Quality control and management principles

¶ … Janson Medical Clinic

Construct a Pareto diagram for dissatisfaction. What conclusions do you reach?

Creating a Pareto diagram of dissatisfaction shows how poor the overall patient experience is in the Janson Medical Clinic from a care and treatment perspective. As the case indicates that the process for making an appointment is streamlined and easily accomplished, it is not surprising that this aspect of the dissatisfaction metric scores the least. The top three areas that generate the highest levels of patient satisfaction include the ease of getting through on the phone, ease of getting a convenient appointment, and the length of time patients wait to see a physician. The following Pareto analysis illustrates the results.

What is alarming about the performance of the Jansen Medical Clinic from a patient satisfaction perspective is how low seven of the 14 attributes track score. The attributes so critical to delivering an excellent patient experience are ranking at an aggregate score of 3 or less. These include respect shown by nurses and assistants, amount of time to register, confidence in the physician's ability, respect shown by the physician, explanation of medical condition and treatment, how well the physician listened and comfort of registration waiting area. Taken together, these factors having such a low score undermine the credibility of the physicians and the clinic itself.

2. Select the top three sources of patient dissatisfaction and propose cause-and-effect diagrams for the possible reasons behind them.

The top three sources of patient dissatisfaction is the respect shown by nurses and assistants (0), amount of time to register (1) and confidence in the physician's ability (1).

The following are the cause and effect diagrams of factors leading to these outcomes:

3. Propose some process improvements to the flowcharts in Figure 13.26 and develop redesigned processes along with new flowcharts. How will your suggestions address the sources of dissatisfaction in Table 13.5?

The process shown in 13.26 can be made more efficient by having an answering service take calls (by a real person not a machine) to replace the steps of having an answering machine putting a patient on hold. Worse, the process as it stands today is very inefficient and open to potential errors of having the calls not returned as well. The following workflow would simplify the entire process significantly:

Call is routed to patient appointment scheduling -- and patient is given options of dates and times through Automated Voice Response Systems

Automated System Receives and Routes Call

Call is received

Call for Billing Inquiries -- Using AVR systems the patient can access their account and check balances and also pay their bill.

Call to Attendant during office hours -- 8am to 5pm M -- F.

Call is routed to patient appointment scheduling -- and patient is given options of dates and times through Automated Voice Response Systems

Real World Assignment 6 -- 2 pages

Develop a typical business flowchart representing the first phase of a product-development process. Use the material studied in this course, research from Internet sources, and your personal experience to create this flow chart. The appropriate symbols must be integrated into your flowchart.

The following diagram shows the first phase of the new product development process for enterprise software based on personal experience and sources studied during the course, in addition to those read online.

Idea Generation

Idea Screening Process

Prioritizing Ideas on Financial Return

Prioritizing Ideas on Technical Feasibility

Define business case and technical feasibility of the most highly rated projects and programs

A

Highest Priority Project Selected

A

Concept Development & Testing

Legacy Systems Data

Stage Gate 0

Data Set Definition

Conformance to Functional and Engineering Specifications -- Written Analysis

Decision: Stage Gate 1

Data driven testing and evaluation of initial systems reliability

Variance analysis of functional and engineering specifications

New application feature development, integration to platform components reporting completed.

Close of First Phase of Development

Module Six Discussion -- 1 page

Visit the quality site http://www.qualitydigest.com/content/magazine.; Find an article pertaining to the major concepts presented in chapters 13 and 14. In your post, discuss how the article relates to the concepts presented in chapters 13 and 14. Cite your article and source.

In the article Six Sigma Lessons from Deming, Part 2 by Dr. Anthony Burns discusses the need for having a more egalitarian approach to how quality management is implemented through organizations. He successfully illustrates how the traditional Black Belt model is antiquated and often slows down companies from being able to bring faster change throughout their organizations. This is illustrates throughout the many examples shown of how the various level of Black Belts fail to bring a greater level of quality ownership. He also successfully contrasts the role of Deming in Total Quality Management (TQM) and Six Sigma Black Belt hierarchies, showing how the former brings a greater level of task and change ownership.