ABSTRACT
Through learning the lessons of quality control and improvement in engineering, this chapter help readers come to the understanding of the importance of quality control and improvement in healthcare. One important historic lesson from the engineering quality improvement is that whenever the priority is placed solely on production volume, the product quality would suffer a sure decline. It is equally clear from the engineering perspectives that quality improvement provides great benefits not only to consumers, but also to the manufacturers that offer their products in better quality. Generally speaking, high quality products boost the branding, attract and retain consumers, promote sells, reduce unnecessary product return and refund, and increase overall return of investment. The translation of this engineering concept of quality to healthcare has encountered many challenges, as healthcare is a much more complex system with a large group of stakeholders. This chapter offers the general principles and some technical methodologies and depicts some of the major challenges for the potential benefits to healthcare quality improvement. The difficulties of implementing healthcare quality improvement notwithstanding, this task is indeed the right thing to do, as our patients demand it.
