Statement of the Problem

Statement of the problem

A research problem is one which requires a researcher to find out the best solution for the given problem, i.e., to find out by which course of action the objective can be attained optimally in the context of a given environment.

 In this study the research problem is to develop a strategy for effective implementation of the Six Sigma in Breach Candy and Bhatia Hospitals for achieving Process excellence.

With rising medical costs and an increase in the number of patients waiting to be treated in the India, medical services in developed countries are no longer necessarily operating at high quality levels. This deterioration was followed by a number of serious medical mishaps that occurred at around the same time in different parts of the world in the 1990s. These accidents dealt a severe blow to the reputation for reliable quality that medical care services had enjoyed in the country. Behind this event was the fact that evidence-based medicine (EBM), diagnosis procedure combination (DPC), benchmarking and other methods paved the way for the measurement of quality of medical care. It brought to the surface issues on the quality of medical services that had failed to be clearly defined.

Medical accidents triggered a revision to the perception of the quality of medical services and medical safety. They caused a paradigm shift. In the past, it was believed that medical doctors should not make mistakes and that mishaps relate to the individuals who made them. Today, there is an understanding that it is natural for humans to make mistakes and that it is important to create a system that makes mishaps impossible or unlikely. The quality of medical care has been redefined from offering advanced or cutting-edge medical treatments to properly doing what is wanted by patients and naturally essential to patients.

Moreover, the quality of medical services used to be seen as that of clinical medical practice. However, service refers to everything associated with medical treatment from the viewpoint of customers or patients.

According to a new understanding, the quality of medical services should cover all aspects of what is offered from hospitals and other providers of health and medical care, including outpatient reception, consultation, waiting time, hospital discharge procedures, meals, post-discharge care and all other medical activities. In other words, the new definition of quality of medical services incorporates management quality.

Like other industries, the health and medical care sector needed to address this change in the concept of quality. This created an opportunity to introduce TQM, which had been regarded as an approach or concept applicable to the general manufacturing sector.

It seems that TQM has been implemented in different hospitals as part of their organizational activities for upgrading the quality of medical care services since the 1980s. The National Demonstration Project

(NDP) of USA on Quality Improvement in Medical Care, which was conducted in 1997 in the United States, undertook a large-scale verification of the effectiveness of TQM in the field of health and medical care. Subsequently, there was a rise in activities for improvement in medical care quality and in the safety of staff and patients based on the application of TQM to hospital management, especially in developed countries.

However, no successful example has been reported that could be useful to improving the quality of medical services in developing nations. Surprisingly’ there are some successful experiences of TQM found in developing countries, although they were believed to follow the example of development processes that developed nations have undergone. They provide some useful knowledge about improving medical quality, not merely to developed countries like Japan but to other developing nations as well.

Normally, developing countries need to address the issue of the absolute shortage of medical resources before considering improvements in medical care services. These limits notwithstanding, some developing nations carry out medical quality improvement activities with successful outcomes. TQM is introduced as a method for improving the operations and management of facilities and organizations that require no considerable budget increase.

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