A Study on the Importance of Works Perceived by Quality Improvement Coordinators and Their Current Work Performances

질 관리 실무자가 인지하는 업무중요도와 수행업무에 관한 연구

Background : This is an investigative study to analyse the importance of works perceived by Quality Improvement(QI) Coordinators and to evaluate their current work performances using the questionnaires developed by the investigator. Methods : The data were collected from 37 subjects over two weeks period from Oct. 1 to Oct. 17, 1998 and analysed by the descriptive statistics of SPSS program. The items of questionnaire are consisted of 13 work domains including 73 activities based on Quality Management(QM) Coordinator's job description of National Association for Healthcare Quality:data collection & analysis, communication, monitoring, evaluation, accreditation, tool development, policy development, program development, self development, education & trainning, system design, planning, and consultation & support. Results : 1) Of the performances in 13 work domains, the frequencies of the work performed were accreditation(89%), planning(88%), communication(83%), data collection & analysis(82%), monitoring(76%), policy development(72%), consultation & support (71%), education & trainning(70%), self development(68%), evaluation(63%), tool development(61%), program development(44%) and system design(43%) in order. 2) For the importances (1=not important, 5=very important), the policy development(4.46) scored highest then monitoring(4.42), planning(4.41), education & trainning(4.38), communication(4.35), evaluation(4.34) tool development (4.30), data collection & analysis(4.29), program development(4.22), consultation & support(4.22), accreditation(4.15), self development(4.05) and system design(3.98) in order. 3) There was a difference between the work performance and the perceived importance. The results showed the low performances in policy development, monitoring, education & trainning and evaluation which ranked high by the perceived importance and the high performances in accreditation, data collection & analysis, self development, communication and consultation & support which ranked middle to low by the perceived importance. 4) The reasons for low performances of QI Coordinators were the lack of clear assignment for the responsibility and allowed authority for work to QI Coordinators(30.8%), insufficient member of QI Coordinators(13.9%), lack of hospital director's interest(11.5%), low motivation of QI Coordinators (10.6%) and insufficient knowledge & experience of QI Coordinators (8.8%). Conclusion : Most works were perceived important by QI Coordinators, but there was a difference in the work performance. The works performed over 70% were related with accreditation, data collection & analysis, communication, planning and monitoring, on the other hand under 50% in performances were related with system design, program development, tool development and evaluation.