THE QUALITY IMPROVEMENT STRATEGY

To prepare for managed competition, many hospitals now focus on servic e quality as a means to improve their competitive position. To aid in decisions about where best to direct limited resources, managers need physician feedback about how the hospital's services compare with its competitors' services (competitive advantage) and about the degree to which the hospital's services fall short of, meet, or exceed physician s' expectations (customer satisfaction). This article describes a stra tegy for acquiring information about competitive advantage and custome r satisfaction and for using the information to identify optimal servi ce improvement opportunities. It then presents a step-by-step applicat ion of the Quality Improvement Strategy (QIS) for a large urban hospit al.