Quality management of public hospitals

ABSTRACT

Public hospitals throughout the Caribbean are struggling to meet demands from the public for quality services. The problems that have fuelled public concern include long waiting times, rudeness by staff, and poor clinical care. Some senior administrators attribute public dissatisfaction to the 'Miami' or 'Cable TV effect'. The theory is that Caribbean people have unrealistic standards of expectations of their hospitals due to the influence of the images of USA healthcare that they have experienced on the mainland USA or seen on television. Quite a number of hospitals have attempted to launch quality improvement programmes.... Despite all this effort quality initiatives in public hospitals in most Caribbean countries have not been sustained. Nurses who have been trained in QA have been restricted to working on nursing QA programmes. Laboratory based quality initatives have been very much restricted to laboratory services. And quality manuals lie on shelves collecting dust. Public hospitals have very little to show for all these efforts. It is important to know why 'quality' has not taken off if we are to do better in the future(AU)