National Committee for Quality Assurance
(NCQA: Washington) -- “The State of Health Care Quality 2009,” an annual report, now in its 13th year, provided by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), finds that the quality of U.S...
Michelle LaBrosse
A couple of years ago, I was featured on CNN pouring out the contents of my backpack. The story was about how I ran my business, virtually, from wherever I was with the trusty items carried on my...
Jim Jubelirer
Story update 10/23/2009: The link to the prerecorded webinar mentioned at the end of the article has been corrected.
The U.S. economy runs on service. From front-line service in...
Steve Arbogast
A quality management system is a framework of processes and procedures that are used to ensure that an organization can fulfill all tasks required to achieve its goals, strategies, and objectives...
Linda Gleespen
Ten years after the Institute of Medicine released its influential report "To Err Is Human" (www.iom.edu/en/Reports/1999/To-Err-is-Human-Building-A-Safer-Health-System.aspx), hospital care...
Tom LAcey
In 2005, according to a BBC News report at the time, operating rooms all over the United Kingdom were thrown into chaos and operations canceled due to broken, missing, or dirty surgical instruments...
Andrea Kabcenell
What if hospital leaders had an easier, more streamlined way to chart an improvement path for their organizations? Imagine a list of key processes that could—if implemented reliably—lower mortality...
GKS Global Services
In this case study of reverse engineering and rapid prototyping we will look at a company that developed an initial prototype of an anti-snoring device based on many years of research in the field...
Bill Kalmar
Regular readers of my column know that I abhor surveys that don’t provide some type of incentive or discount on a future purchase for completing the survey. I realize that I may have discussed this...
Georgia Institute of Technology
Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems are widely used for applications that include inventory management, package tracking, toll collection, passport identification, and airport luggage...
Ron Bialek, Jack Moran, Kim McCoy, William Riley, Lillian Shirley
A
n emergency response organization differs substantially from our usual public health organization for day-to-day business. However, as the spring 2009 H1N1 (also referred to as swine flu) ...
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
All the talk of health care reform has resulted in many hospitals turning to lean Six Sigma to help improve efficiency and aid in cost cutting. However, health care efficiency expert Ron Wince...
Matthew J. Savage
As companies downsize, they cut down on the number of employees, or move, or close, and thousands find themselves without jobs in a highly competitive job market that they never anticipated. A 55-...
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
“Writing is not a job; it’s a hobby!” thundered my father when I told him my plans for college. “You need to get a profession: Medicine, law, engineering, or accounting.”
I cheerlessly...
Chris Hardee
As moviegoers, we have all seen a wide range of animation—from early Disney features, such as “Snow White,” to Japanese anime, and Pixar’s “Toy Story,” to an assortment of recent blockbusters that...
Donald J. Wheeler
Following my article on Leptokurtophobics (Do You Have Leptokurtophobia?) it was almost inevitable that we should hear from one. We were fortunate to have someone as articulate as Forrest Breyfogle...
Mark Graban
A couple of Sundays ago, I read this New York Times article about Apple's "App Store" for the iPhone and iPod Touch (I've been a pretty happy iPhone user for the past three months after...
Bill Kalmar
The band “Chicago” sang those words about "time" decades ago. The second line “Does anybody really care?” seems to sum up what is still in vogue today, especially in the workplace. Just as...
David C. Crosby
When I say quality manager, of course I’m talking about the department he or she manages as well.
I’ve been in the “quality business” for fifty years now. That’s right, fifty years. Much of my...
Georgia Institute of Technology
In 2008, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta saw more than 170,000 patients across all three of its three emergency departments. That kind of volume demands an effective and efficient process, and...
