Influence of total quality management on provision of medical laboratory services at jaramogi oginga odinga teaching and referal hospital, kisumu county, kenya.

Abstract

This study sought to find out the influence of Total Quality Management on provision of medical Laboratory services at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital. Medical laboratory Services are essential and necessary services, this is often taken for granted in most health hospital systems in resource-limited settings. Laboratories are important considering the roles they play in the public health sector, in disease control and prevention, and in individual patient diagnosis and care, and yet many people do not have access to reliable, affordable, diagnostic laboratory services. In developed countries, majority of medical decisions are based on medical laboratory tests. However, clinical laboratories in resource limited settings are based on clinical judgment and empiric diseases. Without appropriate, adequate laboratory systems and support to patients, many cases of significant illnesses are likely to be misinterpreted, misdiagnosed and mismanaged hence leading to no optimum treatment. There is therefore a need to strengthen public health laboratories for provision of better services. One of the approaches to achieve this goal is through Total quality management, thus, there is a need to study the influence of Total Quality Management on provision of services at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga teaching and referral hospital laboratory. Customer satisfaction monitoring, leadership influence, laboratory staff involvement and continuous improvement were the focus of the study. The target population was 150 staff who were staff either working in the laboratory or derives services from the laboratory, 108 of them were simple randomized to join the study. The research used descriptive survey research design. Questionnaires were used for data collection. Data collected was in a Likert scale of 1 to 5. The study had a response rate of 89.81%, Pilot testing to ascertain instrument was valid done by test retest method, Data was entered and analyzed using a computer supported software. Categorical data for participant characteristics were presented by use of frequencies and percentages. Descriptive statistics was used to display findings. The respondents who agreed that customer satisfaction monitoring influenced provision of services at the laboratory were 61.85%, those who agreed that leadership has influence on provision of services were 64%, those who agreed that staff involvement has influence on services provision were 41.23% and those who agreed that continuous improvement has influence on services provision were 52.57%. The study concluded that there is a positive influence of Total Quality Management at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and referral Hospital laboratory, however there are areas that are weak and the study recommends further strengthening.