Quality Improvement in Public and Private Sector Hospitals – A Strategic Innovation

Abstract

Health care organizations are supposed to be more customer-oriented than all other organizations owing to the nature of service they are meant to offer. The quality of their services is crucial to the patients and the community. With increasing competition, advances in medical sciences, and rising patient expectations, the health care systems have become complex organizations. They need to obtain an optimum balance between the resources and patient satisfaction. Total Quality Management (TQM)/Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)has a great potential to address quality problems in health care organizations and improve the organizational performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between TQM/CQI practice and the performance in public and private sector hospitals in Kerala. It aims to identify the factors influencing TQM/CQI practice and to investigate the impact of each TQM/CQI element on hospital performance. It also tries to investigate the major inhibitors of successful TQM implementation in public and private sector hospitals in Kerala. It is expected that the exploration of the link between the obstacles and the measures of perceived TQM/CQI success will provide insight on how to better manage TQM/CQI implementations in public and private sector hospitals in Kerala. Implications for future research and practical applications of the findings are also discussed.