Introduction to Healthcare Quality Management, Second Edition

Introduction to Healthcare Quality Management, Second Edition, explains the basic principles and techniques of quality management in healthcare. This second edition features a new chapter devoted exclusively to the use of high-reliability concepts that help organizations achieve safety, quality, and efficiency goals.

By using this easy-to-read book, complete with helpful charts and diagrams, your students will examine a range of topics, from measuring performance to creating high-quality services that result in satisfied customers. The book is packed with practical examples and case studies that apply quality concepts and tools to real-life situations. Each chapter contains a list of key words and a glossary to help students understand the vocabulary of healthcare quality management. As an added bonus to this edition, each chapter includes an expanded list of websites to find additional resources to customize and enhance your education.

Your students will learn about the following topics:

• Quality characteristics most important to healthcare stakeholders, including payers and consumers
• Regulatory mandates and accreditation standards that influence healthcare quality activities
• Proper techniques for gathering and effectively analyzing healthcare performance measurement data
• New technology-based services that will improve the patient experience
• Key tactics and strategies that organizational leaders and improvement project teams must implement to accomplish quality goals
• Methods for redesigning healthcare processes to achieve more reliable performance
• Patient safety initiatives that reduce harmful medical errors
• Resource management activities that improve continuity of care and prevent service over and underuse
• Organizational factors that affect quality management and performance reliability.

About the Author

Patrice L. Spath, RHIT, is a health information management professional with broad experience in healthcare quality and safety improvement. She is president of Brown-Spath & Associates, a healthcare publishing and training company. During the past 25 years, Spath has presented more than 350 educational programs on healthcare quality management topics. Spath is an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Health Services Administration at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.