The purpose of this paper is to put forward a quality cost management model for healthcare organizations, which is based on the quality management systems proposed in ISO 9000 international standards.
The model suggested here arose from the individual study of quality in healthcare, quality management systems and quality cost theories; and the analysis of problems emerging when these tools are combined in practice.
The traditional quality cost model, usually implemented in manufacturing companies, can also be applied to healthcare organizations that manage their processes according to ISO 9000 quality management systems.
This document is a general description of the model proposed and, therefore, just presents overall guidelines to managing quality costs in healthcare organizations.
Since most healthcare organizations are still stuck in the quality assurance stage, there has been little research conducted on quality cost specifically focused on this industry.
