A study on the follow-up management system of Continuous Quality Improvement activity

CQI 활동 후 사후관리 체계 조사연구

This study was conducted to determine whether follow-up management is carried out continuously following CQI activity and to analyze the factors behind the success and failure of follow-up management. Past presentations from 1994-1999 of CQI coordinators and lecturers from various institutions who presented at The Korean Society of Quality Assurance in Health Care(KoSQA) on the conditions of follow-up management in each institution were analyzed. The results of this study were as follows; Since the number of subjects on CQI increased each year at symposiums, this has expanded to all medical institutions. Although medical institutions usually conduct 11-20 subjects on CQI per year, there were many such occasions where more than 31 subjects were conducted. Moreover, institutions with less than 800 beds have come up with more projects than those with more than 800 beds, thus 23.3% of these institutions had at least 1 person involved in 4 projects. This had created an overload of responsibilities for specific persons' involvement, prompting them to incline toward formalities in their work rather than substantial activities. Among the projects presented at the symposiums, 51.7% demonstrated that follow-up management could be carried out. In particular, 55.3% of the projects from provincial regions could carry out follow-up management compared to 48.8% in Seoul. Moreover, it was demonstrated that 80% of the projects from institutions with 600-799 beds carried out follow-up management most effectively. With regards to previous presentations, the older they were, it was found that follow-up management could not be effectively carried out. Some institutions that responded that follow-up management was carried out effectively in their institutions were found to have conducted follow-up management without any inspection strategies or the appropriate tools. CQI activities were executed and terminated with no consistency and team members had no real concern for it. The most important factors that contribute to an effective follow-up management are the need for concern and interest from the directors of the hospitals, from the relevant departments and team members in addition to the role of the supervising department, follow-up management through management of target goals, consistency in tasks along with communication between all team members. The biggest problems were perceived to be overload of work due to accumulation of proposed projects in addition to lack of awareness pertaining to follow-up management. CQI is beneficial for all staff for the improvement of the mind and business administration and thus it is believed to be desirable. To carry out follow-up management effectively, leadership, analysis and application of information, follow-up management and planning, as well as quality management are perceived to be essential, on the other hand, the results showed a significant difference. To prevent CQI activities from becoming just an activity, the basic system should be reconstructed and augmented based on the problems derived from the results of this study. Moreover, we hope this study will be used as reference material that would encourage the administration of follow-up management after CQI activities in most hospitals. Furthermore, various studies on follow-up management should be conducted for CQI activities in the future.