The development of an organizational strategy provides a long-term road map for a health care organization, and is vitally important in the light of current uncertain economic circumstances. The strategy statements provide the bedrock for the entire organization to create and execute tactics for viable future business, prioritize goals, and allocate and coordinate resources. Yet, strategic plan...

One way to meet the challenges in creating a high performance organization in health care is the approach of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). The Foundation is in the tradition of the American Malcolm Baldrige Award and was initiated by the European Commission and 14 European multi-national organizations in 1988. The essence of the approach is the EFQM Model, which can be ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether an accreditation program facilitates healthcare organizations (HCOs) to evolve and maintain high-performance human resource management (HRM) systems. DESIGN Cross-sectional multimethod study. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS Healthcare organizations participating in the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards Evaluation and Quality Improvement Program (EQuIP 4) b...

OBJECTIVE This study compares the primary health care quality of community health centers (CHCs) and health maintenance organizations (HMOs) in South Carolina to elucidate the quality of CHC performance relative to mainstream settings such as the HMO. METHODS Mail surveys were used to obtain data from 350 randomly selected HMO users. Surveys with follow-up interviews were conducted to obtain ...

the role of education in improving quality of life of patients with chronic renal failure has been emphasized by many studies. this survey was performed to assess the effect of a confined program of home-care on the health status of patients who were receiving hemodialysis. in this research, 37 patients afflicted by chronic renal insufficiency were chosen and put into two categories randomly, 1...

It is well known that countries with strong primary care achieve better health outcomes at lower costs. Therefore, the effort of World Health Organization in promoting primary care as a basic principal of successful health care system is an ongoing process. Although Croatia was recognized as a country with primary care orientation due to the development of health centers and introduction of spe...

Complexity of organization and resulting dynamic behavior are prominent attributes of the U.S. health care system. These characteristics often compel analysts to deconstruct problems and take a piece-by-piece approach. However, such a piecewise approach may miss subtle and powerful interactions within the larger health care system structure. System dynamics methodology can be applied to identif...