Quality management in health care
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Qual Manag Health Care · Jul 2007
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence: an interview with Gillian Leng, MD.
Within Great Britain's National Health Service, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is the agency charged with the task of developing and disseminating guidelines to be followed by all National Health Service providers and provider organizations. Dr Gillian Leng is the Director of Implementation Systems and a member of the Board of Directors of NICE. ⋯ Prior to joining NICE, Dr Leng, a board-certified internist, conducted a practice in internal medicine. Dr Leng was interviewed by QMHC at the London offices of NICE in October 2006.
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Qual Manag Health Care · Jul 2007
Current pulse: can a production system reduce medical errors in health care?
One of the reasons for rising health care costs is medical errors, a majority of which result from faulty systems and processes. Health care in the past has used process-based initiatives such as Total Quality Management, Continuous Quality Improvement, and Six Sigma to reduce errors. ⋯ Current trend is to apply the successful Toyota Production System (TPS) to health care since its organizing principles have led to tremendous improvement in productivity and quality for Toyota and other businesses that have adapted them. This article presents insights on the effectiveness of TPS principles in health care and the challenges that lie ahead in successfully integrating this approach with other quality initiatives.