are reported primarily to top management. On the other hand, in Italy chief quality officers perceive that the typical hospital organizational structure, which is based on clinical directories, allows better coordination between clinical specialties than in the United States. In both countries, the results of the study show that it is not the single methodology/model that makes the difference but how the different quality improvement strategies and tools interact to each other and how they are coherently embedded with the overall organizational strategy.

Factors influencing the opinion of patients concerning the functioning of the Polish hospital before and after ownership transformation

Studies of satisfaction among patients are a popular and frequently obligatory tool used in improving the quality of medical services worldwide. Becoming familiar with the opinion of the patients enables to adjust the venue to their expectations, thus contributing to the increase in its competitiveness. We aimed to study patients' satisfaction understood as a tool used in increasing the quality of medical services; in addition, we assessed factors that affect a worse review patients gave about the functioning of this Polish hospital before and after its transformation into a commercial company. The study of satisfaction among patients was conducted using an anonymous questionnaire among 2702 respondents before and 2795 respondents after the hospital's transformation. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was applied to statistically analyze the collected empirical material, where the dependent variable was a worse evaluation of respondents concerning the functioning of the hospital. It was demonstrated that both before and after the hospital's transformation into a commercial company, it was education and conditions of housing of patients that determined their opinion about the functioning of the admission center and hospital wards. A higher level of education increases the risk of a worse evaluation of the admission center and hospital wards, whereas higher self-evaluation of housing conditions lowered the discussed risk. Factors that influence the opinion of patients concerning the functioning of the hospital are education, age, marital status, housing conditions of the respondents and also the number of stays at a given hospital, and a conscious choice of the facility in which a patient wished to be treated.

Effects of changes in ownership of the Polish hospital on the patients' opinion about its functioning

System changes in health care centers have been directed at introducing such marketing elements into the Polish health care system as managerial approach to managing the centers and contracting medical services and quality management. High quality of the medical services and patients’ satisfaction became the key factors deciding about “the brand” of a health care center. The aim of the work was to assess the effect of changes in ownership of the hospital on the patients’ opinion about its functioning. Patients’ satisfaction survey was carried out through an anonymous questionnaire among 2702 respondents before and 2795 respondents after the transformation of the hospital. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the collected empirical material. The assessment of the functioning of the admission center and hospital wards was significantly higher among the respondents asked after the transformation of the hospital as opposed to the assessment before it. Transforming the public hospital in Poland into a commercial company helped improve its functioning in the opinion of patients. There is a need to carry out further systematic research into the patients’ satisfaction better adjust the hospital’s offer to the needs of the hospitalized people.

Towards medicines regulatory authorities' quality performance improvement: value for public health

The purpose of this article is to explore the possibility of implementing total quality management (TQM) principles in national medicines regulatory authorities in Europe to achieve all public health objectives. Bearing in mind that medicines regulation is a governmental function that serves societal objectives to protect and promote public health, measuring the effective achievement of quality objectives related to public health is of utmost importance. A generic TQM model for meeting public health objectives was developed and was tested on 10 European national medicines regulatory authorities with different regulatory performances. Participating national medicines regulatory authorities recognised all TQM factors of the proposed model in implemented systems with different degrees of understanding. An analysis of responses was performed within the framework of two established criteria-the regulatory authority's category and size. The value of the paper is twofold. First, the new generic TQM model proposes to integrate four public health objectives with six TQM factors. Second, national medicines regulatory authorities were analysed as public organisations and health authorities to develop a proper tool for assessing their regulatory performance. The paper emphasises the importance of designing an adequate approach to performance measurement of quality management systems in medicines regulatory authorities that will support their public service missions.

