Patient care at the highest level

As the industry leader, the Hirslanden Private Hospital Group is the largest provider of medical services in Switzerland and has earned a great deal of trust through measurably high quality - quality that does not come overnight and especially not as a gift. The Hirslanden Group thus succeeds in creating an exceptionally high level of patient satisfaction and safety, and with it the priceless feeling of "being in competent and caring hands".

High goals - high demands - high quality
In order to achieve this high quality standard, Hirslanden has set itself the vision of "enjoying trust throughout Switzerland and being the first choice locally". One of the ways in which this vision has been realised is by consistently focusing activities on the needs of patients.

As a major provider of medical services, Hirslanden brings together all the relevant specialist areas and leading doctors under one roof. The quality policy is drawn up together with all the Group's clinics. It shows the company's values and objectives in relation to quality:

• Patients, doctors, employees and partners choose Hirslanden because they want to benefit from the Group's comprehensive quality management.
• Hirslanden ensures patient benefit through high-quality, effective and efficient service provision.
• Hirslanden implements comprehensive risk management, with patient safety as an essential core element.
• Hirslanden is committed to continuous improvement (CIP), supported by transparency and benchmarking, and is open to the quality comparisons required by the KVG.
• By consistently exploiting synergies and establishing knowledge management, Hirslanden is setting standards in quality management in the Swiss hospital landscape.
• The implementation of the legally required provisions in

occupational safety and health protection enjoys a high priority.

Implementation by means of a quality management system
In 2008, the strategic decision was taken to establish a uniform quality management system for the Hirslanden Group and to have it certified in accordance with ISO 9001:2008. At the beginning, a business process map was defined by the group management and clinic directors in order to take account of the standardisation of the various clinics. Process owners and process teams were appointed to carry out the process set-up following training by superusers and software suppliers.

IMS PREMIUM was chosen as the group software solution. In addition to a dynamic approach, it enables the handling of large amounts of data, as is often found in the hospital environment. Complex workflows, reviews, standards and laws are mapped transparently and yet with secure access. The integrated document management helps to organize and standardize process documents. Release processes and historicized data enable traceable change management. Published processes can be edited directly from IMS PREMIUM

"The Hirslanden Group succeeds in creating a high level of patient satisfaction."

distributed to authorized recipients. A log file shows how a process is used, which in turn can be used to derive important information quality findings. Flexible authorization and access configurations offer easy use by external users such as attending physicians or clinic partners. This advantage also comes into play in the preparation of certification audits, where external auditors have access to the most up-to-date data.

Challenges
A uniform quality management system that is used 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by around 10,000 people is a major challenge. A stable system is a basic requirement, because important patient processes and documents must be accessible at all times. The coordination of processes between quality managers in the Corporate Office and the clinics is demanding. With the help of networks, such as that of the quality managers, know-how and information are exchanged and, where possible, standardised. Existing knowledge can thus be used and does not have to be acquired anew for each clinic, which gives Hirslanden a significant competitive advantage.

Performance record through certificates
All clinics and the Corporate Office have sought (SQS) and successfully implemented certification of their processes in accordance with the ISO 9001:2008 standard (2015 revision) as a basis for sustainable quality management. Preparation for such certification takes around 15 months. All business processes have to be documented and related to each other. The result is a process-oriented image of the clinic. No less important than the pure description is the establishment and documentation of a continuous improvement process. Compliance with the standard is checked annually at all Group clinics by external auditors.

"The goal is to have a uniform process map for all clinics."

dits verified. In addition, nine hospitals have already received excellent EFQM assessments and thus the "Business Excellence" label at the Committed to Excellence (C2E) and Recognized for Excellence 3* and 4* (R4E) levels.

A recipe for success with a view to the future
Hirslanden sees the inter-clinic quality management system, which has been consistently supported by the Group Executive Board from the outset, as the key to success. This enables the knowledge of all clinics to be combined and thus expanded. Active cooperation between the individual sites and functional groups also promotes the quality process, which is lived and supported by all employees. "A quality process that is striving even more in the direction of standard processes," as Ulrike Sollmann, Head of Quality Management at the Hirslanden Group, reveals. "The goal is a uniform process map for all clinics and standardised process modelling with BPMN 2.0. The ambitious project will ensure even more transparency and efficiency and thus keep the safety and well-being of Hirslanden patients at "business excellence" level in the long term."