Quality management in German health care--the EFQM Excellence Model

A brief insight into the issues affecting German health care is given. Namely, upward pressure on costs leads to increasing expenditure within health care and downward pressure from economic recession and political unwillingness to increase taxes and budget spending. In the case of competing key stakeholder perspectives, a quality management framework is seen as a potential approach for addressing these issues. The framework is the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model. The article briefly explains the pilot phase for utilising the EFQM Excellence Model within German health care organisations and the various implementation approaches recommended by EFQM. Specific details of an approach used by a health care organisation within Germany (providing social medicine, geriatric and elderly services) are described in detail. The benefits achieved from using the Model are a clear picture of where the gaps are in the organisation and a clear vision for concentrating future efforts towards total quality management.