A pole quality system dashboard for health care institutions: An educational tool

For several years, health institutions have had to comply with certification and the need to establish new governance. Thanks to version two of the accreditation (obtained in 2005), the development of the hospital project (adopted in October 2006), and pole organization since 2006, quality-oriented management has become a priority axis at the University Hospital of Angers. Strategic adaptation to quality requirements leads to the development of hospital management, especially at the level of the clinical, medico-technical, and administrative poles. The elements of the hospital project, including quality, risk, and evaluation, should be adapted by every pole according to the level of its project. This requires practical and pedagogical oversight, which enables management to diagnose the progress in quality made by the pole, measure its global impact, and make comparisons between poles. An eight-axis dashboard with criteria, and a user guide, were developed from certification ISO 9001, the EFQM manual, and the certification manual version 2 of the Haute Autorite en Sante. The criteria are transcribed in an Excel table. Successfully estimating one’s own quality system means demonstrating the maturity of the quality approach. The results of this evaluation confirmed those of the certification. The dashboard is a management structuring tool at the service of the multidisciplinary team. Two considerations emerge from these results: First of all, for the hospital management, the axes to be improved emerge as a priority to determine and focus the next annual action plan. The results also support the auto evaluation for the certification version 2010, planned in January of the same year. It is a pragmatic tool which allows auto-evaluation and comparison to estimate the pole performances. It is a strategic driving tool for the hospital, for the quality department, and for the pole. The pole quality system evaluation dashboard for healthcare institutions is a simple tool which allies strategy and performance for greater efficiency in actions to be taken to improve the quality, the risk management, and the evaluation of the poles for a better service for hospital users.