Managing Quality Crossroads in Healthcare: An Integrative Supply Chain Perspective

Keywords

crossroads, healthcare, quality management, supply chains, systems

Abstract

Managing quality in healthcare involves critical decision making at the intersections of multiple supply chain and operations processes. These intersections occur within an interdependent healthcare system, where changes in one part of the system affect another part of the system. Building on an integrated supply chain perspective, the authors develop the concept of “quality crossroads” to explain crucial intersections between quality processes and those related to strategy, purchasing, operations, customer relationship, and logistics processes. These intersections form a network of crossroads in which decisions about quality can create substantial consequences throughout delivery systems. To explore and apply the concept of quality crossroads in healthcare, the authors review and examine research articles related to healthcare quality published in the Quality Management Journal. The authors also explore applications of quality crossroads in the articles found in this special issue on healthcare quality management. They find that existing works on healthcare more frequently address quality crossroads with strategy, operations processes, and customer relationships, but less often address crossroads with sourcing and logistics processes. The authors discuss these implications and propose multiple avenues for examining healthcare quality crossroads.

Original Publication Citation

"Managing Quality Crossroads in Healthcare: An Integrative Supply Chain Perspective", Quality Management Journal, Edition 1, Volume 25, Pages 2-17, ASQ, 2018.

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2018

Publisher

Quality Management Journal

Language

English

College

Marriott School of Business

Department

Marketing

University Standing at Time of Publication

Associate Professor

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