Applying Taguchi methods to health care.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this article is to show how Taguchi methods can be applied to health care.


METHODS
The quadratic loss function is at the heart of Taguchi methods. It is a powerful motivator for a quality strategy and can be used to adequately model the loss to society in health care. It also establishes a relationship between cost and variability. Therefore, it can be integrated with the performance and parameters of the design of medical applications. Signal-to-noise ratios give a sense of how close is the performance to the ideal. By maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio, quality-engineering activities can be aimed at identifying near-optimum levels of factors and making quality equal to zero.


RESULTS
This article shows that, when the patients' requirements are consistently met, lower losses can provide an impetus to improve patient satisfaction.


CONCLUSIONS
The article outlines areas in health care where Taguchi methods can easily be applied.
Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. totaner@hotmail.com
Tolga
T
Taner
Jiju
J
Antony
D003659:Decision Making, Organizational; D003662:Decision Theory; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D003951:Diagnostic Errors / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D007221:Industry / Q000458:organization & administration; D017059:Models, Econometric; D017146:Models, Organizational; D016011:Normal Distribution; D009874:Operations Research; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017749:Total Quality Management / Q000379:methods*