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The customer knows best: AtlantiCare

In a healthcare setting, and really in any setting, there should always be an

effective quality management implementation. People come to a business for a service
and expect a certain kind of a way that things are going to work through the
management. Quality management’s role in healthcare is basically “to improve
effectiveness of treatments and increase patient satisfaction with the service” (Sarkissian,
2017). This means that quality management is important when it comes to the healthcare
setting. This is because patient treatment and patient satisfaction is the number one thing
to focus on so management should always be trying to improve it. Quality management
is an effective way to improve quality in general in our industry. Quality is the degree of
excellence of a company's products or services while quantity is the amount products or
services that an organization can produce or offer within a specified time. High-quality
products and services consume lots of your time when manufacturing tend to
be expensive than low-quality goods. Therefore, many organizations are tempted to
provide large quantities of low-quality goods and services which might easily be
produced as compared to high-quality goods and services which might be time-
consuming. By doing this, they risk sacrificing quality for quantity which isn't a decent
practice. This can be because, in any business concern, customer satisfaction is the most
significant aspect of its growth and development. Therefore, if a company produces and
offers low-quality products and services, then they risk losing both current and potential
customers. It is good when customers praise a company due to their higher quality
products and services.

Total quality management is a strategy that ensures there's a long-term success

for a company. It provides internal guidelines and process standards which will reduce
errors. TQM when integrated to the management of a company, the organization can
do both quality and quantity together. By completing in-depth diagnosis and intensive
evaluation, total quality management ensures that expectations and wishes of
stakeholders are met by the organization effectively and efficiently without sacrificing
quality of their products and services. With TQM in situ, a company is anxious with all the
inputs of production like human resources, finance, sales, distribution, service, production
and engineering functioning together as a unit to confirm that good quality products
and services are produced.

In the article, Atlanticare embraced total quality management and realized that
the long waiting times that led to complaints by customers was caused by the top-to-
bottom flow of knowledge. This sort of communication made some gaps within the
communication process among employees of Atlanticare. Therefore, the management
adopted the whole quality management system that advocated for high-quality
healthcare services. They focused on the standard of health services offered by their
employees by setting benchmark goals that each one employee at every level should
achieve. By doing so their quality of services went up and customer satisfaction was
achieved. The resulting impact of this was an improved within the quantity of service
production as reflected by an enormous increase within the number of shoppers which
saw the amount of repeat customers triple. Therefore, integrating total quality
management will enable organizations to figure hard to boost leadership systems, good
communication, systematic approaches, process-centered thinking, total employee
involvement and customer focus. Thereupon in situ, both quality and quantity is
achieved.

Prior to the implementation of total quality management, Atlanticare used a top-

to-bottom communication strategy which had some gaps in staff communication. The
effect of this was patients looking ahead to an extended time before being served, and
there have been lots of complaints. Customer complaints made management
of Atlanticare think about ways to boost quality of their services. This led to adoption of
total quality management system and after in-depth diagnosis and intensive evaluation,
the corporate with the help of TQM system discovered that long patient’s long waiting
time and complaints were due to missing gaps in staff communication caused by to-to-
bottom flow of knowledge. Therefore, the corporate realized that each one employee at
every level played a vital role in ensuring their customers are given top quality service. As
a result, employees at each level got freedom to produce vital feedback. To confirm the
culture of employees providing feedback at every level, new employees would undergo
a course of study on the company's performance excellence framework
during orientation so they may understand the standard culture in Atlanticare from
onset. Also, employees got goals that they ought to work for in the slightest degree levels
including prioritizing service opportunities, increasing clinical communications, and better
engagement at the purpose of delivery. This led to a tripled number of repeat customers,
its market share hit a six-year high, and also the firm's profit increased from $280m to
$650m.

After implementing total quality management, Atlanticare’s management gave

employees the liberty of providing important feedback at each level. This was important
in encouraging provision of top quality healthcare services. To validate that new
employees understood this culture from the beginning, the new employee would
undergo a course of study on the company’s performance excellence framework during
orientation. This type of management system structured company’s processes into;
growth and financial performance, workplace, customer service, people, and quality.
These processes would make sure that new employees understood the standard culture
in Atlanticare from the onset of their careers at the corporate. Also as employees rise in
their positions, emphasis on top quality services follows. This enables the company’s
managers operate within the company’s style that encourages freedom of employees
at each level to supply top quality services also as providing vital feedback which will
help the company as a full improvement of its quality of services.

Thus, Atlanticare a provider of high-quality healthcare services adopted the

whole quality management system which helped the corporate reveal the gaps within
the staff communication. The gaps in staff communication led to more
complaints because the purchasers had to attend for long before getting services. They
therefore encouraged employees at each level to produce vital feedback rather than
information flowing from top-to-bottom to boost the standard of their healthcare
services Atlanticare created benchmark goals like increasing clinical communication,
providing better engagement at the purpose of delivery and prioritizing service
opportunities at each level. The changes led to top quality services which led to
triple number of repeat patients and subsequently the profits shot up. Implementing the
whole process, Atlanticare was able to boost in several core areas, including: customer
satisfaction, total employee involvement, process-centered thinking, systematic
approaches, good communication and leadership and integrated systems. To sum up,
TQM for AtlantiCare is based on three principles: continuous quality improvement,
customer focus, and teamwork. These three principles for total quality management are
the main points that show how this process works to make quality management
improvements in AtlantiCare.

2. A quality education: Ramaiah Institute of Management Studies