Involving vendors in continuous quality improvement efforts.
In the hospital environment, vendors supply a wide range of items, from surgical sutures to the latest in high-cost technological equipment. Also, many clinical and support services, such as respiratory therapy, transcription, and computer databanks are now outsourced to commercial vendors. Interaction with such vendors is often less than satisfactory, with prolonged timelines and disruption of an important process that is being computerized. Although hospitals deal with very few vendors in long-term relationships, such as those seen in manufacturing, this should not preclude the formation of a supplier-customer relationship that goes beyond management's interaction with the sales representative in response to a request for proposal. This is especially true when a process improvement team has studied an internal process and defined a key quality characteristic.
Good Samaritan Health System, San Jose, CA.
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McDevitt
D002140:California; D003284:Contract Services; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D011872:Radiology Department, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D011873:Radiology Information Systems; D017748:Time Management; D017749:Total Quality Management