Hospitals are very concerned about the spread of germs in a hospital environment

Question

Hospitals are very concerned about the spread of germs in a hospital environment. For patient and guest safety, infection rates in any hospital are carefully monitored. Continuous efforts are made to reduce the chance of spreading infections among or between patients or guests. Unfortunately, studies reveal that every year in U.S. hospitals, nearly 2 million people are infected with a death rate approaching 80,000. Transmission of these infectious pathogens occurs most often through the contaminated hands of health-care workers. This means that good hand hygiene is the most important infection control measure available. JQOS is a 100-bed hospital that offers a full range of services including emergency services, maternity, child care, orthopedic, cardiac, and general welfare. Management at JQOS has long believed that prevention is the best approach to any issue. They have decided to tackle the hand-washing issue head-on. Their goal is to improve hand-washing
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compliance among health-care workers (doctors, nurses, care- givers, orderlies, etc.) throughout the hospital.
a. Use Dr. Feigenbaum’s definition of quality and refer to the information provided. Describe the definition of quality for each of the major participants (doctor, patient, nurses, etc.).
b. Describe how you would recognize Dr. Shewhart’s common cause variation in the process of maintaining a high level of doctor or nurse hand washing before touching a patient.
c. Describe how you would recognize Dr.Shewhart’s assignable cause variation in the process of maintaining a high level of doctor or nurse hand washing before touching a patient.
d. You are the senior team leader in charge of making improvements to the process of hand-washing compliance. You have recently attended a seminar focused on Dr. Deming’s teachings. Clearly state one of Dr. Deming’s 14 points that you will keep in mind as you focus on this situation. How will this point guide your actions and behavior as you tackle making improvements?
e. Describe two clues that suggest that the hospital is practicing Juran’s little q versus big Q. If they were to practice big Q, describe one way in which their focus would need to change.
f. During a meeting, someone has cornered you concerning the improvements and changes your team would like to make at the hospital. They accuse you of wanting to create a luxurious environment at the hospital. They said that a patient’s judgment of quality of the hospital is intangible and not measurable. They also said that there is an economics of quality. You recognize these statements as three of Mr. Crosby’s five erroneous assumptions about quality. Using what you know about Mr. Crosby’s approach to quality, pick one and argue against what this person has said.

Explanation / Answer

Ans a) According to Dr. Feigenbaum – Total Quality Control is an efficient system which helps in implementing quality development, maintenance of the quality and improvement of the existing quality in an organization. It is an attempt to increase and enable production and service at most economic level and provide complete customer satisfaction. According to the doctor, quality is maintaining the overall hygiene of the hospital and ensuring that the infection is curbed and stopped in the patients. According to patients, quality is the type of treatment they receive and how soon can they recover. According to the nurse, quality is ensuring the patients are kept in clean condition to stop the spread of infection and its stoppage.

Ans b) The common cause variation in process of maintaining high level of hand washing for doctors or nurses before touching patient can be determined by the output of infection. The stopping of the infection and quick recovery of the patient determines that doctor and nurses are taking care of quality and hygiene.

Ans c) Assignable cause variation is the result in the output from incorporation or assignment of a single character or feature. By simply incorporating the awareness of washing hands for doctors and nurses, there was a huge difference. Most of the infection was cured easily and it stopped the spreading of the infection.

Ans d) Actions to be taken for making the improvements:-

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