International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance: Volume 31 Issue 7

Porcelain for All – a nursing home study

Kai Victor Hansen, Christina Tølbøl Frøiland, Ingelin Testad

The Porcelain for All project was an initiative by Figgjo AS, a porcelain factory in Norway, which needed more research on different coloured porcelains. The paper aims to discuss…

Hospital service quality – patient preferences – a discrete choice experiment

Mina Bahrampour, Abbas Bahrampour, Mohammadreza Amiresmaili, Mohsen Barouni

High quality healthcare is important to all patients. If healthcare is felt to be high quality, then patients will be satisfied, and the relationship between patients and…

Lean healthcare: scale, scope and sustainability

Cory R.A. Hallam, Carolina Contreras

Lean healthcare is highlighted in the literature as an approach to quality improvement and operational efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to study how Lean healthcare has…

Accreditation effects on health service quality: nurse viewpoints

Mohammadkarim Bahadori, Ehsan Teymourzadeh, Ramin Ravangard, Mohammad Saadati

The purpose of this paper is to determine accreditation effects on Iranian military hospital health service quality through nurses’ viewpoints.

Informing quality in emergency care: understanding patient experiences

Esmat Swallmeh, Vivienne Byers, Amr Arisha

Assessing performance and quality in healthcare organisations is moving from focussing solely on clinical care measurement to considering the patient experience as critical. Much…

Inpatient flow management: a systematic review

Windi Winasti, Sylvia Elkhuizen, Leo Berrevoets, Godefridus van Merode, Hubert Berden

In hospitals, several patient flows compete for access to shared resources. Failure to manage these flows result in one or more disruptions within a hospital system. To ensure…

High-cost sharing policies and non-urgent emergency department visits

Haichang Xin

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether high-cost-sharing ambulatory care policies affect non-urgent emergency department (ED) care utilization differently among…

Chinese residents’ educational disparity and social insurance coverage

Yen-Han Lee, Timothy Chiang, Mack Shelley, Ching-Ti Liu

The Chinese society has embraced rapid social reforms since the late twentieth century, including educational and healthcare systems. The Chinese Central Government launched an…

India’s rural healthcare systems: structural modeling

Dinesh Kumar

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors related to rural healthcare services and establish a hierarchical model for the effective rural healthcare management in India.

Quality improvement measures: effects on rectal cancer tissue biopsy process

Mansoor Akhtar, Mohamed Boshnaq, Sathyan Nagendram

Delay in histologically confirming rectal cancer may lead to late treatment as histological confirmation is required prior to chemo-radiotherapy or surgical intervention…

Infant mortality rate in India: mediating causes

Arulraj Arockiasamy, Antonyraj Anburose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new approach to health service quality assurance.

Fostering a healthcare sector quality and safety culture

Ricardo Santa, Silvio Borrero, Mario Ferrer, Daniela Gherissi

Quality issues, increasing patient expectations and unsatisfactory media reports are driving patient safety concerns. Developing a quality and safety culture (QSC) is, therefore…

An integrative approach to improving patient care pathways

Sharon Williams, Zoe Radnor

Globally, healthcare managers continue to struggle with increasing demands for their services being delivered with limited or shrinking resources. It is, therefore, clear that…

Audit and feedback in mental healthcare: staff experiences

Monica Stolt Pedersen, Anne Landheim, Merete Møller, Lars Lien

Audit and feedback (A&F) often underlie implementation projects, described as a circular process; i.e. an A&F cycle. They are widely used, but effect varies with no apparent…

Reducing pharmacy patient waiting time

Shoaib Alam, Muhammad Osama, Faheem Iqbal, Irfan Sawar

Pharmacy services start right from prescribing medicines and continue as the medication’s effect is monitored. Hospital and community pharmacy staff promote rational prescribing…

Improving out-of-hours surgical patient care

Thomas Hart, Jack William Samways, Kishore Kukendrarajah, Matthew Keenan, Saurabh Chaudhri

The Royal College of Surgeons recognises patient handover as the point at which patients are collectively at their most vulnerable. Concerns were raised in a London teaching…

Accreditation in one teaching hospital: a phenomenology study among Iranian nurses

Mohammad Saadati, Mohammadkarim Bahadori, Ehsan Teymourzadeh, Ramin Ravangard, Khalil Alimohammadzadeh, Seyed Mojtaba Hosseini

Accreditation helps to ensure safe and high-quality services in hospitals. Different occupational groups have various hospital accreditation experiences. The purpose of this paper…

Levelling bed occupancy: reconfiguring surgery schedules via simulation

Kenneth Yip, Louisa Leung, Deacons Yeung

The purpose of this paper is to present simulation modelling to reconfigure a 700-bed Hong Kong hospital’s master surgery schedule (MSS), aiming to improve patient flow, capacity…