Quality and Leadership

As we explore the concept of quality at your hospitals we will further dissect the role of leadership in improving quality.

In order to instill quality at our hospitals there are four ways of thinking that we must change to.

1. Quality is not a mistake, it can be measured and it can be managed - In medicine, many people say that outcomes are too unpredictable and therefore there is no way that one can manage and improve it. This is not a mentality of quality leadership. While there may not be a way of measuring something presently, a quality organization will find a to start measuring something and continually tweak it until it is a good measurement.

2. We ultimately serve our patients - Hospitals get very confused as to who their customers are as a business. Are the customers the physicians, the patients, or the community? The patients are the reason for a hospital to be. Improve the quality by focusing on the patient experience and the physicians and community will fall in line.

3. Go long - In order to improve quality in your organization, you have to take a long term approach. If quality is thought in a short term, it will not be accepted by your stakeholders. Changes in quality are expensive and inconvient. Thinking long term puts this in perspective.

4. Tap your inner creativity - Health care workers are not especially known for their creativity, but they may be the most creative and abstract thinkers in the world. Use that creativity to try solutions that you may not think will work. Give your employees the ability to try things and fail. Failure and learning from the failure is what give the world some of its greatest innovations.

What's Your Best Quality?

Hospitals and the public often think about quality in hospitals in the context of safety. This is absolutely a very important aspect of quality, but I want to delve deeper into quality. When was the last time your hospital looked at total organizational quality?

Many hospitals have heard of the Malcolm Baldrige award for quality. In fact, last year two health care organizations won this award.

Mercy Health System
Sharp Healthcare

There are six criteria that Baldrige award nominies are judged on including:

1. Leadership`
2. Strategic Planning
3. Customer & Market Focus
4. Measurement & Analysis
5. Workforce Focus
6. Process Management

We will explore each of these criteria in the coming weeks hoping to find something that you can institute at your hospital to improve your organizational quality. Please leave comments about anything that you may do at your hospital to address these criteria.