|
|
The QI Maze In Australia in recent years there have been may changes happening that are related to quality improvement, for example:
Some key observations are:
Key decision(s): Which of the following do you want?
Are there standards and accreditation that we require because of funding agreements? How do these relate to what we want? Australian Business Excellence Framework The Australian Business Excellence Framework is a useful framework for nonprofit and community organisations. The Australian Quality Council has developed a set of "Interpretive Guidelines for Community Organisations". "The Australian Business Excellence framework is an integrated leadership and management system that describes elements essential to organisational excellence. It is based on a set of 12 time-honoured principles of leadership and management, drawing heavily on the teachings of leading management and organisational theorists and practitioners. "The Framework was developed by a team of management and leadership experts and is updated annually to reflect leading edge global thinking.. "The aim was to describe succinctly the principles and practices that create high performing organisations and then use these criteria to recognise successful enterprises. Recognition was to be achieved through the introduction of national Quality Awards (currently the Australian Business Excellence Awards." Extract from The Australian Business Excellence Framework 2003 Section 1. The Framework - at a glance page 5. Service Excellence Framework The Australian Service Excellence Standards is an internationally accredited quality improvement program funded by the Department of Commuinities and Social Inclustion in South Australian. It is a generic quality and continuous improvement management tool. It can be applied to a wide and diverse range of human services, both government and non-government. It contains the requirements necessary to meet legislative and other standards, and provides a developmental approach to continuous improvement, change management and benchmarking across ‘like’ areas or services.
ISO 9000 Standards The ISO 9000 series standards are international standards designed to help organisations establish quality management systems. In principle there are many aspects of these standards that are relevant to nonprofit and community organisations. However in practice they need appropriate interpretation and implementation, particularly in human services. Quality management systems were originally developed in manufacturing processes and need to be suitably adapted and modified for human services.. The ISO 9000 Standards are International Standards and are accepted in Australia. "The ISO 9000 family of standards listed below has been developed to assist organisations, of all types and sizes, to implemented and operate effective quality management systems.:
AS/NZS ISO 9000:2000 Quality management systems - Fundamentals and vocabulary. Standards Australia, page v. Standards and accreditation In the last decade there has been a big increase in the movement to accredit quality organisations. This has taken many forms:
There are many players in the standards and accreditation field. Some examples are: Independent nonprofit organisations that develop standards for specific industries, for example:
Government departments or agencies that develop standards (and/or or accredit organisations), for example:
Independent accrediting organisations, for example:
Further details and links to these and other organisations is on the Resources page Evaluation Evaluation is a process of asking and answering questions about worthwhileness. Is something worthwhile happening? Could something more worthwhile be happening? We often judge worthwhileness in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, adequacy and appropriateness. There are different kinds of evaluation, for example:
Overlaps In practice there are many overlaps between excellence frameworks, quality improvement, standards and accreditation and evaluation. For example a client survey (or a staff survey, client focus group, client database data analysis) could be:
|
|