You are the Corporate Vice President for Quality for the Patient-First Healthcare System, a national system of acute care hospitals located throughout the United States. Your organization has just approved additional monies for developing a new quality management system. Each hospital has implemented its own quality management program. Some of the programs demonstrate stellar results and high levels of patient satisfaction, whereas other hospitals have less impressive results.

Your focus as the corporate VP for quality is to develop a corporate quality improvement program that will be standard throughout all of the company's hospitals. It must also be responsive to any local needs or issues. How will you craft that plan? What will you include in your plan? Include some specific examples of what you might measure. How will you get buy-in from your individual organizations that already have their own plan?