Case Study Alliant Health System: A Vision of Total Quality M. Junaid Khan SP09-BS(BA)-015 BBA-7 Submitted to: Sir Aamir Saeed
COMSATS University of Information and Technology, Wah Campus [2/21/2012]
Summary Alliant was the first US organization which tries to implement the concept of Total Quality Management. It won first annual healthcare forum / Witt commitment to Quality award. Alliant also made its reputation by sponsoring the annual National Quality Convention, due which many visitors in hundreds of amount visited them. Different leading medical / Schools executive in the country toured to them to improve their own TQM efforts. Rod Wolford, Alliant’s President, CEO and Management team remained self-critical about the results. Q1: What methods Alliant used for TQM? Answer: Alliant faced two main issues, clinical practices and information systems to support the TQM process, for which they used four of the following methods given bellow:1- CARES+: CARES+ covers the main dimensions of quality that could be measured and improved; Credentials, Appropriateness, Effectiveness, Resource utilization, Safety / risk management, and + for patient satisfaction. It’s a basic outline of quality goal-setting and review. Each hospital department was asked to develop key indicators to measure the success in improving performance in each of the CARES+ categories. 2- EQUIP: Employee Quality Improvement Process (EQUIP), it was an alliant’s employee suggestion program in which any employee under vice presidential level was able to give an idea for increasing revenue, cutting costs, or simplifying work practices. 3- QIT: To handle most problems of hospital life such as crowded waiting rooms, laboratory response time, and long queens in the emergency room, Quality Improvement Teams were empowered in 1989. First 19 teams used their own problem solving techniques, few of which resulted spinning. But Miller’s quality organization adopted Florida Power & Light’s seven step methodology for quality improvement.
4- Critical Paths: Majority of the hospital resources were allocated by physicians. None of the programs previous than 1990 were successful in medical treatment or decreasing associated costs. Wolford and his executive team decided to expand on an innovation in clinical treatment management is called Critical Paths (CP). Q2: What were the performance measures in Alliant? Answer: Wolford saw IT as a key in future strength of TQM at alliant. Alliant’s administrative and clinical computing support was provided by the hospital information systems (HIS) department, which had the responsibility of medical records, library, word processing, and medical laboratories etc. Alliant used the following performance measures:1- The I/T Context:
2- I/T Strategy: 3- Current I/T Initiatives: Q3: How it effect the system? Answer: Alliant’s TQM program had been successful in committing the staff to quality. Goals and objective were obtained over TQM’s five years beyond the organization desires. Some executives believed that the matrix management structure clouded responsibility, making accountability, a fiction.
