A physical examination of health care's readiness for a total quality management program: A case study by Weeks, Helms, and Ettkin. Once you have finished the article, read the following case: Quality Improvement Program Intervention.

Using the information you gleaned from both articles, please discuss the following issues:

1. Provide a brief overview of the quality improvement process. Be sure to give examples and to specifically discuss what quality improvement teams are.

2. The article you read indicated that there needs to be an agreement and understanding between employees and managers for successful quality programs. Discuss this aspect of the case study (e.g. did this occur, what understanding do you think each group had, etc).

3. What steps did the manager take to implement the improvement process? What steps did he do correctly? Which ones did not work?

4. What recommendation do you think Joe made? Do you agree?

5. If you were the manager of this unit, what would you have done differently to implement the process and why?