Healthcare quality management in Great Britain and Czech Republic

Healthcare quality can be defined as the summary of the results achieved in prevention, diagnosis and treatment, based on findings of medical science and practice, or as the degree of excellence of the provided care in relation to a contemporary level of knowledge and technological development and in compliance with economic possibilities. Research and monitoring of the effectiveness of quality systems can be implemented in different ways: (1) measuring the quality system through the entire institution rating (self-assessment or accreditation), based on the assumption that appropriate care is the result of well-organized processes and systematic quality assurance and improvement; (2) measuring critical points in the process of care compliance of specialists with recommended practices or professional standards; (3) measuring outcomes in relation to the benefit of patients, such as clinical outcomes, client satisfaction and perceived quality of life in connection with the results of the provided care. The paper deals with monitoring the effectiveness of quality in health facilities based on customer satisfaction and compares patient satisfaction rating methodologies applied in the United Kingdom and in Czech Republic

Risk management and internal audit in integrated process management of hospitals

The paper focuses on the issue of improving patient safety, which is now a global issue. Foreign studies have shown that approximately 10 % of hospitalizations occur at patient's damage. The Czech Republic, respectively Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic, is currently developing a series of activities to promote the Luxembourg Declaration (Luxembourg Declaration on Patient Safety), which was approved at the EU Member States Summit and calls on the EU Member States to deal with this issue. This publication supports the above-mentioned activities. There is proposed the introduction of Quality Management System (QMS), which would include the risk management. Furthermore, there are described experiences from one large public hospital in the Czech Republic with incorporated certain features of risk management into the competency of internal auditors. a research took place to evaluate the significance of health and non-health risks in terms of their impact on the organization. 47 hospital staff members on a variety of managerial positions participated in this survey. The questionnaires surveying health risks paid particular attention to physical, chemical, biological and combined risks. The questionnaires researching non-health risks included questions on general, accounting and budget risks. The risk analysis shows that the most important risk for health facilities is the biological risk of blood and tissue collection, manipulation with biomaterials in laboratories, storage of used needles, shards of ampoules, damaged glass material and handling laundry used by patients. The risk analysis shows that the highest proportion of risk with a moderate and significant impact belongs to a group of general risk. As a significant risk is in this particular case evaluated the behaviour of employees in public, which has an essential impact on the image of the hospital as a whole and the perception by patients

Quality Process Management in Healthcare Facilities

The paper deals with the issue of healthcare facilities in the Czech Republic (CR) using integrated management systems and possibilities of standardization. The first part of the paper is aimed at trends in the quality of provided healthcare and patient safety, as perceived by the World Health Organization and the current status and trends in the healthcare facilities management in the CR. The second part focuses more specifically on the standardization of the healthcare facilities management by means of national and international standards. The article tackles mainly the possibilities of integration of management system within the system of ISO standards and their compatibility with national accreditation standards for hospitals in the CR focusing on two key attributes of health care, i.e., quality and patient safety. In connection with this issue the possibility of using ISO 9001 and ISO 31000 having an immediate impact on these attributes is further discussed. The result of a detailed comparison of the above regulations and standards consists in the finding that the standards can be integrated with each other; they are not incompatible, but conversely complement each other