Hospital topics
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Review
Managing hospital quality performance in two related areas: patient care and customer service.
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization's new emphasis on continuous quality improvement provides hospitals with an opportunity to enhance both customer service as well as patient care. Both are expected by patients and delivered by providers. Patient care is the core product; customer service augments it by adding value and providing the opportunity for a competitive advantage. This article discusses issues for administrators to consider before including customer service as a component of continuous quality improvement and then presents methods for bringing about change.
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Hospitals face very dynamic environments and must meet diverse needs in the communities they serve and respond to multiple expectations imposed by their stakeholders. Coupled with these variables, the fact that leadership in these organizations is a shared phenomenon makes organizational leadership in them very complicated. An integrative overview of the organizational leadership role of CEOs in hospitals is presented, and determinants of success in playing this role are discussed.