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Description based on: Vol. 2, no. 1 (Feb. 1993); title from caption. ; "Telling the quality story in government." ; Mode of access: Internet.

Cover -- Table of Contents -- Caring Science -- Death and Dying -- Health Expectations -- Patient Care and Safety -- Patient Counseling -- Qualitative Health Research -- Quality of Care -- Quality of Life Research -- Wellness -- Additional Research -- Index.

In many organizations, management systems are viewed in terms of the internal dynamics between marketing, design, production, distribution, and accounting. A change is required from this to a larger system which also encompasses and integrates the business interests of customers and suppliers. Management needs to develop an in-depth understanding of these relationships and how they may be used to cement the partnership concept. The quality function should be the organization's focal point in this respect and should be equipped to gauge internal and external customers, expectations and degree of satisfaction. It should also identify quality deficiencies in all business functions and promote improvements.The role of the quality function is to make quality become an inseparable aspect of every employee's performance and responsibility. The transition in many companies from quality departments with line functions will require careful planning, direction and monitoring. Quality professionals have developed numerous techniques and skills focused on product or service quality.

This article provides a synthesis of past research to help understand the extent to which employers are using their considerable market power to drive health care quality. Are employers quality takers or quality makers? The literature provides some clues about aspects of quality employers are attempting to influence, strategies they are pursuing to influence quality, and their impact. Some employers are interested in some indicators of quality and are incorporating them in a variety of different purchasing strategies. The indicators most frequently used by employers, however, probably are not the ones that clinical experts and policy makers would select as most reflective of clinical quality. It appears that employers as a group are becoming more informed quality takers but are not yet quality makers—with the exception of a few well-resourced outliers. Recent events provide mixed signals about whether the future employer role in influencing quality will diminish, stall, or flourish.

As the importance of quality managers has dramatically increased in the past two decades, it has been suggested that management of the quality function requires expertise in areas other than the quality field itself. Nevertheless, to date, extensive research has not been directed towards identifying the expertise required of a quality manager or the day‐to‐day functions which will enhance the manager's ability to succeed. Tests empirically the quality manager's effect on the quality performance of a firm, depending on the manager's involvement in: strictly the quality field; quality‐related fields; and other functions. A cross‐sectional mail survey was employed and a causal model was developed to test seven propositions using path analysis (OLS). Results strongly suggest that quality managers' main focus must be on the quality field, though they may perceive that their involvement in related fields could contribute significantly to the quality performance of their organizations.

AbstractThis article addresses the concept of quality risk in outsourcing. Recent trends in outsourcing extend a contract manufacturer's (CM's) responsibility to several functional areas, such as research and development and design in addition to manufacturing. This trend enables an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to focus on sales and pricing of its product. However, increasing CM responsibilities also suggest that the OEM's product quality is mainly determined by its CM. We identify two factors that cause quality risk in this outsourcing relationship. First, the CM and the OEM may not be able to contract on quality; second, the OEM may not know the cost of quality to the CM. We characterize the effects of these two quality risk factors on the firms' profits and on the resulting product quality. We determine how the OEM's pricing strategy affects quality risk. We show, for example, that the effect of noncontractible quality is higher than the effect of private quality cost information when the OEM sets the sales price after observing the product's quality. We also show that committing to a sales price mitigates the adverse effect of quality risk. To obtain these results, we develop and analyze a three‐stage decision model. This model is also used to understand the impact of recent information technologies on profits and product quality. For example, we provide a decision tree that an OEM can use in deciding whether to invest in an enterprise‐wide quality management system that enables accounting of quality‐related activities across the supply chain. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 2009