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A recent study shows that hospital administrators are heeding advice to integrate and embrace quality improvement efforts.Researchers from the Yale School of Medicine interviewed 100 directors from a randomly selected cross-section of all acute-care hospitals and compared their responses with those…
A new book concludes that medical practitioners need a better grasp of quality management principles, methods, programs, systems and experiences. The issue is the topic of a recently published book, Core Curriculum for Medical Quality Management, (Jones and Bartlett Publishers Inc., 2005). It…
In an effort to improve the quality of instruction in its classrooms, the Los Alamos Public School District in New Mexico has adopted the Baldrige Award criteria. The Los Alamos Monitor reported the Baldrige Award criteria adoption has already been met with some success. The district’s main office…
RABQSA International and the National Quality Institute of Canada have joined forces to promote personnel training and certification throughout Canada. The agencies will temporarily allow people and organizations currently registered to standards by NQI to also be registered to one or more of…
A consultant who helped Xerox Business Services win a Baldrige Award will be speaking about organizational performance improvement at an upcoming seminar. John Lawrence, a consultant and former senior executive at two Fortune 500 companies, will present a program entitled “Mapping the Journey–A…
User satisfaction with federal e-government Web sites leveled off after nine months of steady improvement, according to the latest quarterly findings of the American Customer Satisfaction Index. The new data shows a slight decline to an aggregate government Web site score of 71.9 from the December…
APQC and the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals are collaborating to provide no-cost supply chain measurements for benchmarking. The organizations developed and are promoting online supply chain surveys as a reliable and cost-effective way for organizations to learn how their…
Several Ohio health agencies are mounting an effort to improve the quality of health care in the state.Greater Cincinnati Health Council and 17 of its member hospitals will partner with the Ohio Hospital Association to launch the Greater Cincinnati Hospital Quality Improvement Project, reported the…
An international workshop to help local governments implement quality management systems based on ISO 9001 will be held May 22–23 in Veracruz, Mexico. The aim of the meeting is to produce an international workshop agreement (IWA) to allow more-rapid ISO 9001 implementations in governments, shorter…
Northwest Analytical Inc. recently released an updated version of its flagship NWA Quality Analyst SPC suite. The solution allows manufacturers to more easily analyze process data to identify process improvements and execute quality initiatives such as Six Sigma, CAPA and ISO standards. It includes…
Rath & Strong recently released a new pocket guide for practitioners of GE Work-Out, a methodology that helps improve Six Sigma and lean projects. GE Work-Out was developed by General Electric as a companion to already-established quality improvement programs. It creates a method to deal with…
Medidata Solutions Inc., an electronic clinical data management solutions provider, will provide Pro-Pharmaceuticals Inc. with a state-of-the-art electronic data capture technology for an upcoming clinical trial for cancer research. Medidata’s RAVE will allow Pro-Pharmaceuticals to correctly and…
More than 18 companies recently announced support for Microsoft Corp’s new Digital Pharma solution, a framework designed for the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries to improve their performance. The solution is applicable to many areas in the pharmaceutical value chain, from drug…
The International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering will host a training series for those who are new to the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries next month in Denver. The courses will be held April 4–7. The offered courses include: Biotech Basics Biopharmaceutical Process…
Waters Inform 2005, a symposium for laboratory data management process improvement, will be held May 24–26 in Baltimore. The event will include tutorials covering the range of the Waters Laboratory Informatics suite: Empower, Millennium, MassLynx, NuGenesis SDMS, eLab Notebook, and the Q-DIS family…
A new study by Best Practices LLC contains performance metrics from which pharmaceutical companies can perform gap analyses to assess manufacturing performance and identify improvement opportunities. “Pharmaceutical Manufacturing: Cost, Staffing & Utilization Metrics,” contains the following…
AMR Research recently released a study that predicts that the cost of compliance for companies will reach $80 billion over the next five years. The firm also estimates that regulated organizations will spend close to $15.5 million on compliance-related activities in 2005. Although an average…
Breakthrough Management Group recently launched a publishing initiative to advance its total performance improvement model. The launch coincides with the release of BMG’s vice president of publishing Neil DeCarlo’s book, Six Sigma for Dummies (For Dummies, 2005). The company plans to publish an…
One of the oldest chapters of the Association for Operations Management (APICS) and the Harrington Institute recently made a formal agreement to offer Six Sigma, process improvement and project management certification to APICS members around the world. Founded in 1960, the Golden Gate Chapter of…
The American Society for Quality 12th Annual ISO 9000 Summit will be held in Atlanta April 4–5The event will include three major meetings and conferences. Along with the ISO 9000 conference, it will also feature the U.S. Standards Group Meeting, and Summit course clusters and exams for attendees…
The Associated Press recently reported that a committee in Montana’s state legislature is working toward defining quality in education. The initiative is part of a larger effort to change the state’s school funding process. Following the unanimous vote to begin the process, the measure will next be…
Successful management is analogous to being a fighter pilot in a combat environment, according to Jim Murphy, an F-15 pilot who will deliver a keynote address at Quality Expo.Murphy is the founder and CEO of Afterburner Inc., a consulting company that uses fighter pilots to teach some of the world’…
Leading businesses identify customer satisfaction, cost savings and productivity improvements as the primary drives for their quality improvement initiatives, according to a new study from Best Practices LLC. Based on analyses from 46 major companies, the survey concludes that: There is a…
SigmaXL recently released a new version of its SigmaXL v. 4.0 software. The solution is an add-in for Microsoft Excel.The add-in is designed for statistical and graphical analysis. New features include Recall SigmaXL Dialog, which allows users to recall the last data worksheet they used; run charts…
Pelion Systems Inc. and the Lean Learning Center recently formed a partnership to provide lean curriculum and consulting to manufacturing clients that are implementing lean processes. The companies will combine their areas of expertise to provide the services. Pelion Systems will offer the solution…