Introduction

West Florida Regional Medical center (WFRMC) is located on the north side of Pensacola, Florida. It is associated with Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), and “the West Florida Healthcare campus includes the all private room acute care hospital, the area’s only comprehensive physical rehabilitation hospital, and a mental health facility” (West Florida Hospital, 2010). When looking at the decision to invest heavily into total quality management (TQM), you must look at its history and hospital statistics of the Pensacola area. In 1992, there was intense competition between WFRMC and the other two hospitals within the area, Sacred Heart and Baptist Hospitals (McLaughlin & Kaluzny, 2006). “The 130 doctors practicing
The impact of the programs that would be instilled in WFRMC can be measured through departmental quality improvement assessments. The scoring matrix of the self-assessment focused on approach, deployment (implementation), and effects ((McLaughlin & Kaluzny, 2006). The approach includes the eight dimensions: “leadership constancy, employee mindedness, customer mindedness, process focused, statistical thinking, PDCA driven, innovativeness, and regulatory proactiveness” (p.530). The implementation assessment was focused around the depth of deployment; the awareness, knowledge, understanding, and application of the plan (McLaughlin & Kaluzny, 2006). The effects were assessed on the overall quality of measureable results. For example, CQI team for charting showed favorable results form quality improvement plans in that patient “report availability was improved, and there were fewer phone calls [with regards to errors] (p.537).
Implementation
Supporting tactical programs within the hospital were also a focus of the TQM programs. The obstetric department utilized a consultant to evaluate quality. The result of this was that “it became clear that there was a demand for a system in which a family-centered birth experience could occur” (p.541). This development of a new family-centered system was based on the need to center its services on the customer preferences rather then a forced routine (McLaughlin & Kaluzny, 2006).