Safe and Quality Healthcare Services Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Safe and Quality Healthcare Services - Essay Example So as we see, FMEA is a precautionary process, which helps prevent problems and help deal with them in an effective and organized manner, if they were to occur. This analytical method has been used since several decades in the production and engineering industry and has proved to be an excellent tool in identifying and reducing hazards. It examines each individual component of a particular system to determine a number of ways in which each component could fail and, not only this, but the effect of a particular failure on the stability of the entire system. (Spath, 2003) One of the major concerns in the healthcare industry is safety. The assurance that a patient is in reliable hands and that the treatment being done or service being offered is safe up to quality standards. For patient safety and wellbeing, healthcare service providers must adopt a set of rules or standards to abide by. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) assumed responsibility for the certification of hospitals in 1951, back then, the standards continued to uphold a safe environment. Because of increasing public concern with the problem of medical errors and patient injuries, JCAHO reinforced its commitment to patient safety. Commencing in 1996, JCAHO introduced a number of new standards that are intended to maintain continuous improvement in the safety of the services provided to the public. (Spath, 2003) In addition to adopting well defined processes used in healthcare services and assuring that the personnel performing the processes are competent, there is a need for more safety and precautionary measures. The solution to this lies in other industries. This is when JCAHO executives considered standard changes to adopt a more a proactive approach to risk reduction, they researched many other techniques to improve safety used in other high-risk industries to find one that would be adaptable to health care services as well. (Spath, 2003) The process So, basically FMEA is a proactive approach and it consumes little time and resources when compared to the return on investments. The National Center for Patient Safety website developed by the Veterans Affair, devised a set of steps applying the traditional FMEA to healthcare. The process is as follows: 1. Choose a process to study. JCAHO requires the

Zaras Business Model Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Zaras Business Model - Case Study Example This paper illustrates that establishing Zara’s Fast fashion apparel chains in Galicia (Spain) was a noble idea as the case study pointed that by late 1990s, only US exceeded Western Europe in terms of total retail sales where chains accounted for about 85% and 70% of the total sales respectively. Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe accounted for about half while the rest contributed less than 10% mostly coming from the poor markets. Any sensible business would focus on market expansion and consolidation within its current region as Zara did if the market had the right purchasing power and favorable cost for the various means of production. Galicia was one of the poorest regions in Spain with about 17% unemployment rate compared to a national level of 14%. This meant that labor was available cheaply. In addition, its rich tradition in textile and their non-discriminatory behavior provided a good opportunity for Inditex to develop and learn the tricks of developing tre ndier fashions that would suit high-end markets like Italy. However, the poor vertical integration in the textile value chain and poor communication networks meant the company had to invest heavily eating into its profits which erodes the gains. This made it sensible for the company to focus on other regions in Europe to maintain its competitiveness. Zara had an organized market entry strategy where it identified markets in Europe that resembled the Spanish market. Choice of product market selection is influenced by product, market and marketing factors. This was done by a team of commercial experts who analyzed the micro and macro variables and the future prospects to influence apparel retail chain with profitable gains. In addition, Zara’s designers tracked closely the trends in consumer preferences and made products to match the changes. Normally, when companies identify new markets with similar consumer behavior, tastes, preferences, and purchasing power, it becomes easie r to penetrate such markets. This assertion is supported by the case study which indicates studies that showed the different countries in Europe and their market behavior in relation to apparels.   Ã‚