This chapter will explain the Total Quality Management philosophy. It will start with basic quality definitions coming from the industrial field, then enlarge the definitions that it applies to medical care. Tasks of quality policy, its purpose, goals and hints as to how to implement a quality system will be explained. The quality model for LASIK will be derived rather from the upper quality philosophies than from specific quality procedure norms applied for industry as the ISO 9000. In the author's point of view, it does not make sense to apply these derived norms to medical service and see what is going to happen. Instead, in the next chapter the specific nature of services is discussed and common quality models for services are introduced. Later on a specific quality model for ambulant surgery is built and applied to LASIK in Refractive Surgery.
3.1 UNDERSTANDING QUALITY DEFINITIONS 31
3.1.1 German Quality Definition 31
3.1.2 Japanese Quality Definitions 32
3.1.3 Meyers Definition of Quality 34
3.1.4 Total Quality Management (TQM) 34
3.2 TASKS OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) 34
3.2.1 Purpose of Total Quality Management 34
3.2.2 Spots of Quality Management 37
3.2.3 Methods for Realisation 40
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