All Features
Denise Robitaille
The ISO 9001 requirements pertaining to preventive action would get a lot more attention if people grasped the very simple fact that this is all about managing risk—which is really about managing the consequences of change. Whenever we change something, even for the better, there are…
News-Medical.Net
Japanese vehicle manufacturer, Toyota, is well-known for developing the principles of lean manufacturing. Research published in the International Journal of Technology Management suggests that the lean approach might also be beneficial to medical procedures, making hospitals more efficient and…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
A few weeks ago, my eyes filled with tears as our daughter, Lisa, told those whom we call the Macaronis, that she was struggling to decide between her current occupational choices (yes, she’s that talented and in demand); what she really wanted to do was work more closely with my wife, Carole,…
Steven Ouellette
Last article, I wrote about the importance of correctly classifying variables as part of the research design process, and discussed the benefits of the hugely useful, but oft-neglected, blocked variables. As part of my ongoing crusade against poor experimental designs, and the people who love…
Mike Micklewright
Lean training and programs are more popular than ever. Implementing lean strategies is all the rage, but has your CEO really seen the lean light? Use these 10 signs as a gauge to find out.
10. He initiated a brand new lean department.
His thinking: Lean is something new. We don’t want to taint…
Eston Martz
It’s all too easy to make mistakes involving statistics. Statistical software can remove a lot of the difficulty surrounding statistical calculation, reducing the risk of mathematical errors, but correctly interpreting the results of an analysis can be even more challenging.
A few years ago,…
Robert Whipple
A frequent refrain of top managers is, “We need to do a better job of holding people accountable.” Accountability seems to be the mantra for organizational get-well programs these days. One can agree with this in part, and yet there is an aspect of accountability that feels like a cop out.
The…
NIST
On Nov. 18, 2011, President Obama signed into law the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2012 (P.L. 112-55), which provides fiscal year (FY) 2012 funding for a number of government agencies, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The act…
Thomas R. Cutler
In production, “zero defects” is a frequent quality metric, but zero worker injuries, while a stated goal of most manufacturing plants and distribution centers, has not made it to the gold standard. There is no disputing that defective product costs companies millions of dollars in repairs,…
Tripp Babbitt
He is nameless in the movie Polar Express and the closing credits only give him the name, “Hero Boy.” The adventures depicted in the movie follow the plight of a young boy who doesn’t believe in Santa Claus. Hero Boy cannot hear the bells of Santa’s sleigh because he doesn’t believe.
For…
Davis Balestracci
I recently attended the annual forum of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), which is probably the leading health improvement organization in the world. The forum has grown from under 100 attendees in 1989 to almost 6,000 this year—half of whom were there for the first time—with now…
UC Berkeley NewsCenter
A nurse refuses to help an ailing alcoholic who is upset to find a hospital detox unit closed. A hospital clerk brushes off a deceased woman’s grieving family as they try to pay her bills and claim her belongings. A charge nurse keeps the mother of gunshot victim from seeing her son, saying the…
Mark Graban
To improve quality, the most effective hospitals and leaders focus on processes and systems, instead of just lecturing and cajoling their employees and physicians to do better. W. Edwards Deming famously stated that the problem with posters and exhortations was that “they take no account of the…
William A. Levinson
Hospital-acquired infections, ventilator-acquired pneumonia, patient falls, and similar events are (hopefully) rare enough to promote discussion of control charts for rare events. A Google search will, for example, turn up the application of u charts to falls per 1,000 patient days (u being…
William A. Conway M.D.
As a 2011 recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit has achieved recognition as a top-performing organization for excellence in innovation, efficiency, and quality improvement. The highest priority of our quality improvement work is to…
University at Buffalo
Humble leaders are more effective and better liked, according to a study forthcoming in the Academy of Management Journal.
“Leaders of all ranks view admitting mistakes, spotlighting follower strengths, and modeling teachability as being at the core of humble leadership,” says Bradley Owens,…
Bruce Hamilton
I attended a gathering of health care providers recently to participate in a site review and listen to some nice Toyota Production System (TPS) success stories. During a Q&A session at the conclusion of the review, this question came from one of the participants:“How can we get the docs to…
Greg Fox
I was playing around with the power and sample size graphs in Minitab recently, and I noticed something interesting. Power, for the uninitiated, is usually described as the likelihood that you will find a significant effect or difference when one truly exists. But rather than simply describe…
As You Sow
A first-of-its-kind framework released Dec. 6, 2011, offers recommendations to food and food packaging companies on how to identify and evaluate nanomaterials in products. Not only is this technology unregulated and untested for its implications on public health but companies may not even be…
ASQ
(ASQ: Milwaukee, WI) -- The results of ASQ’s 25th annual Salary Survey show strong average salaries for quality professionals in 2011 and fewer lay-offs as companies continue to see the value of quality and its positive impact on an organization.
The survey results also show that experience…
Donald J. Wheeler
Many times measurements are made using measurement increments which are too large for the job. Fortunately this problem is easily detected by ordinary, production-line process behavior charts. No special studies are necessary; no standard parts or batches are needed. You simply need to…
ISO
The latest edition of “The ISO Survey of Certifications—2010,” from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) underlines the global market relevance of ISO’s management system standards for quality, environment, medical devices, food safety, and information security. The survey…
The Property and Emergency Communications Divisions of the Houston Police Department (HPD) achieved certification to ISO 9001 in September 2011. The HPD pursued certification to this international standard from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in part because it establishes…
MIT News
For many scientists working in the field of climate research, one of the most alarming trends has nothing to do with the climate itself: It’s the poll numbers showing that even as scientific projections of global climate change get ever more certain, public perceptions about climate change are…
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
In order to separate human-caused global warming from the “noise” of purely natural climate fluctuations, temperature records must be at least 17 years long, according to climate scientists.
To address criticism of the reliability of thermometer records of surface warming, Lawrence Livermore…
