The Institute of Medicine defines quality of care as "the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge."
The ultimate goal of quality management in St. Mary's Hospital is the reinforcement of quality of patient care. The central focus is the support of programs and Councils in their quality management activities, placing emphasis for the overall quality management at the program level. The overall responsibility for quality management within Programs rests with the Program Manager. All quality management activities are coordinated by the Quality Management Coordinating Committee, which reports to the Patient Services Committee of the Hospital Board. The Quality Management Coordinator is the Chairperson of the Quality Management Coordinating Committee and is responsible for coordinating the Quality Management activities of St. Mary's Hospital Center. Risk Management is an integral part of Quality Management, and is addressed at the Quality Management Coordinating Committee.
The Quality management Coordinating Committee consists of:
- Coordinator of Quality Management & Head of the Clinical Quality Improvement Unit ( Chair)
- Director of the Department of Community and Epidemiological Studies & Head of the Quality Assessment Unit
- Director of Human Resources & Head of the Support Services Quality Management Unit
- V.P. Professional Services
- V.P. Nursing and Operations
- V.P. Corporate and Support Services
- Representative of the Council of Physicians, Dentists and Pharmacists
- Representative of the Nurses Council
- Representative of the Multidisciplinary Council
Three quality management units report to this Coordinating
- Quality Assessment (QA) Unit - measurement and indicators
- Quality Improvement (QI) Unit - planning and improvement of clinical services
- Support Service Quality Management (QM) Unit - Quality Management within support services
The Quality Forum is an information sharing body in support of Quality management. Information about quality is shared and disseminated across teams, councils and individual health care workers through this forum. This process allows teams an opportunity to share issues of quality with other teams and develop multi-team and multidisciplinary collaborative results to improve patient outcomes.
