The three principles of total quality management (TQM) are customer satisfaction, employee involvement, and continuous improvement in quality. First, organizations that adopt TQM must have customer satisfaction at the center point in the design of their services and products. The services and products must leave customers delighted, and their expectations achieved. Second, achieving TQM is a process that will involve the full engagement of employees. Employees contribute a critical role to the attainment of high levels of quality. They design the tools and identify the diverse demands and needs of their customers. Their levels of competence is a critical determinant of the levels of service provision. A well-trained, competent, motivated workforce contributes a central role in sustaining high-quality services. Third, organizations that adopt TQM have a commitment to ensuring constant improvements in the levels of quality of services they offer. It is the focus of every organization to continually review their services and orient them towards achieving maximum satisfaction of their customers. Continuous quality improvement (CQI) is a fundamental aspect of TQM. It encourages health team members to constantly question their service delivery and explore conditions under which they can achieve optimum results.
An audit tool that could be used for the change project
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has a core mandate of offering tools and resources needed by organizations to help them improve on the safety in their care environments. The proposed change project in the organization is the introduction of three-mode sensitivity exit alarms to minimize patients' risks of falls in surgical units. The technology will be pivotal in initiating improvements to the monitoring of patients and, subsequently, improve on their safety during treatment. The implementation of the change project responds to the urgent need to improve on patients' safety and fulfill customer satisfaction as a principle of TQM.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The AHRQ recommends the Quality and Safety Review System (QSRS) as a tool to monitor patient safety in healthcare settings. QSRS is seen as an efficient tool that aims to apply clinical information available from medical records to avail data that is useful to measure the extent of patients' safety (AHRQ, 2018) . QSRS is effective because it captures all factors that cause harm to patients and measure it so that hospitals and clinicians can effectively target them for quality improvements. QSRS provides information on the most frequent and harmful occurrences and events over a measured time. It also records the extent or percentages of falls that cause injuries to patients and the specific rates of injuries. QSRS applied standardized and consistent measurement criteria to ensure similar events are reported in different healthcare settings.
QSRS, therefore, offers a resourceful audit tool to be used in the change project. In the context of the proposed change project, QSRS will be useful to check the reduction in the number of falls in the surgical units. Electronic medical records and data will be helpful to gauge the number of reduction in falls among patients in the surgical unit. QSRS meets the needs of the proposed change project and offers a reliable way to do the measurements. It will accurately identify and report fall events. Besides, QSRS is a resourceful tool that will generate feedback regarding the conditions of reduction in patient falls in the surgical unit. The tool will be measured against patient safety indicators (PSIs) ( AHRQ, 2019 ). PSIs are important to outline avoidable occurrences that may compromise safety. The focus is on adverse events such as falls in the surgical unit. PSIs help healthcare organizations to monitor and assess the safety of inpatients. They are equally useful for comparative reporting.
References
AHRQ. (2018). Quality and Safety Review System (QSRS). Retrieved from https://www.ahrq.gov/patient-safety/resources/qsrs/index.html
AHRQ. (2019). Patient Safety Indicators Overview . Retrieved from https://www.qualityindicators.ahrq.gov/Modules/psi_resources.aspx
