An integrated approach for prioritized process improvement.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Quality Improvement
• Operations Research

Background:

• Healthcare quality assurance requires considering multiple stakeholder perspectives.
• Existing frameworks may not effectively integrate provider and patient viewpoints for process improvement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose an integrated framework for simultaneously identifying and improving healthcare processes.
• To incorporate both healthcare provider and patient perspectives in quality improvement initiatives.

Main Methods:

• Introduction of a modified Quality Function Deployment (QFD) chart tailored for healthcare.
• Demonstration of the modified QFD chart's utility using a healthcare service example.

Main Results:

• The proposed framework is versatile for various healthcare quality improvement contexts.
• It effectively addresses the need to consider dual perspectives (provider and patient) for process enhancement.

Conclusions:

• The modified QFD chart, combined with a stacked Pareto chart, aids in identifying key performance metrics from patient and hospital viewpoints.
• This approach efficiently pinpoints critical contributory factors at different levels for effective quality assurance.