International journal of health care quality assurance
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Int J Health Care Qual Assur · Jan 2009
Testing some major determinants for hospital innovation success.
Hospitals have adopted new policies, methods and technologies to change their processes, improve services, and support other organizational changes necessary for better performance. The literature regarding the four major areas of strategic leadership, competitive intelligence, management of technology, and specific characteristics of the organization's change process propose their importance in successfully implementing organization innovation. While these factors may indeed be important to enhance hospital performance, the existing literature contains limited empirical evidence supporting their relationship to successfully implementing innovation in hospitals. This study aims to empirically test these relationships proposed in the literature by researchers in separate knowledge areas. ⋯ This study is a first attempt at empirically testing the importance of strategic leadership, competitive intelligence, management of technology, and specific characteristics of the hospital's change process for the success of innovation efforts.
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Int J Health Care Qual Assur · Jan 2009
What do web sites tell us about quality management in Belgian hospitals?
Following the "Patient Quality and Safety Contract" launch by the Belgian Federal Authorities, Belgian hospital web sites were scrutinized. The aim of this paper is to assess the presence of some sort of quality management strategy within Belgian Acute Care Hospital digital external communications. ⋯ The paper underlines the urgent need for Belgian healthcare executives to be aware of structured quality management strategy's importance and to be eager to openly communicate the strategy.
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Int J Health Care Qual Assur · Jan 2009
Multicenter StudyDoes daily nurse staffing match ward workload variability? Three hospitals' experiences.
Nurse shortage and rising healthcare resource burdens mean that appropriate workforce use is imperative. This paper aims to evaluate whether daily nursing staffing meets ward workload needs. ⋯ The paper fulfils the need for workforce utilization evaluation. A simple method using available data for daily staffing appropriateness evaluation, which is easy to implement and operate, is presented. The statistical process control method enables intra-ward evaluation, while standardization by converting crude into relative measures enables inter-ward analysis. The staffing indicator definitions enable performance evaluation. This original study uses statistical process control to develop simple standardization methods and applies straightforward statistical tools. This method is not limited to crude measures, rather it uses weighted workload measures such as nursing acuity or weighted nurse level (i.e. grade/band).
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Int J Health Care Qual Assur · Jan 2009
Culture and quality care perceptions in a Pakistani hospital.
Organizational culture is a determinant for quality improvement. This paper aims to assess organizational culture in a hospital setting, understand its relationship with perceptions about quality of care and identify areas for improvement. ⋯ The paper bridges an important gap in the literature by addressing the relationship between culture and quality care perceptions in a Pakistani hospital. As such a new and informative perspective is added.
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Int J Health Care Qual Assur · Jan 2009
Comparative StudyPatient satisfaction with an emergency department psychiatric service.
The purpose of this paper is to measure the rate of satisfaction of the sample population with an emergency department psychiatric service and to explore in open-ended questions, factors which contributed to these satisfaction ratings. ⋯ This mail patient survey provides valuable information for those planning and improving services for patients in the setting of the emergency department. The paper contributes to the limited number of studies of psychiatric services in this setting and identifies ways to improve patient satisfaction as supported by international evidence.