Tracking quality assurance problems in a large teaching hospital

Jackson Memorial Hospital (JMH), a 1,250-bed public hospital in Miami, Florida, is the largest teaching hospital in the Southeast. Affiliated with the University of Miami School of Medicine, JMH comprises 11 specialty services, 21 medical departments, and 8 nursing departments. In 'Managing Quality Assurance Activities in a Large Teaching Hospital' which appeared in the August 1981 issue of the Quality Review Bulletin, the organization of the quality assurance (QA) program at JMH was described. Through the program, which is based on a management by objectives philosophy, administrative support functions have been consolidated within the Quality Assurance Department (QAD), overall responsibility for implementation and evaluation of the QA program has been assigned to the multidisciplinary Patient Care Committee, and short-term and long-range objectives for quality assurance have been formulated. In the article, the authors describe the problem-tracking and problem-monitoring system developed at JMH to manage the extensive amount of problem information generated from a wide range of data sources. Vesting authority for problem assessment in the central QAD has helped make the QA program at JMH an effective management tool.