Quality Management in Health Care : Principles and Methods

Now in its second edition, Quality Management in Health Care: Principles and Methods addresses the mounting pressure on the health care industry to control costs while providing the highest quality care and services. In doing so, it provides students with a solid foundation in the implementation of quality improvement activities and the tools necessary to evaluate and improve their efforts toward quality of care. With an emphasis on general theory and practical applications, the text delineates the techniques that form the basis of quality management in medicine, such as group processes, process orientation, statistical process control, and statistical techniques. A clear and concise writing style and effective use of examples, illustrations, and case studies elucidate the complex topics presented in the text.

Dr. Donald E. Lighter currently serves as the Associate Medical Director for Clinical Outcomes Programs for the Shriners Hospitals for Children, where he is responsible for leading the design and implementation of programs to evaluate and improve the care of children in the Shriners system. Shriners' unique hospital system provides free care for children with serious orthopaedic abnormalities and burns. After finishing his medical degree at St. Louis University Medical School, Dr. Lighter completed a pediatric residency and practiced general pediatrics in both private practice and academic settings for over twenty-five years. Dr. Lighter's experience in managed care has spanned nearly twenty years, having led the formation of two IPAs and three HMOs. Over the past ten years, Dr. Lighter has worked both with commercial and Medicaid HMOs, and presently he is Director at The Institute for Healthcare Research and Education and a founder of CyberCE, Inc., an online educational consulting company. Additionally, Dr. Lighter is a professor and a member of the core faculty for The University of Tennessee's Physicians' Executive MBA program, an innovative curriculum that relies heavily on the Internet to provide didactic material for physicians working toward a Masters in Business Administration degree. He also serves as a Senior Examiner in the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Program.

Douglas C. Fair is the Director of Statistical Applications at InfinityQS International, Inc., a provider of leading-edge Statistical Process Control (SPC) software. In his role at InfinityQS, he helps a diverse set of multi-national and Fortune 500 companies to better understand how to implement and leverage statistical methods for systemic process improvement and cost reduction. Mr. Fair is the co-author of two books on statistical methods: Innovative Control Charting: Practical SPC Solutions for Today's Manufacturing Environment (ASQ Quality Press, 1998) and Principles and Methods for Quality Management in Health Care (Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2000). Fair earned a degree in Industrial Statistics from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and is a long-standing member of the American Society for Quality.