Case Study
- June 2009Abstract: During its decade-long quality journey, Guttenberg Municipal Hospital (GMH) has embraced the plan, do, study, act (PDSA) cycle to improve the organization’s processes. By using the PDSA cycle routinely, hospital leaders learned the importance of utilizing data for decision making. A hospital board member introduced GMH to the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, which ultimately led to a Silver Award in the Iowa Recognition for Performance Excellence (IRPE) program. Feedback from the hospital’s first IRPE submission in 2005 led GMH to update its values statement to better align with the hospital’s continuous quality improvement strategy. To further its quality journey, GMH is beginning to use lean methodologies, such as the 5S tool, for process improvement.
Keywords: Case study - Healthcare - Quality culture - Continuous improvement - Plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle - lean - Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence - Iowa Recognition for Performance Excellence Program (IRPE) - 5S - Patient satisfaction
