Nurses vs ISO in a hospital

Abstract

ISO based Quality Management System in healthcare facilities in Poland is no longer a novelty. Its implementation, however, requires medical personnel to expand their knowledge and accept the fact that medical service is a medical product. In order for a medical service to be of high quality, personnel should be familiar with medical services marketing. Processes used as a result of standards’ implementation are a significant change for healthcare workers but having a quality management system certificate became a standard.

The aim of this work was to present the state of knowledge concerning nursing personnel readiness to implement the standards.

In this work a diagnostic survey method was used, questionnaire was the technique used and as a research tool - the authors’ own survey questionnaire consisting of both closed and open questions.

The study was conducted among nursing personnel working in hospital wards before and after the introduction of ISO 9001 based Quality Management System.

Own studies revealed that before the implementation of ISO the nursing personnel was apprehensive about the changes related to it (53.22%), with only 28.65% unconcerned about it and 18.13% unable to decide. The research showed that the nurses surveyed were likely to claim that their work organization improved after the introduction of the Standards (48.54%), with only 19.30% thinking it did not change, and 32.16% claiming it improved to a small degree. According to the nurses, implementation of the standards in hospitals encourages people to pursue education or learn by themselves (67.84%), with 18.71% respondents saying it does not encourage them and 13.45% were undecided. The respondents most often thought that implementation of standards will contribute to increase of customer satisfaction with the quality of the offered services (82.46%), while 17.54% respondents thought the opposite.