Continuous Quality Improvement: A Staff Nurse Perspective

Abstract

As the cost of health care is rising and government funding is falling to an all—time low, hospitals are being forced to evaluate their overall environments. Hospitals are becoming more business-like and are assuming corporate attitudes. It is for these reasons that most health care institutions have made commitments to move towards a Continuous Quality Improvement philosophy. It is hoped that continuous evaluation of the processes will result in improvement in the quality of care to the customers. It is expected that this will eventually lead to lower costs through greater integration and less duplication of activities. This would then be in keeping with the key determinants of health and the principles of the new approaches to the provision of care as established by the Ontario Premier’s Council on Health Strategy for establishing reforms in the health care system. The overall goals include:

• to promote general good health, thus reducing the need for care services in institutions.
• to provide as much care as possible in households and communities.
• to restructure institutional care.

According to the Council this will be accomplished in part by:

• continuous quality improvement using quality assurance mechanisms.
• teamwork in everything.
• customer or patient satisfaction.
• a total quality approach.
• employee empowerment.
• automation.
• innovation by everyone.
• management by vision and values.
• strategic choices.