ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on management quality and explores that the effective management of the processes that deliver value can improve the cost, quality and effectiveness of healthcare provision. Management quality in healthcare is particularly relevant. Increased specialisation and knowledge, as well as the increasing complexity of patient pathways and technologies in the face of scrutinised budgets, mean that constrained resources must be used more efficiently and effectively. The chapter describes three distinct phases of operational excellence in the study of management quality which have direct implications for healthcare such as lean excellence, supply chain excellence and strategy excellence. It also reviews the industrial excellence award study (IEA) and discusses some ways that the model may apply to healthcare delivery. Discussions of the IEA model have taken place with healthcare managers from a range of professional backgrounds, governmental undersecretaries and healthcare economics academics. These have led to a qualitative understanding of how the IEA model can apply to healthcare.
