Assessing the factors influencing continuous quality improvement implementation: experience in Korean hospitals

Abstract

It appears that the most important contributing factors to active CQI implementation in Korean hospitals were the use of scientific skills in decision-making and the adoption of a quality information system capable of producing precise and valid information.

Determinants of quality management systems implementation in hospitals

“…Organization culture is defined as the shared belief, values, norm and behaviour of the organization that may contribute to the organization wide quality management implementation [1,3]. The role of the organization culture and organization design factor with the degree of QMS implementation, summarized in Fig.…”

“…The role of the organization culture and organization design factor with the degree of QMS implementation, summarized in Fig. 2, has been noted in several publications [1,[8][9][10][11][12][13], but only a few projects were based on empirical investigations. Four empirical studies tested the association between four organization culture types (group, developmental, rational and hierarchy) with the degree of QMS based on Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria (MBNQAC) in different aspects and assessors [1,9,10,12].…”

“…The MBNQAC is an award criteria developed by United States Chamber of Commerce as tools for performance benchmarking. This award criteria for healthcare organization is composed of seven dimensions which are leadership, strategic planning, focus on patient, other customer and market, measurement, analysis and knowledge management, staff focus, process management and organizational performance result [1,9].…”

“…The hospital size, associated with complexity and strategic approach was also identified as another factor related to organizational culture [9,14,15]. Other publications identified an employee empowering culture, a scientific based decision-making paradigm and customer involvement as the culture characteristics needed for QMS implementation [1,16,17].…”

“…The reasons behind this movement are the increasing complexity of health care institutions and the system, intensity of competition in the health care market, the ongoing process of (sub-)specialization of health care providers, strengthening of the client position and increasing awareness on patient safety [1,2]. These processes have resulted in the adoption of quality management system (QMS) in hospitals, originally developed for industries.…”