Abstract
As part of community health care services provided by our hospital, there are regular visits by a nurse and/or a physician to patients in their homes. Durin one year from April 2001 to May 2002, we inadvertently skipped 15 visits. It was feared that if nothing were done, such a failure in duty would occur at least once a month. To find the way out of this situation and to reduce the number of skipped cases to zero, we made concerted efforts, turning to the methodology of Total Quality Management (TQM) activities.
We tried to grasp the state of things to begin with, and investigated the root causes of the failure. The causes were analyzed using the fishbone diagram. Based on the results of analysis, preventive measures were adopted. Thanks to this, as of February 2004, there are no cases in which we have been remiss in visiting our patints for care in their homes.
