Total Quality Management in Contracted EAPs

Total Quality Management (TQM) is being implemented in many work organizations throughout the United States in an attempt to compete in a world market. Very few corporations possess the capacity in terms of resources, facilities and expertise to develop, and manufacture a product from inception to market without the use of outside resources. In many instances it is not economically desirable. As a result companies come to rely on a vast array of suppliers with the specific technology needed. Corporations committed to total quality management want suppliers who share the commitment. Employee assistance program vendors are one of these suppliers and as such have to meet the demands of client companies in the TQM arena. This article addresses one EAP vending firm's efforts towards implementing a TQM initiative within its own organization as a strategy to maintain a competitve market position as a supplier of EAP and behavioral health care services. Externally, the result has been to create a product differentiation when competing against other vendors. Internally it has resulted in the enhancement of a more cohesive and productive organization.     

Federal Government EAPs and Total Quality Management:

In the federal government, total quality management (TQM) principles have been actively supported and encouraged since the Reagan administration. The EAP Consortium administered by Federal Occupational Health, a Division of the U.S. Public Health Service, Region IX, has had unique opportunities to implement total quality improvement principles. In an era of budget constraints and limited resources, it is a never ending dynamic process to achieve a better understanding of Federal agencies and to continually innovate EAP products and processes to remain customer focused. This article explores the challenges of satisfying customer needs and expectations by continuously working across the organization to improve external and internal processes.     

Total Quality Management of EAP Vendors

Employers are increasingly turning to benefits consulting firms to help them plan the management of employee mental health care costs. With evolving employee assistance and managed care programs, employers need to be "informed consumers." Direct marketing by EAP vendors is no longer the most effective business strategy. Most employers want to get an impartial third party opinion on what their needs are, the type of program(s) best suited to their organization and which vendor can best meet those needs. Quality and cost are of primary concern. This article addresses the specific elements that are examined by a benefits consultant in review and selection of EAP vendors with a particular emphasis on total quality management.     

Negotiating Quality: Total Quality Management and the Complexities of Transforming Professional Organizations

During the past two decades organizations in many industries have introduced management-style changes, such as employee involvement (EI) and total quality management (TQM). In the health care sector, one change has been the inclusion of TQM into the accreditation process. Using ethnographic and interview data, this case study examines the process of introducing TQM into a professional organization—a hospital—and shows how successful implementation of such new management styles in professional organizations requires complex negotiations of existing formal and informal power relationships. Some employees and middle managers embraced the TQM philosophy and techniques and successfully influenced the implementation and project-team design. In this case, administrators used TQM as rhetoric and justification for increased bureaucratic control, goals that are distinctly at odds with the ideological objectives of TQM.     

Principles of Total Quality Management and Their Application to Employee Assistance Programs:

Total quality management (TQM) has been thrust into the psyche of corporate America. TQM is not a new phenomena. Introduced in the early fifties to Japanese managers by an American management expert, it served to make Japan an international economic leader. U.S. companies have generally had little international competition. They now recognize he formidable challenge that quality based companies represent and are striving to replicate these successes. To do so will be to remain competitive. To discount the impact of TQM initiatives could spell economic disaster. Employee assistance program (EAP) management is modeled after American management principles. EAPs are also now having to compete for market share in ways for which they were never prepared. The TQM initiatives currently being implemented in many companies may be applied equally well to EAPs. This article presents an overview of the TQM principles formulated by W. Edwards Derning. The article also attempts to critically analyze some of the areas that have been problematic in EAP management. Further, it examines how TQM initiatives could serve to ameliorate some of these problems and lend additional impetus to the competitiveness of employee assistance programs with other behavioral health care service delivery and cost management programs.     

浅论燃气供销差的全面质量管理

分析燃气供销差的成因,探讨降低燃气供销差的相关对策,引入全面质量管理(TQM)概念,提出在影响供销差的4个环节(生产端、输配系统、用户端、统计制度)对燃气供销差实行全过程、全员、全企业的全面质量管理。     

推动上海社会高质量发展的成效、难点和举措

上海在加快城市功能转型、实现经济高质量发展的同时,更要把扎实推动社会高质量发展作为社会建设的总体目标,深入践行人民城市人民建,人民城市为人民的重要理念,始终坚持发展为了人民、发展依靠人民、发展成果由人民共享,高质量建成幼有善育、学有优教、劳有厚得、病有良医、老有颐养、住有宜居、弱有众扶的社会主义现代化国际大都市.     

Finding Place in Community Change Initiatives: Using GIS to Uncover Resident Perceptions of their Neighborhoods

The growing recognition that place matters has led to numerous foundation- and government-sponsored initiatives that attempt to simultaneously strengthen neighborhoods and address the needs of families that live there. Despite the centrality of the concept of neighborhood, these place-based initiatives have few tools to understand how residents identify with the space within their target areas. This article demonstrates how resident-drawn maps gathered in a household survey can be used to uncover individual and collective neighborhood definitions. Using data gathered as part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Making Connections program in 10 cities, the study finds that there is considerable variation among residents in how they define their neighborhoods, but that there are also commonly held neighborhood identities that need to be taken into account in community practice.     

