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ORGANIZING FOR QUALITY
the improvement journeys of leading hospitals in Europe and the United States
Published in association with the Nuffield Trust
 
Paul Bate, Peter Mendel and Glenn Robert, respectively Professor of Health Services Management, Royal Free and University College Medical School, London; Associate Social Scientist, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California, USA; Principal Research Fellow, Royal Free and University College Medical School, London

Foreword by Donald M Berwick, President and CEO, Institute of Healthcare Improvement and Clinical Professor of Paediatrics and Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, USA


This challenging and highly practical book draws on the findings from an international study designed to help practitioners and researchers understand the factors and processes that enable healthcare organisations in the United States and Europe to achieve - and sustain - high quality services for their users.

The in-depth case-studies from seven leading hospitals give an international, evidence-based outlook that focuses on both the organisational and cultural processes of quality improvement.

Implication for research and practice are considered, and a checklist of possible challenges has been drawn up to help identify any ‘gaps’ in initiatives.

Healthcare policy makers and shapers including hospital chief executives and NHS directors will find this book enlightening, as will healthcare quality improvement and service development researchers and professionals. Clinicians with an interest in quality improvement will also find much of interest.

‘Looking is not seeing. Listening is not hearing. It is possible to miss so much that is right in front of us if we lack the categories and skills to notice. The greatest of these skills is, perhaps, to put aside our expectations, and to stay open to the actual. [The authors] are expert at noticing. With their guidance, dear reader, get ready to see things you do not yet know how to see, and to hear what you do not yet know to listen for. I commend this book to the student of change.’
Donald M Berwick, in the Foreword

Contents

 The art, the science, and the sociology of improvement: San Diego Children’s Hospital  Organisational and professional identity: crisis, tradition and quality at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust  Organisational learning and sustained improvement: the quality journey at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles  Building a system of leadership for quality improvement: a Dutch hospital in pursuit of perfection  Smart socio-technical design in healthcare organisations: sustaining quality improvement at the Luther Midelfort Mayo Health System  Empowering quality: demonstration and democratisation at the Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust  Mobilizing for quality: the case of an HIV/AIDS treatment center in Albany, New York    A practitioners’ codebook for the quality journey  Towards a process model of organizing for quality  Journey’s end: epilogue and final reflections 
2008     280 pages            Paperback
ISBN-10 1 84619 151 3 ISBN-13 9781846191510

To view a sample copy and for information on ordering, please visit:

http://www.radcliffe-oxford.com/books/bookdetail.aspx?ISBN=1846191513

Jane Banaszak-Holl, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Health Management & Policy, School of Public Health
Research Associate Professor, Institute of Gerontology
Adjunct Associate Professor, Organizational Studies Program
University of Michigan
109 Observatory, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029
Phone: 734.936.1668; Fax: 734.764.4338; E-mail: janebh@umich.edu