Quality Improvement Strategies Describe each methodology you researched. What are the pros and cons of each methodology? Choose one methodology to move forward with for your organizational QI plan. Explain why you chose that methodology over the others.

Hospital executives and quality improvement managers have experienced success at varying levels due to the introduction of varying concepts of Continuous Quality Improvement and Total Quality Management in different hospital operations for the past fifteen years. Several non-healthcare industries have transferred different quality improvement methodologies which have been being studied well and then implemented at various hospitals. Hospitals have dedicated their immense fiscal and human resources towards the implementation of leading methodologies. They were successful in attaining short-term success, yet they got frustrated due to the unsustainability of quality and cost effectiveness initiatives. Executives remained dedicated towards the implementation of quality improvement methodologies, yet they were still required to determine answer to the fact that which quality improvement methodology would fit in best within their organization.

This analysis aims at viewing four major quality improvement methodologies which are being utilized in the market. These methodologies lend a hand in answering important questions faced by healthcare executives today. The core question is the one regarding the most appropriate quality improvement strategy that would fit in well within an organization. Following methodologies are reviewed in this analysis:

1) Six Sigma- invented by Motorola and popularised by General Electric, this methodology revolves around variance reduction using a problem solving approach which will eventually improve quality of the output.

2) Lean Thinking - pioneered by Toyota, this methodology aims at attaining success and improving business performance through improved workflow by striving to reduce waste.

3) Theory of Constraints - caters the understanding of manufacturing system constraints and emphasize upon faster system throughput in system processes.

4) Customer-Inspired® Quality - was patented in 1992 by Shaw Resources. It highlights work processes directly affecting service and care provided to medical and hospital group patients. It achieves this by analysing, defining, identifying and improving the degree of effectiveness and quality of processes. The three other methodologies contribute some techniques to this methodology.

The application of rigorous analytical and statistical techniques tends to be the fundamental part of all the above mentioned methodologies. Three of the methodologies mentioned above focus primarily on manufacturing organization. Only one of the Quality Customer-Inspired (CIQ ) methodologies focus on healthcare service industry for improving cost effectiveness and addressing quality measures from a holistic perspective for the patients.

Now the question arises regarding the degree to which the three manufacturing methods bring value to service organizations. The idea of addressing constraints and problems properly will improve quality to a great extent. The manufacturing originated methodologies treat things first from the management's perspective and then focus on the customer. Due to the prioritization of the management perspective by the methodologies, they cannot be used for attaining high performance levels in high-touch patient care environments or in similar situations.

After analysing thoroughly, the Shaw Resources' Customer-Inspired Quality methodology tends to be the most appropriate performance and quality improvement strategy in our healthcare organization due to the following reasons:

All patient care and administrative work processes are defined well by Customer-Inspired Quality. It highlights the prioritization of improvement efforts from customer's perspective and presents a complete and consistent review and approach towards improvement. The methodology is easily understandable by all the hospital stakeholders including medical staff, patients, hospital staff, and care/service providers. The methodology involves a friendly outlook towards the hospital or service organization and encourages a broad section of staff towards rendering their involvement and input.

It addresses all the problems arising in the processes involved in system care through comprehensive cross-functional work process analysis and review. For the purpose of monitoring...

These ensure that any deviations from the actual goal are avoided, as well as providing an alarm to the managers in case those deviations prove harmful. By taking the quality methods adopted by manufacturing firms, Customer-Inspired Quality seeks to achieve beneficial advantages regarding quality and safety, both in the short run and the long run.
Describe each information technology application you researched. How may these applications be used to help improve the performance area of focus you decided for your organization?

Transaction Processing System TPS

TPS is an information system that collects, stores, modifies and retrieves all the transactions that occur in an organization. An ACID test needs to be cleared in order to be taken as a TPS. The process includes modification of the information that is later stored in the IS. This would help my hospital consistently manage and organize data. For instance, when an electronic payment is carried out, the money involved is supposed to be transferred from the account of the purchaser to the account of the seller. These involve decreasing the account balance of the former and increasing the account balance of the latter in order for the transaction to be completely processed. However if it is not, TPS rolls back the transaction as well as all others that it considers it partially transacted (Laudon and Laudon, 2011).

Management Information Systems MIS and Decision-Support System DSS

DSS

The decision making procedure will greatly benefit from a Decision Support System or a DSS. It is an IS based on the computer which may help and assist my hospital in business planning which appears to be changing so dramatically that it is becoming increasingly difficult for the management to effectively and efficiently rule them out in advance (Laudon and Laudon, 2011).

Due to the fact that it is based on the input knowledge, it can greatly enhance the decisions made through gathering information plus properly compiling it from the knowledge of personnel, business models, and various documents (Laudon and Laudon, 2011).

Executive Support Systems ESS

The overall process of decision making can be enhanced by implementing ESS. Executive Support Systems are used by few key deciders and they prove helpful in providing information at whatever stage in the process what sort of information is required (Laudon and Laudon, 2011).

Having an idea similar to that of DSS, ESS is used by senior management for the purpose of being constantly updated with the knowledge of the firms various activities as well as to get the reports regarding all the information and existing knowledge (Laudon and Laudon, 2011).

The DSS seeks to keep efficiently organized linkages within external databases, while ESS proves helpful in utilizing executive as well as interactive options that further become easy for the user to use (Laudon and Laudon, 2011).

Describe how benchmarks and milestones are involved in managing the utilization of quality indicators. Identify three potential benchmarks and milestones from quality indicators that could be used for your plan.

A term increasingly being used in the arena of quality is 'Benchmarking'. This involves the comparing and contrasting of certain commodities and services against the optimum quality existent in that particular sector of industry.

The European Benchmarking Code of Conduct considers benchmarking to be a complete process where companies identify and learn motivated from healthy practices that are employed by other organizations (Garlick and Pryor, 2004). Benchmarking is described as follows by the Public Sector Benchmarking Services:

On regular basis, the evaluation of performance takes place by the best practitioners, who make notice of any gaps or short comings. They also bring about new and refined approaches so that more improvement is brought about in the results. Whenever improvements are implemented, a monitoring mechanism is also run to conduct a review (Garlick and Pryor, 2004).

There are four steps drawn in benchmarking, according to Keegan and O'Reagain (2000). They are as follows: 1) Own process is understood in detail; 2) undergo process analysis of others; 3) Compare ones performance with the analysed ones; 4) implement the steps for minimizing the performance gaps. When a term is brought into daily use, usually its real…