浅谈如何构建高校质量管理体系

阐述了高校质量管理体系构建的准备工作,到体系的策划、文件编制及其相关注意问题,以期为保证质量管理体系在高校的成功构建提供参考。     

Total Immersion: Using Group Care Placements to Maximise Practice Learning

This paper presents findings from a survey of students' views on the experience of undertaking assessed placements in group care settings as part of their qualifying social work training. Respondents are positive and enthusiastic about the available learning opportunities in these settings, especially in terms of the possibilities for close involvement with service users and for learning about ‘real social work’. They emphasise the value of support from both on‐site supervisors and off‐site practice teachers, and reflect on the demands which such placements make in terms of students' personal resourcefulness in ambiguous role sets. The paper also offers advice for students, tutors and practice teachers on a range of issues involved in the planning of placements in group care settings, including comments on anti‐oppressive practice and on the use of reflective journals by students.     

浅谈二次供水的水质管理

该文简介了二次供水及二次供水现状,结合工作实际提出了一些思考和相关的探索以及未来二次供水的发展趋势。     

优化教学管理,提高教学质量探讨

提高教学质量是高等学校工作永恒的主题,教学管理是学校全部工作的中心环节。而优化教学管理的最终目的是保证和提高教学质量。文章从更新教育观念,树立正确的质量观,建立完善的教学质量监控以及教学管理体制和各项规章制度三个方面探讨如何优化教学管理,以达到全面提高教育教学质量的目的。     

深化管网水质管理的方向

叙述当前水质管理上存在的主要问题,提出自来水公司深化管网水质管理、加强水质管理信息化、开展自来水供应管理到龙头的试点将是进一步搞好水质管理的方向。     

提高教育质量是校长管理的核心

作为培养综合交通“当班人”和“接班人”的综合学校的一校之长有三个角色，即：管理者、教育者和领导者。每一种角色都有相应的职责。一般而言，管理是指把事做正确，领导是指做正确的事，教育是指“传道、授业、解惑”。管理强调的是执行力，领导强调的是领导力，教育强调的是提高力。对校长而言，首先是要做正确的事，然后是要把事做正确。而提高教育质量则是做正确的事和把事做正确的重中之重。简言之，提高教育质量是校长管理的核心。     

Information Technology and Quality Management in Public Social Work

ABSTRACT

Managing a non-profit organization for public social work is primarily a matter of quality management which is the responsibility of the service manager. Because of (a) the actual state of quality assurance in the public social work branches, and (b) the professional character of the organizations, a Public Social Work Quality System asks for intensive involvement of professional workers in the development of the system. PS+QS is both a development method and a system model. It organizes the clients' routing through the institution. The major part of the workflow management concerns phasing of the service and counselling processes. PS+QS is a system of communication structured by information techniques. Professional counsellors and their service managers apply the professional standards and check on their application.     

Using Personal Quality Assessment for Selection of Social Work Students

Abstract

The social work profession has long struggled to find fair and effective ways of selecting students into their education programs. A psychometric test battery, gathered together under the title “Personal Qualities Assessment” (PQA) has been developed at the University of Newcastle to identify a range of qualities in aspiring health professionals. Two of its components were used to determine whether there was a relationship between scores obtained by social work students in these tests and scores achieved in an empathic listening and critical review hurdle assessment prior to the first field placement. The results showed that social work students who were moderately empathic, not narcissistic, and moderately libertarian in their moral orientation performed better on the assessment than students who were less empathic, more narcissistic, or extreme in their moral orientation. These results suggest that measurement of these qualities could be useful in selecting the most suitable individuals for social work programs.     

Understanding Weight Management Perceptions in First-Year College Students Using the Health Belief Model

Abstract

Objective: To examine weight management barriers, using the Health Belief Model, in first-year college students. Participants: First-year college students (n = 45), with data collected in April, May, and November 2013. Methods: Nominal group technique sessions (n = 8) were conducted. Results: First-year students recognize benefits to weight management beyond physical attractiveness to quality-of-life domains, including social (eg, bonding opportunities and energy to socially engage) and mental health (eg, stress management). Men believe that weight management is important for career/financial reasons, whereas women voiced that it will allow them to live a full, independent life with a high level of multitasking. Men believed that their barriers were external (eg, campus resources/programs), whereas females perceived their barriers to be internal (eg, poor time management). Conclusions: College students are challenged by weight management and want the institution to provide resources, including curriculum, to help them manage their physical activity and nutrition behaviors.     

Furloughs and Faculty Management of Time: Maintaining Quality in an Economic Crisis

An anonymous Web-based survey was used to gather the perceptions and experiences from 114 faculty members teaching in 16 social work programs in the California State University system about the effect of severe budget cuts on their educational activities. Most respondents reported they worked on their furlough days and maintained the same or larger workload that they had before the furlough. Larger workloads, diminished feelings of personal accomplishment, and stressful interactions with students were associated with higher levels of emotional exhaustion. Implications of these findings are discussed.