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John Morfaw
 

 

     

The Importance of the Total Quality Management (TQM) Strategy towards an Effective and Efficient Healthcare Delivery System in Africa

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a philosophy of total organizational involvement in improving all aspects of the quality of products and services provided by the organization. This is achieved through employee empowerment in decision making, the use of facilitated teams in the organization, individual responsibility for products and services and a strong customer service orientation, working from a set of values envisioning a mission, maintaining commitment, sustaining motivation, prioritizing tasks, cooperating with others, communicating effectively and seeking to continuously learn and grow. In Africa, the healthcare industry is plagued by a catalogue of social, economic, political, cultural, structural and organizational problems needing some reform and reengineering through the introduction and implementation of quality management concepts such as Total Quality Management (TQM). This will involve intensive and extensive education and training of all medical personnel on effective and efficient as well as qualitative health service delivery to communities. This will also require reorganization and restructuring of existing medical institutions, policy and system changes on major healthcare delivery systems in the continent. My presentation will also focus on basic quality improvement tools such as process flow analysis, cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis, quality organizational structures, systems analysis, organizational behavior and team building which help to analyze and evaluate various quality management processes. The implementation of the Total Quality Management strategy in Africa’s healthcare industry will yield qualitative service delivery and develop relationships and processes capable of generating and sustaining quality improvement now and in the future.


Africa Conference 2005: African Health and Illness
Convened by Dr. Toyin Falola for the Center for African and African American Studies
Coordinated by Matthew Heaton Webmaster, Technical Coordinator: Sam Saverance