QUALITY MANAGEMENT - MAKING THE TRANSITION TO MEDICAL-EDUCATION

The quality of medical education is lamentable. The quality-management approach (QM) is prescribed as a remedy. However, the different nomen clatures used in QM or education may give rise to misunderstanding. Re sistance to quality management strategies can be observed in medical e ducation in spite of the merits of QM in the industrial field. A liter ature review was carried out, demonstrating the isomorphism among mana gement features of the different fields by concept mapping, and a case study of the implementation of QM in medical education. MedLine does not focus on quality management in medical education. The nomenclature of QM and education is different; however, it was translated and used for instructional design purposes in the Munich Curricular Innovation Project (M-CIP). Quality management's key concept of evaluation can e vidently be applied for educational purposes. Evaluation is the centra l underlying structure in both approaches. QM and education represent different contexts but their underlying concepts (e.g. statistical pro cess control) are isomorphic. Quantification of quality by evaluation using operationalized, structured terms is a universal methodological approach which allows the determination of quality from different cont exts. QM models, such as the PDCA cycle, can be used for instructional design purposes as experienced in the Munich Curricular Innovation Pr oject as well as in several existing quality improvement projects. The evaluation results of the QM-driven educational projects demonstrate improved teaching/learning quality, cost containment and are accepted by students and teachers as well. It is concluded that methods of qual ity management can evidently be transferred to the educational field. The evaluational feedback loops fundamentally applied in QM also work in education. This is relevant for improving the quality of medical ed ucation.