A reflection on the future of the quality management paradigm in the EU

In recent years, the Quality Management Paradigm has successfully taken root in the European Union’s business environment. Quality management besides being a multivariate issue including matters from management and economics till engineering may be called a global knowledge in permanent bubbling. This theoretical article is an eclectic effort to analyse the evolution of the Quality Management Paradigm. More specifically, the article deals with this management Paradigm evolution and change according to the present and future expected business environments.

El sistema sanitario público, sus servicios y sus responsables: creación y pilotaje de su imagen

[ES] Actualmente, el sistema sanitario público en España se encuentra en una etapa de modernización, marcadamente orientada hacia los destinatarios de sus servicios, es decir, el conjunto de los ciudadanos. Entre el amplio conjunto de acciones que se están implementando, destaca la implantación de nuevas fórmulas organizativas, la instalación de tecnologías avanzadas en información y comunicación, la gestión estratágica de los recursos humanos o la aplicación de técnicas de calidad total.

La gestión de calidad y el marketing interno como factores de competitividad en empresas de servicios: El caso de empresas vascas de servicios con gestión avanzada

[ES] En este trabajo se argumenta y se evidencia (con el análisis de algunos casos de empresas vascas), que para las empresas de servicios, la calidad y más concretamente la gestión de la calidad basada en los postulados de la filosofía de Gestión de Calidad Total y recogidos en modelos como el modelo EFQM de excelencia, es la vía esencial de diferenciación, competitividad y fidelización de la clientela. De ello se deriva también el papel esencial que en la competitividad de las empresas de servicios despeña el Marketing Interno.

Implantación de la normativa ISO 9000 en las Comunidades Autónomas de Cataluña y el País Vasco: conclusiones de dos estudios empíricos

Durante los últimos años se ha podido observar cómo, con cada vez mayor claridad, ha fraguado en el ámbito empresarial y académico, una nueva cultura, movimiento o paradigma de la calidad, que ha llegado incluso a popularizarse en exceso. Uno de los pilares fundamentales de este moderno paradigma de la calidad lo ha constituido el Total Quality Management. Asimismo, esta nueva cultura de la calidad, se ha venido asociando, muy amenudo, a las siglas de la conocida normativa de Aseguramiento de la Calidad ISO 9000.

Shedding light on TQM: some research findings

Over the last decad , the paradigm of Total Quality Management (TQM) has been successfully forged in our business world. TQM may be defined as something that is both complex and ambiguous; nevertheless, some key elements or principles can be mentioned which are common to all of them: customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, commitment and leadership on the part of top management, involvement and support on the part of employees, teamwork, measurement via indicators and feedback. There are, in short, two main reasons for it having spread so widely: on the one hand, the successful diffusion of ISO 9000 standards for the implementation and certification of quality management systems, standards that have been associated to the TQM paradigm, and, on the other, the also successful diffusion of self evaluation models such as the EFQM promoted by the European Foundation for Quality Management and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the USA, promoted by the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. However, the quality movement is not without its problems as far as its mid and long term development is concerned. In this book some research findings related to these issues are presented.

Water quality assessment and characterisation of chlorophyll-a variability related to river discharges, within the southeastern Bay of Biscay : evaluation and development of chlorophyll-a algorithms for MODIS and MERIS imagery

222 p. : il.

The economics of hydro-meteorological disasters: approaching the estimation of the total costs

21 p.

A New Method for Feedback on the Quality of Chest Compressions during Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

Quality of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) improves through the use of CPR feedback devices. Most feedback devices integrate the acceleration twice to estimate compression depth. However, they use additional sensors or processing techniques to compensate for large displacement drifts caused by integration. This study introduces an accelerometer-based method that avoids integration by using spectral techniques on short duration acceleration intervals. We used a manikin placed on a hard surface, a sternal triaxial accelerometer, and a photoelectric distance sensor (gold standard). Twenty volunteers provided 60 s of continuous compressions to test various rates (80-140 min(-1)), depths (3-5 cm), and accelerometer misalignment conditions. A total of 320 records with 35312 compressions were analysed. The global root-mean-square errors in rate and depth were below 1.5 min(-1) and 2 mm for analysis intervals between 2 and 5 s. For 3 s analysis intervals the 95% levels of agreement between the method and the gold standard were within -1.64-1.67 min(-1) and -1.69-1.72 mm, respectively. Accurate feedback on chest compression rate and depth is feasible applying spectral techniques to the acceleration. The method avoids additional techniques to compensate for the integration displacement drift, improving accuracy, and simplifying current accelerometer-based devices.