Complete a response to Case Study 10.1: Middle County Hospital in your textbook

Case studies require the
ability to assess the presented situation and then synthesize this information
to make recommendations that minimize the risk for other organizations. After
an introductory paragraph, provide a summary of the situation. In subsequent
paragraphs, present the key learnings that came out of the situation and make
recommendations to improve the situation presented. The paper should conclude
with a summary paragraph that answers the question, “Why should anyone care?”
about this situation…
Although there are no limitations to the length of the paper required for the
case study assignments, in general the paper should be at least two pages with
double spacing. Please be sure to follow all APA requirements.

Complete a response to Case Study 10.1:
Middle County Hospital in your textbook. In your case analysis, be certain to
answer the following questions:

1. How
would you arrange Nathan’s data to tell a story? (Show examples)

2. What
additional data do you need to tell a more detailed story?

CASE STUDY 10.1: Middle
County Hospital ©2008 Victor E. Sower, Ph.D., C.Q.E. Katie Bent, CEO of Middle
County Hospital (MCH), had invited you to her Monday morning meeting with her
management staff. You assumed that the invitation was just to introduce you as
the new management intern at the hospital. This she did at the beginning of the
meeting. ‘‘Please welcome to our staff. recently graduated from State
University with a BBA degree and will be working for me for the next several
months on a variety of projects. Please make feel welcome.’’ Turning to you,
she said ‘‘Usually the junior member of the staff makes the coffee. Since you
didn’t know about this, I came in early and made a fresh pot.’’ Everyone
laughed as she finished by saying, ‘‘You owe me one.’’ Katie then proceeded
with the meeting. ‘‘This weekend I met with the Hospital Board. They asked that
I make a presentation at their next meeting on the status of our program of
continuous quality improvement (CQI). They are well aware of how important this
program is to the operations of the hospital as well as to our continued
accreditation by JCAHO.’’ You noticed Nathan Walker, director of quality, shift
uneasily in his seat. Katie continued, ‘‘Look upon this as an opportunity to
show the Board we’re serious about CQI and to enlist their support for the
program. Let’s be

sure we do this right’’.
‘‘Nathan, I’m assigning (your name) , our new management intern, to assist
you in upgrading the proposal. (your name) has studied quality management at
State University and can provide you with some extra technical horsepower. You have
until (deadline) to complete the report upon which I will base my
presentation. Make every minute count.’’ The meeting adjourned after about
another hour. Nathan invited you to join him for a cup of coffee. ‘‘Frankly,
I’m still learning the technical aspects of quality. I’ve joined the American
Society for Quality and I’m beginning to study for my certification exam, but
I’m fairly new to all of this. I think we have made some great progress—the CQI
program is the best thing that has happened to MCH in a long time. Did you
study quality when you were a student at State University?’’ You paused for a
minute, frantically trying to remember where you stored your quality management
text—the one your professor said you should hang onto. ‘‘Sure. I took quality
management as part of my study of operations management. That material is still
pretty fresh in my mind and I have been considering preparing for the ASQ
Certified Quality Improvement Associate examination,’’ you said. While you
weren’t as confident as you sounded, you were sure you could re-read the
quality management text and it would all come back to you.

‘‘That’s great!’’ said
Nathan. ‘‘I’ve been collecting a lot of data, but haven’t had time to do
anything with it on a systematic basis. Follow me to my office and let me give
you a couple of sets of data (in Appendices) and see what you can do with
them.’’ Off you both went to Nathan’s office.

‘‘One CQI project we
implemented at the beginning of last month involves reducing the number of
redos in our imaging area. The imaging area does X-ray, MRI, CT scans,
ultrasounds, and the like. A redo means that the first image was found to be
unsatisfactory by the attending physician who then orders a redo of the image.
That creates dissatisfaction in the patient and adds cost both for the hospital
and for the patient. Redos could also result in delays in necessary treatment
for the patient. Because of its importance, we implemented a new set of
procedures at Day 31 on the data table (Appendix 1). Days 1–30 are with the old
procedure; Days 31−60 are with the new procedure. I take a random sample of 50
imaging procedures each day and calculate the number of redos. I warn Imaging
when they have a bad day and compliment them when they have a good day. I’m not
sure how effective this is. I have reported improvement with the new procedure
but don’t have a way to really show the level of the improvement. Could you
develop a good way to show the improvement?’’

‘‘Certainly,’’
you say with more confidence than you actually feel as you grow more concerned
with locating your old quality management text. ‘‘There is another area in
which we are planning a CQI project,’’ Nathan continues. ‘‘We use comment cards
filled out by our patients to determine their satisfaction with the quality of
our food service. Of course, we under- stand that patients on bland diets won’t
rate the Jell-OTM and soup that they receive as being as good as the chicken
fried steak they really would like to have. That alone results in reduced
patient satisfaction and more complaints about food service and is largely
unavoidable. We would like to determine some ways of dealing with this factor
as well as identifying one or more project objectives to initiate to improve
patient satisfaction with our food service. I have put together a summary of
our food service process (Appendix 2) and a summary of the comments received
from patients about food service (Appendix 3). See what you can do with

that you can meet that
deadline. ‘‘Great! I’m counting on you,’’ you said. With that, you retired to
your office, found your quality management text (thankfully), refreshed your
cup of coffee, and started reading. The more you read, the more that you
remembered from class and the greater your confidence became in your ability to
do a good job for Nathan. Also, you thought, a top quality report should repay
Katie for making the coffee this morning.