Achieving quality in a government hospital: departmental responsibility

Quality improvement in health care organizations requires structural reorganization and system reform and the development of an appropriate organizational "culture." In 2007, the Division of Quality and Excellence in Civil Service in Israel developed a concept to improve quality management in governmental institutions throughout the country. To put this strategy into practice, Western Galilee Hospital, a governmental hospital, in northern Israel, developed a plan to advance the quality management system where each department and unit is autonomously responsible for its own quality and excellence. Since the hospital has been certificated by ISO 9001 for more than 10 years (the only hospital in Israel to have this certificate), the main challenge now is to improve the quality and excellence system in every department. The aim of this article is to describe the implementation of a comprehensive program designed to raise the ability of managers and workers in Western Galilee Hospital in addressing all of the government's requirements for quality and excellence in service in Israel.

Quality improvement designs are related to the degree of organisation of quality systems: An empirical study of hospital departments

Quality systems can help departments do the right things and do things right, but organisation and design need to be considered. The aim was to analyse whether quality systems that include certain quality improvement designs differ with regard to organisational factors and degrees of organisation. A questionnaire was developed and sent to a random sample of 600 hospital departments in Sweden (response rate=75%). A k-means cluster analysis was used to group departments into three degrees of organisation. Analyses of variance were done to study differences in organisational factors and quality improvement designs among the clusters. LISREL analyses were done to study the relationships between organisational factors and quality improvement designs. The results showed that quality systems that included certain quality improvement designs differed with regard to the organisational factors available resources, administration, culture, cooperation, and goal achievement. The results also showed that departments with quality systems of different organisational degrees used different quality improvement designs. Some quality improvement designs may require a quality system with a high degree of organisation to support a successful implementation. The appended questionnaire could be used to plan implementations and evaluate their results.

The relationship between quality management systems and organizational performance in the Italian National Health Service

This study aims to define the underlying factors of the quality management systems that are the best predictors of public health-care providers' organizational performance and to assess the impact of those underlying factors on performance. To reach the research objectives, a national survey involving all the Italian public health-care providers (352) was carried out. The total response rate was around 42%. The findings confirmed that the quality elements described in literature as "core values" could be considered critical factors of the quality management systems adopted by Italian health-care providers. Unlike similar studies and models currently employed by the quality award organizations, this study considered the variables related to the existence and role of the quality department. The results highlighted that this element was an important underlying factor of the quality management systems adopted by Italian health-care providers. As for the impact of the characteristics of the quality management systems on organizational performance, the results showed that the outcome subjective performance was positively related to quality management variables, but there was a lack of a significant statistical relationship between financial performance and quality management. This seems to be consistent with a health policy that, so far, has not stressed sufficiently the reinforcing effect of simultaneously pursuing quality and efficiency. A health policy that intends to reach both microeconomic efficiency and service quality, on the contrary, should promote and emphasize the synergies between these two objectives. Such a conclusion seems to be an underpinning assumption of the recent National Health Plan (2006-2008) that, finally, mentions the relationship between quality and efficiency as a way to achieve macroeconomic stabilization.

The structure of quality systems is important to the process and outcome, an empirical study of 386 hospital departments in Sweden

BACKGROUND

Clinicians, nurses, and managers in hospitals are continuously confronted by new technologies and methods that require changes to working practice. Quality systems can help to manage change while maintaining a high quality of care. A new model of quality systems inspired by the works of Donabedian has three factors: structure (resources and administration), process (culture and professional co-operation), and outcome (competence development and goal achievement). The objectives of this study were to analyse whether structure, process, and outcome can be used to describe quality systems, to analyse whether these components are related, and to discuss implications.

METHODS

A questionnaire was developed and sent to a random sample of 600 hospital departments in Sweden. The adjusted response rate was 75%. The data were analysed with confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling in LISREL. This is to our knowledge the first large quantitative study that applies Donabedian's model to quality systems.

RESULTS

The model with relationships between structure, process, and outcome was found to be a reasonable representation of quality systems at hospital departments (p = 0.095, indicating no significant differences between the model and the data set). Structure correlated strongly with process (0.72) and outcome (0.60). Given structure, process also correlated with outcome (0.20).

CONCLUSION

The model could be used to describe and evaluate single quality systems or to compare different quality systems. It could also be an aid to implement a systematic and evidence-based system for working with quality improvements in hospital departments.