The total cost of quality includes the costs of quality planning, quality control, quality improvement and poor quality output. We believe that health care, like other industries, pays a high price for poor quality as it relates to inadequate communications. The cost of poor quality includes such costs and losses as those that follows:
- Costs associated with giving medications or treatments to wrong patient
- Rework costs of labour wasted supplies, shipping and so on
- Lost labour equipment time and supplies on services and products that have to be replaced for example, radiology or electrocardiogram films, etc
- Cost of delays
- Lost sales because of dissatisfied patients, physicians, and other customers
- Cost of inspection
- Etc.
The key for health care organizations is first to reduce the large total costs of poor quality that result from waste, rework, and lost customers and then to shift some of those funds to prevention and design.
CREDITS: Suresh Lulla, Founder & Mentor, Qimporo Consultants Pvt. Ltd.