Total Quality Management Practices and Service Delivery in Iso Certified Hospitals in Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of total quality management practices on the operational performance of private health sector in Kenya. The global health service industry is getting competitive day in day out owing to technological changes and quality concerns. In order to improve the levels of service delivery successfully, total quality management (TQM) practices need to be embraced and strategically positioned at the center of any health organization’s management system. Analysis reveals that TQM is important in promoting customer values and needs in organizations. This is because it involves inclusion of different continuous improvement models. A simple random sampling technique was used to select employees working at ISO certified Hospitals in Nairobi County. The researcher randomly selected the target group in this study and this made it possible to get data to fulfill the study objective. The data was gathered using questionnaire and the questions in the questionnaire were centered on the concept of total quality management practices implementation and service delivery with reference to ISO certified Hospitals in Nairobi County. The study included open as well as closed ended questions and analysis was supported by (SPSS) version 20.0. The results were presented in form of frequency table. The correlation (R) value of 0.699 showed that a strong relationship existed between the TQM practices and service delivery. The regression model summary showed that TQM practices (customer focus, top management support, education & training and continuous improvement) contributed 48.8% to the change in service delivery among the hospitals. ANOVA statistics showed that TQM practices significantly affected service delivery. From the regression coefficients, customer focus showed a positive significant regression coefficient of 0.310; top management support showed a positive insignificant regression coefficient of 0.052; education and training showed a positive and significant regression coefficient of 0.102; while continuous improvement had a significant regression coefficient of 0.415. The study concludes that TQM influence service delivery within the ISO certified hospitals in Nairobi. The study further concludes TQM practices have a strong relationship with service delivery among ISO certified hospitals in Nairobi. From the regression analysis, TQM practices (customer focus, education & training, and continuous improvement) have a positive effect on service delivery within ISO certified hospitals in Nairobi. Top management support has an insignificant effect on service delivery within ISO certified hospitals in Nairobi. The study recommends increased customer centeredness, increased management support to TQM, adoption of reward as well as support systems as well as continuous improvement among the employees and ISO certified hospitals in Nairobi.