Reflections on total quality management and health care supervisors

Total quality management (TQM) has become an integral process in service delivery for many health care organizations. This article reviews the fundamental concepts underlying TQM and how TQM is relevant to health care supervisors. In many respects TQM represents a contemporary approach to supervising innovation and change, to analytically solving customer problems, and to implementing continuous quality improvement. Several strategies are examined that health care supervisors can adopt for improving service quality, including cultivating a climate for innovation, motivating by example, leading staff to do what is right and to tolerate no service delivery errors, retraining staff, developing control systems, and creating barrier-free organizations. These strategies are examined from the perspective of achieving continuous improvement in health care settings.