Research Issues about Quality Improvement: Providers' Perspectives - ประเด็นการพัฒนาคุณภาพที่ควรศึกษาวิจัย: มุมมองของผู้ให้บริการ

Abstract

            Quality improvement has been concerned by both healthcare providers and patients; however, researches on this issue have been inadequate. This study was aimed to identify major research questions which should be conducted to benefit the whole system. The focus was put on: 1) issues that cause problems and/or obstacles to all healthcare professionals or 2) issues that have conflicting opinions among healthcare professionals. Multistage cluster sampling was used to sample 767 healthcare professionals in 39 hospitals from 13 provinces. The key items in the questionnaires were extracted from the Hospital Accreditation Standard (Golden Jubilee Edition). The questionnaires were distributed and collected on sites from November 2003 to February 2004. The response rate was 94.9 percent. The respondents thought that more than 90 percent of major problems and/or obstacles include quality improvement activities, integration and utilization of information, participation in quality improvement, communication among departments, clinical practice guideline development, and efficiency of maintenance system. However, there are 14 items in the standard that received significantly different responses from various healthcare professionals. These include budget for quality improvement activities, integration and utilization of information, and clinical practice guideline development, for example.