University Practicum: Analyzing the Role of TQM in Healthcare Settings

This report, based on an interaction with a nurse leader, explores the role of Total Quality Management (TQM) in healthcare organizations. It emphasizes the crucial involvement of senior leadership in driving quality improvement initiatives, highlighting their impact on employee motivation and the reduction of defects. The report discusses the nurse leader's perspective on the importance of stakeholder involvement, including employees and patients, in identifying and eliminating barriers to quality improvement, such as lack of communication and awareness. It references specific examples, such as fall prevention initiatives, to illustrate how stakeholder engagement can lead to policy development and improved patient care. The report aligns with established elements of successful TQM, referencing relevant literature to support the nurse leader's views on leadership and stakeholder contributions to enhancing patient-centered care and organizational outcomes.

Running Head: Practicum: Role of TQM
Practicum: Role of TQM
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1PRACTICUM: ROLE OF TQM
Introduction
The discussion is the outcome of the interaction with the nurse leader Mrs. X, online by
email The communication with the nurse leader was based on the roe of the total quality
management (TQM) in the organisation. The paper discuses the views of the nurse leader on the
involvement of the senior leadership in the quality improvement initiatives as it pertain to their
success failures. The nurse’s viewpoint on elimination of the barriers to improve and on the
stakeholder’s involvement is also discussed.
Involvement of senior leadership in the TQM
The nurse leader said, “People need to know their senior leaders are interested and
supportive”. According to Mrs X, for successful TQM initiatives senior leadership is the central
point. Senior leadership involvement is important for facilitating conformance to internal
requirements and reduces the defects for quality improvement. It requires involvement of strong
leadership in identifying the inappropriate care delivery process and refine in a manner that will
decrease the cost and time. According to the nurse leader, it is incredibly difficult and
challenging to take quality initiatives without the senior leadership support. Her views align with
the elements of iSixSigma for successful TQM. One of the elements is the leadership (Parand et
al., 2014).
According to McFadden et al. (2015), senior leadership is necessary to have motivational
impact on the workforce that leads to successful initiatives. This further stimulates the other top
performers in the organisation to participate. This process has dual benefits. It will lead to quality
improvement as well a career development. The same was mentioned by the nurse leader in

2PRACTICUM: ROLE OF TQM
email that her transformational leadership as a senior nurse inspired others to participate in the
quality initiatives. When she has taken initiative for enhancing the patient centred care in the
organisation, the other nurses demonstrated interest and kept asking pertinent questions. She
could motivate them by recognising their demands and valuing their effort and decisions. It
helped her to increase the person centred care delivered in the geriatric care.
Stakeholder involvement
As per the nurse leader, it is important to have the involvement of all employees in the
organisation. It is important to have trained employees to integrate the quality into the design
process. This is possible by eliminating the fears from the workplace. Lack of self-managed
work teams is the barrier to quality improvement. It is necessary to eliminate these barriers for
continuous improvement. Involvement of stakeholders early in the process helps to take
preventive measures for the concerned issue (Van Bogaert et al., 2014). Mr X informed that she
has taken the i nitiatives of fall prevention in the geriatric care by developing facebook page on
fall prevention initiatives. It increased the involvement of all the stakeholders (nurses, nurse
mangers, patients, and other board members) and led to policy development in this area. Several
barriers such as lack of CTVs in the ER, unawareness among nurses, and emergency alert system
such as wristbands for fall risk patients were eliminated. According to Verleye et al. (2014),
stakeholders are important in policy making or overcoming the barriers related to cost, resources
and patient safety. Early involvement of the stakeholders helps to stay focused on the issue and
introduce new measures for quality improvement.

3PRACTICUM: ROLE OF TQM
References
McFadden, K. L., Stock, G. N., & Gowen III, C. R. (2015). Leadership, safety climate, and
continuous quality improvement: impact on process quality and patient safety. Health
care management review, 40(1), 24-34.
Parand, A., Dopson, S., Renz, A., & Vincent, C. (2014). The role of hospital managers in quality
and patient safety: a systematic review. BMJ open, 4(9), e005055.
Van Bogaert, P., van Heusden, D., Timmermans, O., & Franck, E. (2014). Nurse work
engagement impacts job outcome and nurse-assessed quality of care: model testing with
nurse practice environment and nurse work characteristics as predictors. Frontiers in
psychology, 5.
Verleye, K., Gemmel, P., & Rangarajan, D. (2014). Managing engagement behaviors in a
network of customers and stakeholders: Evidence from the nursing home sector. Journal
of Service Research, 17(1), 68-84.