Strategic Plan Analysis Paper

Essay by JodiSilva21University, Bachelor'sA, May 2008

download word file, 6 pages 3.0

Total Quality Management (TQM) is an integrated and comprehensive system supported throughout an entire organization. The main goal of TQM is to provide a competitive and sustainable advantage while consistently focusing on the customer. This process will differ by industry, targeted competition, and various other factors, but within the service industry (such as long-term care) five factors are addressed:1.reliability2.competence3.responsiveness4.tangibles5.empathy (John Hopkins University, 2006, p.19).

This paper will evaluate the management styles of a long-term care facility that has adopted Total Quality Management and discuss how this facility's management styles compare and contrast with that of Bayada Nurses, a home care agency that provides home care to the elderly nationwide.

Management Styles in Long-Term Care Facilities"Compared to other US businesses, the use of quality improvement (QI) techniques such as total quality management (TQM) and continuous quality improvement (CQI) have developed slowly in the nursing home industry" (Castle, 1999, p. 1, para.2).

In long-term care settings the judgment of quality is made more in reference to interpersonal relationships with staff that provide the actual care and the environment in which this care is provided. When a resident is admitted into a long-term care facility, they are unlikely to be discharged. The facility then becomes the elder's home. Staffs, volunteers, family members and other residents become the residents' form of support. Because many of the elderly suffer from chronic illnesses, there is a minimal possibility that they will be cured. With this in mind, quality of life becomes very important to these individuals as they deal with the loss of independence and physical or mental ability (Leonard, Wilson, Malott, 2001).

In 2001, the Federal Government launched the Long Term Care Quality Initiative which includes the major components of quality assurance and quality improvement which include:•"regulatory approaches where the state and federal governments...