Quality is a non-negotiable aspect of the healthcare sector. The reason is obviously the wellbeing of the patients. They must get quality care and treatment from the healthcare organizations to recover quickly. Quality management is hence a fundamental part of the operational strategy of healthcare organizations and it is intended to benefit both the patients and service providers (doctors, nurses and others). If you own a healthcare company, knowing what the purpose of quality management in healthcare is essential. Achieving excellence in quality is the straightforward way to create your mark in the health industry.

1. HEALTHCARE QUALITY
MANAGEMENT
By Paul Siboyi Ang’ana

2. DEFINITION
• Quality management refers to the administration of systems design,
policies, and processes that minimize, if not eliminate, harm while
optimizing patient care and outcomes.
• Quality is often used to signify ‘excellence’ of a product or service.
• Quality assurance (QA) can be defined as all activities that contribute
to defining, designing, assessing, monitoring, and improving the
quality of healthcare.
• Quality control (QC) is the process in which a service or good is
tested to ensure it meets standard specifications.

4. PURPOSE OF QA
• To meet the rising expectations of the consumers of quality services
• Help patients by improving quality of care
• Assess competence of medical staff
• Eliminating medical errors
• Restricting undesirable procedures

5. APPROACHES OF QA
1. General Approach – Involves evaluation by governing/official body
• Credentialing – Employer and regulatory body
• Licensure – Regulatory body
• Accreditation – Obtaining credibility from authorised body e.g. KENAS
• Certification – Authorised body such as ISO
2. Specific Approach – Involves the following:-
• Peer review
• Client satisfaction survey
• Auditing
• Incident review

6. QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEM
1. Internal QA – Evaluated by local assessors from the same hospital
• Monitoring
• Evaluation
• Improvement
2. External QA – Evaluated by independent assessors from outside the hospital
• Benchmarking
• Audit
• Assessment

7. FACTORS AFFECTING QA IN HEALTHCARE
• Lack of resources
• Personnel problems
• Improper maintenance
• Absence of system accountability
• Lack of incident reports
• Lack of medical records

8. QA vs QC
Quality Assurance Quality Control
It is a process which deliberates on
providing assurance that quality request
will be achieved.
QC is a process which deliberates on fulfilling the quality
request.
A QA aim is to prevent the defect. A QC aim is to identify and improve the defects.
QA is the technique of managing quality. QC is a method to verify quality.
QA does not involve executing the
program.
QC always involves executing the program.
All team members are responsible for
QA.
Testing team is responsible for QC.
QA Example: Verification QC Example: Validation.

9. QA vs QC

10. QA & QC IN MEDICAL LABORATORY
• Good laboratory practice requires testing normal and abnormal
controls for each test at least daily to monitor the analytical process.
• Participation in an Interlaboratory Quality Control Comparison
Program is highly recommended.
• Without such programs the laboratory becomes a statistical island
and has no means to regularly verify the reliability of its work.
• One of the easiest methods to assess reliability and precision is to
compare the within-laboratory method means and standard
deviations to other laboratories using the same instrument and
method (peer group).

11. VARIABLES THAT AFFECT LAB QUALITY
1. PRE-ANALYTICAL
• Patient preparation
• Patient and specimen identification
• Specimen collection, storage and transportation
• Specimen quantity

12. CONT….
2. ANALYTICAL
• Proficiency of personnel
• Specificity and sensitivity of the test
• Procedural reliability
• Use of controls
• Equipment reliability
• Reagents stability and efficiency

13. CONT….
3. POST ANALYTICAL
• Right reporting
• Right patient
• Right interpretation
• Right turn-around-time (TAT)

14. QUALITY
IT IS EVERYONE’S RESPONSIBILITY
THANK YOU