D S O'Leary’s scientific contributions

... At most, some facilities are wholeheartedly adopting Quality Management as a cultural standard and have already internally demonstrated some level of objective performance improvement; at least, some facilities pay lip-service to the concept to continue to receive financial reimbursement (Al-Assaf and Schmele, 1993).While JCAHO Quality Management standards are in their infancy, and with many hospitals understanding that the Joint Commission intends to refine their criteria, the specific standards are expected to expand in scope and specificity, as all accredited hospitals introduce specific Quality Management functions and budgets. Since JCAHO has been traditionally associated with retrospective quality assurance (QA), the Joint Commission has had some struggles in communicating the difference between traditional QA and Quality Management(O'Leary, 1993); however, as more hospitals adopt these principles and begin to benchmark with each other as well as other industries, the hesitation is expected to lessen. Possible future research may investigate specifically the process of adoption of Quality Management within different hospital contexts, and perhaps link methods or forms of adoption with specific performance gains. ...

Reference:

Quality management climate assessment in healthcare