Five‐S, a simple tool was utilized as the initial step towards total quality management activities at a public hospital in Sri Lanka. This paper introduces the system improvement activities at the hospital which won several awards for quality of service at national level. Though there are...

Purpose – This paper aims to analyse the development of patient safety as a field within which patients are peripheral stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach – The authors examined the patient safety movement from the perspective of a field in which agents struggle for control over...

Purpose – Approaches to quality improvement in healthcare based on clinical communities are founded in practitioner networks, peer influence and professional values. However, evidence for the value of this approach, and how to make it effective, is spread across multiple disciplines. The...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare the implementation of 12 different organisation and management innovations (OMIs) in Swedish healthcare, to discover the generic and specific factors important for successful healthcare improvement change in a public health system....

Purpose – Australian states have embraced clinical networking as a mechanism for managing, organising and improving the quality of care. Using these individualised state approaches to clinical networks, in this paper the authors aim to examine this Australasian “experimentation” and...

Purpose – Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRCs) are a new UK initiative to promote collaboration between universities and healthcare organisations in carrying out and applying the findings of applied health research. But they face significant,...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a study of how quality improvement tools and techniques are framed within healthcare settings. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs an interpretive approach to understand how quality improvement tools and techniques are mobilised...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to re‐frame perceptions surrounding junior doctors' capacity to contribute to patient safety and quality improvement. Design/methodology/approach – A targeted literature review was conducted followed by individual telephone interviews and a half‐day...