Change Yourself, Change Your Organization

By William H. Denney and James Levett, M.D.

Professionals with quality certifications are more effective and garner more respect.


William H. Denney	James Levett, M.D.

As the possibility of health reform takes shape in Washington, many hospitals are focusing on what they can do now to improve efficiencies and patient safety. Many of these changes require strong leadership from both senior and front-line managers. Yet as health care organizations adopt more quality methods and principles, quality professionals find it difficult to keep up the skills needed to be an effective leader. This is where quality certifications can help.

Constantly updating and refreshing skills is essential in health care, as new principles and methods are forever appearing. Quality professionals need up-to-date knowledge about quality methods and tools to improve patient outcomes and operational efficiencies, and those who are certified have the necessary qualifications, skills and knowledge of techniques.

Advantages of Certification

Research by the American Society for Quality indicates that employees with certifications receive higher salaries and are in greater demand. Certifications get attention. Even employees just beginning their certifications tend to be chosen for continuous improvement projects. (See "The Upside of Certification," Quality Progress Magazine, December 2008.) Quality professionals say that certification increases their confidence in handling problems and improvements and earns them more respect from colleagues.

For example, obtaining a Six Sigma Black Belt certification validated the skills and knowledge of Sheri Maxim, director of process design and improvement for Sparrow Health System in Saint Johns, Mich. "Maintaining my certification has also allowed me to expand my network of quality professionals to learn and share best practices within my industry, as well as across different industry sectors," she says.

An organizational benefit of certified staff members is greatly improved communications. "Certification provides a common framework of the body of knowledge; it makes it easier for employees to understand required skills and job expectations," says Patrice Daquin, corporate director of continuous quality improvement with SSM Healthcare in St. Louis. Clear communication between health care professionals improves outcomes. When everyone speaks the same quality language, it facilitates faster operational and clinical quality solutions.

Certifications for Health Care Professionals

Many organizations provide training and recognition through certification. The following are a few with a long history of administering internationally recognized certification examinations.

Quality certifications. Organizations interested in bolstering their quality efforts have several certifications from which to choose, including:

Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality, administered by the National Association for Healthcare Quality, focuses on basic quality tools for the clinical setting. It does not require knowledge of quality methods (e.g., ISO, lean, Six Sigma, Baldrige), nor does it address the dynamics of quality teams. It focuses on management and leadership, information management, performance measurement and improvement, and patient safety. See www.cphq.org for more information.
Certified Professional in Healthcare Risk Management (CPHRM) and Certified Materials and Resource Professional (CMRP)are administered by the American Hospital Association. CPHRM serves health care risk management professionals and focuses on incident investigation and analysis, tracking, trending and evaluation, risk financing, and claims management. CMRP serves resource management professionals. Both programs have three components, including eligibility requirements that are a blend of education and experience; a 110-item, multiple-choice certification examination that tests tasks performed regularly in practice and that are considered important to competent practice; and a renewal requirement after three years. Visit www.aha.org/aha/Certification-Center/index.html for more information
Certified Quality Auditor, administered by the American Society for Quality (ASQ), teaches professionals the standards and principles of auditing, including examining, questioning, evaluating and reporting to determine a quality system's adequacy and deficiencies. Other ASQ certifications for health care professionals include Six Sigma Green Belt and Certified Six Sigma Black Belt. Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence is for professionals who facilitate and lead team efforts to establish and monitor customer/supplier relations, support strategic planning and deployment initiatives, and help develop measurement systems to determine organizational improvement. See www.asq.org/certification to learn more.

Improvement certifications. As organizations mature in their use of quality methods, it may be useful to build a cadre of internal quality specialists whose job it is to focus on specific improvement skills, including:

Lean, administered by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), reduces costs in processes by reducing activity waste. The basic concepts of lean are derived from the Toyota Production System model. The SME has three levels of certification, which are described at www.sme.org.
Project Management Professional, administered by the Project Management Institute, recognizes demonstrated knowledge and skill in leading and directing project teams and in delivering project results within the constraints of schedule, budget and resources. See www.pmi.org.

In choosing a quality certification and issuing organization, consider the following questions:

What is the reputation of the issuing organization?
Do the benefits of the certification justify the cost?
What are the requirements and costs for recertification?
Are there educational and experiential requirements for the certification?
Is the certification national in scope, as well as recognized outside the United States?

Facing Future Challenges

Success in any organization depends on using information effectively—to define, plan, organize, control and complete a variety of complex, interdependent tasks using a finite set of data and resources. Health care professionals are being challenged to improve care delivery while reducing costs. Many tools are available to health care providers through the certifications, and the value of these certifications will increase significantly as they are deployed to address the many challenges.

William H. Denney, Ph.D., is a senior member of the American Society for Quality and serves as the chair of the Baldrige Technical Committee of the Quality Management Division. James Levett, M.D., is the chief medical officer at Physicians' Clinic of Iowa in Cedar Rapids and the chair of the health care division of the American Society for Quality.

This article 1st appeared on November 10, 2009 in HHN Magazine online site.

To respond to this article, please click here.