International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance: Volume 32 Issue 1

Service quality and urolithiasis patient adherence

Shabnam Golshan, Tahereh Feizy, Sanaz Tavasoli, Abbas Basiri

Adherence to preventive recommendations improves clinical outcomes and is compulsory for long-term prevention in urolithiasis patients. Service quality can affect patients’…

Does TeamSTEPPS affect psychological status?

Yoshinori Fukushima, Atsushi Yamada, Naruaki Imoto, Toshiaki Iba

The Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS) program is known to improve team and clinical performance, but the relationship to…

Failure demand: a concept evaluation in UK primary care

Paul Walley, Pauline Found, Sharon Williams

The purpose of this paper is to assess failure demand as a lean concept that assists in waste analysis during quality improvement activity. The authors assess whether the…

Establishing mercury-free medical facilities: a Malaysian case study

Mohamad Mahathir Amir Sultan, Choo Ta Goh, Sharifa Ezat Wan Puteh, Mazlin Mokhtar

Mercury is widely used in medical and healthcare facilities as dental amalgam, mercury-added medical devices, thiomersal-containing vaccines, laboratory analysis and for other…

Oral care – identifying quality improvement areas

Maria Andersson, Bodil Wilde-Larsson, Mona Persenius

The purpose of this paper is to describe and compare nurses’ and healthcare assistants’ oral care quality perceptions, including perceived reality (PR) and subjective importance…

Chemotherapy scheduling template development using an optimization approach

Yu-Li Huang, Sarah M. Bach, Sherry A. Looker

The purpose of this paper is to develop a chemotherapy scheduling template that accounts for nurse resource availability and patient treatment needs to alleviate the mid-day…

Obtaining laboratory accreditation – required activities

Vítor Vasata Macchi Silva, José Luis Duarte Ribeiro

The purpose of this paper is to describe the activities needed to meet specified requirements to assist laboratory staff running tests and calibrations and to obtain ISO/IEC 17025…

Better get moving on laboratory quality assurance

Sidra Asad Ali, Muhammad Shariq Shaikh

With recent advances in laboratory hematology automation, emphasis is now on quality assurance processes as they are indispensable for generating reliable and accurate test…

Assessing hospital quality management systems: evidence from Iran

Ehsan Zarei, Soghra Karimi, Soad Mahfoozpour, Sima Marzban

A quality management system (QMS) is defined as interacting activities, methods and procedures used to monitor, control and improve service quality. The purpose of this paper is…

The privatisation of healthcare system in Bangladesh

Redwanur Rahman

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that triggered the privatisation of Bangladesh’s health sector.

Quality of patient information in emergency department

Mehrdad Farzandipour, Mahtab Karami, Mohsen Arbabi, Sakine Abbasi Moghadam

Data comprise one of the key resources currently used in organizations. High-quality data are those that are appropriate for use by the customer. The quality of data is a key…

Role of a hospital accreditation program in developing a process management system: A qualitative study

Erfan Shakibaei

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the effects of the Iranian Hospital Accreditation Program (IHAP) on hospital processes from the viewpoint of the staff charged with…

Evaluating factors affecting patient satisfaction using the Kano model

Tejaswi Materla, Elizabeth A. Cudney, Deborah Hopen

Healthcare providers are increasing their focus on patient satisfaction and patient-oriented services as they play a significant role in managing rising costs, elevating service…

Emergency department utilization among individuals with idiopathic intracranial hypertension

Sean Murphy, Daniel L. Friesner, Robert Rosenman, Carin S. Waslo, Johnathan Au, Emanuel Tanne

Idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) can be a debilitating disorder that is difficult to identify and treat. Failure to adequately manage IIH symptoms may force patients to…

Greek gynecology healthcare professionals towards quality management systems

Konstantinos Dinas, Eleftherios Vavoulidis, Georgios Chrysostomos Pratilas, Alexandros Basonidis, Anastasios Liberis, Leonidas Zepiridis, Alexandros Sotiriadis, Dimitra Papaevangeliou, Aliki Stathopoulou, Eirini Leimoni, Konstantinos Pantazis, Konstantinos Tziomalos, Vassilis Aletras, George Tsiotras

Today, quality management systems (QMS) are a promising candidate for the improvement of healthcare services. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the opinions/attitudes of…

Patients’ perceptions of healthcare quality in Ghana: A review of public and private hospitals

Peter Anabila, Desmond Kwadjo Kumi, Janet Anome

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of service quality (SQ), customer satisfaction (CS) and customer loyalty (CL) in Ghana’s health sector and a comparative…

Evaluating inputs of failure modes and effects analysis in identifying patient safety risks

Mecit Can Emre Simsekler, Gulsum Kubra Kaya, James R. Ward, P. John Clarkson

There is a growing awareness on the use of systems approaches to improve patient safety and quality. While earlier studies evaluated the validity of such approaches to identify…

Understanding and improving the care pathway for children with autism

Lisa Hurt, Kate Langley, Kate North, Alex Southern, Lauren Copeland, Jonathan Gillard, Sharon Williams

The purpose of this paper is to describe current care pathways for children with autism including enablers and barriers, as experienced by health professionals, education…

Non-performance of urinalysis among pregnant women in Brazil

Juraci A. Cesar, Luana P. Marmitt, Alessandra C. Dziekaniak, Sabrina S. Leite, Otávio A. Leão, Jéssica P. Sauer

The purpose of this paper is to measure the prevalence, evaluate the trend and identify the factors associated with the non-performance of qualitative urine test (QUT) among…

Tactical capacity planning in hospital departments

Agneta Larsson, Anna Fredriksson

The purpose of this paper is to explore tactical planning potential within hospital departments. The study had two objectives: first, to develop a framework for tactical capacity…

Relationship between patient costs and patient pathways

Sara Dahlin, Hendry Raharjo

The purpose of this paper is to identify actual (as-is) patient pathway variation among breast cancer patients and to investigate the relationship between pathways and the cost…

Bedside vital parameters that indicate early deterioration

Gitte Bunkenborg, Ingrid Poulsen, Karin Samuelson, Steen Ladelund, Jonas Akeson

The purpose of this paper is to determine associations between initially recorded deviations in individual bedside vital parameters that contribute to total Modified Early Warning…

Organisational culture: the hidden operand in clinical laboratories

Wee Leong Chang, Jill Meyer, Fabrice Merien

The purpose of this paper is to present organisational cultural determinants that can influence total quality management (TQM) in clinical laboratories.

Competencies required for healthcare improvement positions

Melanie A. Meyer

The purpose of this paper is to examine the competencies that US healthcare organizations require for quality and performance improvement positions.

Improving patient satisfaction: the virtual breakthrough series collaborative

Made Indra Wijaya, Abd Rahim Mohamad, Muhammad Hafizurrachman

The purpose of this paper is to improve the Siloam Hospitals’ (SHs) patient satisfaction index (PSI) and overcome Indonesia’s geographical barriers.