Total Quality Management

Helms defines Total Quality Management (TQM) as a “directing (managing) the whole (total) production process to produce an excellent (quality) product or service” (Helms 2006, 735). One of the most fundamental idea of TQM is that everyone in an organization takes part in order to achieve long-term success through customer satisfaction by using management elements like process standardization, routine management and continuous quality improvement. Positive results should not only effect every member of an organization but also society itself. (WHO 2003, 87).

Within healthcare Øvretveit (2000) describes three dimensons of quality (Øvretveit 2000, 75).

1. Patient quality: whether patients receive the service they expect

2. Professional quality: whether the performance, according to the judgment of the professionals, meet the needs of patients and whether personnel choose and perform the necessary processes correctly

3. Management quality: efficient and effective use of resources to ensure patient expectations, without being wasteful and within the regulatory framework

Another way to define TQM is by its components. The components also helps to evaluate to what extent an organization has implemented Total Quality Management. Øvretveit points out following main components (Øvretveit 2000, 76):