Azza Hussein
Alexandria University, Egypt
Title: Work Environment and Its Relationship to Quality Improvement: Health Care Providers' Perspectives
Biography
Biography: Azza Hussein
Abstract
There is a gap in understanding how work environment contributes to hospitals' readiness for quality improvement (QI) in developing countries; thus, diagnosing work environment problems in health care organizations is the initial step in designing strategies for QI in organizations. This study examines the relationship between nurses' and physicians' perspectives of the work environments and hospitals' climate for QI. The study used a cross-sectional research design. Three health care organizations in Alexandria, Egypt, were selected. The studied units within these hospitals were classified into 64 general care units. The study participants comprised of 257 of nurses and 245 of physicians in the 3 hospitals. The Work Environment Scale (WES)-Form and the Continuous Quality Improvement Climate Survey were used to assess participants' perspectives of the general organizational work environment and hospitals' readiness for QI respectively. SPSS was used in data entry. Mixed linear model was used as the multivariate analysis technique to identify factors predicting hospitals' readiness for QI. Descriptive statistics in the form of frequencies and percentages were used to describe categorical data variables, whereas scale data were expressed by the mean and standard deviation. Study results indicate that work environment is positively associated with hospitals' readiness for QI. Therefore, any health care organization needs to adopt QI philosophy into its performance that relates to direct and indirect health care services.